Little Snitch intercepted "Noticeboard wants to connect to swscan.apple.com" Legit?

i would definitely like to know as well. i still have it blocked... until i know what it is.

shape wrote:

i would definitely like to know as well. i still have it blocked... until i know what it is.

What happens now if you run Software Update with Noticeboard blocked? What happens if you try to open the App Store? I haven't installed the update yet, so can't test here.

All I'm seeing for this is "This update includes improvements to Mac App Store alerts." I never get MAS alerts in Snow because I always keep the Store denied in LS, until I want to go there, which is very rarely, and not particularly interested in having improved alerts.

i tried Software Update and didn't notice any differences. the same 2 updates still showed up even though Noticeboard had been terminated by Snitch. App Store loads normally too.

ok - thanks for the info. i don't need app store alerts either but i won't choose to block it if it isn't going to bother me.

A message just popped up:

"OS X Mavericks can be downloaded for free on the App Store – Details, Cancel"

I guess that's the purpose of "Noticeboard.app": Urge users to upgrade to the latest OS.

Thank you Apple. I have reasons not to upgrade.

This is the URL "Noticeboard.app" requests every 6 hours: https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-noticeboard-1.sucatalog

These are the file's contents: http://pastebin.com/6aWQSnyW

Here's an excerpt of system.log:

Mar 28 23:04:58 Leon-Klingeles-iMac Noticeboard[12156]: Noticeboard: NoticeboardUpdateOperation finished with notification to show:

{\n Distributions = {\n English = "https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/22/32/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard/r7hihl1cgz71olyv0h9h8yx2zhn4ubhh2g/031-00817.English.dist";\n };\n

ExtendedMetaInfo = {\n notificationUserInfo = {\n actionButtonURL = "macappstore://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=675248567&mt=12";\n };\n

postedDate = "2014-03-24 09:48:32 -0700";\n reminderIntervals = (\n 604800,\n 2592000\n );\n };\n

Packages = (\n {\n MetadataURL = "https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/22/32/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard/r7hihl1cgz71olyv0h9h8yx2zhn4ubhh2g/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard.pkm";\n Size = 4135;\n URL = "http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/22/32/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard/r7hihl1cgz71olyv0h9h8yx2zhn4ubhh2g/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard.pfpkg";\n },\n

{\n Digest = 5bf74a66b333e2ba37eb0d1f8de2de5ade9200f3;\n MetadataURL = "https://swdist.apple.com/content/downloads/22/32/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard/r7hihl1cgz71olyv0h9h8yx2zhn4ubhh2g/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard.pkm";\n Size = 15231;\n URL = "http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/22/32/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard/r7hihl1cgz71olyv0h9h8yx2zhn4ubhh2g/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard.pkg";\n }\n );\n

PostDate = "2014-03-28 01:02:01 +0100";\n ServerMetadataURL = "http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/22/32/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard/r7hihl1cgz71olyv0h9h8yx2zhn4ubhh2g/com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard.smd";\n bundle = "NSBundle (not yet loaded)";\n identifier = "com.apple.notification.mavericks.snowleopard";\n}

Well, click that "Deny, forever" button for outgoing requests from "Noticeboard.app".

Here's how to block outgoing requests from "Noticeboard.app" if you don't see a Little Snitch popup asking you what to do.

1.) In Terminal enter:

open /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/No ticeboard.app

2.) Press return key

3.) You should now see a popup like this:

4.) Click "Forever", check "Any Connection" and finally click "Deny"

Looks like I won't ever be installing that update.

WZZZ wrote:

Looks like I won't ever be installing that update.

It does have a few other things in it which don't appear to relate to noticeboard:

Unless Apple gets around to telling us what it plans to use it for, I can only guess. It seems to check every six hours to see if there is anything new to display. It's easy enough to disable if users find it annoying.

I would encourage everybody that thinks helping you to upgrade to Mavericks is the wrong approach to let Apple know directly since they are unlikely to read this. Give them you feedback here.

Leon Klingele wrote:

I guess that's the purpose of "Noticeboard.app": Urge users to upgrade to the latest OS.

.

Think so? That would be unusual. Why connect every 6 hours? That's not how upgrade reminders usually work.

I still don't understand what Noricboard really does. Does it send data from my computer? And which?

professortiki wrote:

Why connect every 6 hours?

Just checks to see if any new notices have been posted.

I still don't understand what Noricboard really does. Does it send data from my computer? And which?

Nobody outside of Apple seems to know what it really does and without analyzing the traffic we can't be certain, but it would appear that no information is being sent from the computer, it just downloads the catalog from swscan.apple.com and if there is anything new it converts it into the notice dialog you see.

I can see where it might be useful to track the UUID and OS X version from each inquiry to give Apple an idea of what the installed base of older operating systems is, but there are other ways of obtaining such data so they probably don't bother.

I have a MacPro Mid 2010 running 10.9.2 and regularly keep up with all updates. I used File Buddy to scan my entire main drive for anything with the name "noticeboard" in it. The search included invisible files as well. No such name was found.

AFAIK Noticeboard.app can only be found on Snow Leopard.

This area of the Forum is for Snow Leopard discussions and I don't recall anybody saying it exists in Mavericks and can agree with you that it does not exist anywhere in Mavericks. It may already be built into the Notification Center or some other Mavericks process related to the AppStore, but I wouldn't expect to see a pop-up on a OS X 10.9.x Mac offering an update to Mavericks for free.

There was a second Mac App Store Update that contains noticeboard posted at the same time as the one for Snow Leopard. It was not offered as a Mavericks update, so I can guess that Lion and perhaps Mountain Lion got it. I have not heard of other than Snow Leopard users receiving this popup, but I haven't been watching that closely.

With the Snow user base still hovering around 20%, my guess is they want to move everyone off Snow. Hence the annoying reminders. Two ways to look at this, if what I say is true: another Snow security update might still be forthcoming until they get that user base down to what they consider to be an acceptable minimum. Or it just means, "now start upgrading." I tend to think it's the latter.

actually, I've been on Lion for over a year and this app just popped up after the last software update.

shape wrote:

actually, I've been on Lion for over a year and this app just popped up after the last software update.

Yes, it's a brand new feature added to the AppStore.

So you did get a popup in Lion? Was it the same "ad" for Mavericks?