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macOS 14.4.0 will phone-home to apple's data collector (xp.apple.com) even with analytics off when doing an update. new behavior however is that it will also do this when only "download updates" (but not install them) automatically is enabled.
it also contacts gs.apple.com to get the signed boot ticket (and transmit your ECID) at download time, which happens background/automatically even if you've told it not to install updates automatically.
@sneak after I read your last post I installed little snitch and I can't believe how much stuff I have to review. There's tons of Google calls too. It's annoying. I'm glad I'm on proton now.