1V1vuio0pswjnm7·Nov 17, 2020
Because Apple users allow Apple to manage so many aspects of the computers they sell, remotely, it seems to me getting access to Apple traffic or the data Apple collects and stores about its customers is nearly as informative as getting physical access to the customer's Apple computer.
"Privacy" in the case of the traffic relies on two things: (a) trust in Apple to not get hacked or intentionally share the data with anyone and (b) trust in TLS (not all VPNs use TLS). Apple customers have little control over how Apple operates nor the development/maintenance of TLS. Apple customers can control physical access to their computer but Apple gets a free pass to access/monitor these computers remotely.
What would be a hypothetical "real-world scenario" where it's a genuine problem that Apple traffic isn't routed through the VPN
There is an exi
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sting flaw in TLS and Apple does not learn about it immediately, or, some individual/organisation gets access to Apple's private key with or without Apple's consent, a fact which may or may not become public knowledge.
There are a variety of "Apple services" that require TLS-encrytped traffic sent to/from Apple that are initiatied by today's Apple computers, with or without user interaction. Some of the content sent to Apple computers as part of these "services" could come from "fourth party" servers that are part of CDNs who Apple has employed to serve content. To the extent any of this Apple traffic is routed based on geolocation, e.g., from the nearest CDN server, that could reveal something about the user's location.
https://www.richard-purves.com/2016/09/10/apple-services/
The content of this traffic could vary based on the service. Decrypting iTunes/AppStore traffic might reveal the user's AppStore searches and the apps she has installed that have updates available. A full analysis of all the possible data leaks across all the services would be no small amount of work. One more service that the blog post above seems to omit is Apple's NTP service at time.apple.com (Apple performs DNS-based routing). This NTP traffic could produce vast logs of Apple customer IP addresses over time. Some years ago it was said that Shodan.io was using NTP to gather IPv6 addresses to scan by participating in pool.ntp.org.
Decrypting Apple so-called "Push" connections might possibly be viewed with a jailbroken device. Data included in the protocol messages might include connection type, OS version, OS build, device model, etc.
https://github.com/mfrister/pushproxy