Alarming number of DNS requests made by iOS devices

Re:Alarming number of DNS requests made by iOS devices by kalleboo on Saturday October 21, 2017 @11:48PM (#15525070)

One area where Apple uses a large amount of domain names on purpose is for their captive portal detection. Supposedly they do this on purpose so that captive portals can't try to hard-code a list of domains in order to white-list/fool it.

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Re:Alarming number of DNS requests made by iOS devices by im3w1l on Sunday October 22, 2017 @12:08AM (#15525113)

Device: Am I on a captive portal? Nonce.

Apple server: No. Same Nonce. Cryptographic signature.

If different response: Captive portal. If no response: No internet.

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Re:Alarming number of DNS requests made by iOS devices by im3w1l on Sunday October 22, 2017 @10:29PM (#15530262)

Oops, this doesn't actually work, because the captive portal can just let that one request through unmodified...

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Re:Alarming number of DNS requests made by iOS devices by tomjakubowski on Saturday October 21, 2017 @11:53PM (#15525087)

What benefit would a captive portal derive from hiding from Apple's captive portal detector?

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Re:Alarming number of DNS requests made by iOS devices by hmage on Sunday October 22, 2017 @12:26AM (#15525155)

iOS offers a slideover view that gets dismissed once absence of captive portal is detected. That way you can’t redirect people forcibly to your website after auth is done in a way that persists.

But if you force people to use a browser rather than auto disappearing modal view, the bounce rate is much lower once you force them to visit your website after captive portal login.

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