Tyler Hall:
I submitted a new build of one of my Mac apps to Apple’s Notary service - like every new release. Normally, the notarization goes through in just a few minutes. Today, multiple builds have been pending for 2+ hours. And, weirdly, my API server is getting traffic from those two builds I submitted for notarization.
Does Apple’s notary service…launch and run app submissions? I’ve never noticed this behavior before.
Thomas Reed:
In theory, the notarization process is supposed to weed out anything malicious. In practice, nobody really understands exactly how notarization works, and Apple is not inclined to share details.
[…]
All developers and security researchers know is that notarization is fast. I’ve personally notarized software quite a few times at this point, and it usually takes less than a couple minutes between submission and receipt of the e-mail confirming success of notarization. That means there’s definitely no human intervention involved in the process, as there is with App Store reviews. Whatever it is, it’s solely automated.
Mac macOS Tahoe 26 Notarization Programming Web API
Photon (Hacker News):
After exactly 49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes, and 47 seconds of continuous uptime, a 32-bit unsigned integer overflow in Apple’s XNU kernel freezes the internal TCP timestamp clock. Once frozen, TIME_WAIT connections never expire, ephemeral ports slowly exhaust, and eventually no new TCP connections can be established at all. ICMP (ping) keeps working. Everything else dies. The only fix most people know is a reboot.
[…]
This is a 32-bit unsigned integer timer wraparound bug in the TCP subsystem, specifically a TCP timestamp counter overflow. The counter in question, tcp_now, is the kernel’s internal TCP clock. When it stops ticking, every timer in the TCP stack that depends on it stops working.
They suggest that the bug may have been around since Catalina, but I’ve had a Mac server running from the Catalina days all the way through Sequoia, with months of uptime, and haven’t seen this problem. I’ve not updated the server to Tahoe yet.
Previously:
Bug C Programming Language iMessage Integer Overflow Mac macOS 10.15 Catalina macOS Tahoe 26 Networking TCP
Aaron Trickey:
Foundation’s date-handling code has an effective lower bound around January 1, 4713 BC on the Julian calendar. You can create a Date value representing an instant in time below that limit, but many Calendar methods will return unexpected values when you try to do anything with it.
[…]
And NSDatePicker does okay with BC dates. […] UIDatePicker, however, simply cuts off at AD 1.
[…]
When formatting or parsing dates, there is no way to override the built-in era symbols (like “BC” and “AD”) or, in locales where multiple conventions are in use, to choose among them.
[…]
(For going to and from strings, the older DateFormatter type does have such a property [for the Julian to Gregorian transition] defined, but it wasn’t carried forward into the newer Date.FormatStyle API, and it obviously doesn’t affect DateComponents conversions.)
Previously:
Cocoa iOS iOS 26 Mac macOS Tahoe 26 Programming Swift Programming Language Time
Bryan Chaffin:
He rose to the rank of Captain in the U.S. Air Force, and he was a NASA scientist. He worked for years at Apple, and most importantly to me, he was a columnist and the voice of reason and humanity at The Mac Observer. He wrote SciFi and a variety of tech columns for several other Mac sites, too.
John was kind, smart, logical, and always reasonable. He was both considerate and considered. Every word that came out of his mouth had a reason to be there and a place to go.
Jeff Gamet:
He’s the guy behind the space shuttle landing simulator I played on an Apple II. He also wrote fantastic analysis pieces and interviewed wonderfully interesting people for his podcast back when we worked together at The Mac Observer.
He wrote for many Mac publications. Just his author page at TMO has 83 pages of article summaries.
Apple II Mac Rest in Peace The Media
