There comes a point in the life cycle of every exposed cover-up at which it becomes impossible for the perpetrators to maintain a stance of plausible deniability. At that time it's generally considered wise to drop back and punt with a damage control strategy instead. Whether or not that's what's going on with Apple is up to you to decide, but as faithful viewer Charles notes, the same company who first claimed that it didn't even have a server called "littlebuddy.apple.com" now appears to have modified its stance in the face of undeniable evidence: namely, the fact that visiting littlebuddy in a web browser clearly proves that the server exists. (In other words, it's tough to cop an "innocent" plea when you're holding the smoking gun.)

And so, Apple's official acknowledgement of littlebuddy's existence recently appeared in the form of a new Tech Info Library article laying down the party line: littlebuddy is an "Apple product registration server" which is contacted by the Mac OS 9 Setup Assistant for the secure transmission of your registration info. Apparently when littlebuddy gets your data, it sends a confirmation message back to the Setup Assistant, and thus ends the first and last time that your Mac shakes hands with littlebuddy. Unfortunately, if that confirmation message never makes it back to your Mac (because, for example, you're behind a firewall), then Setup Assistant assumes that your registration info never made it to its intended destination... and it keeps trying to contact littlebuddy over and over again, without ever receiving an answer. That's the Apple conspirators' story and they're sticking to it.

If this phenomenon happens to you, the solution is simple: just trash the "Setup Info Dispatcher" extension and restart, after which littlebuddy is just a vague memory-- some hardhearted server who never returned your Mac's calls. At least, that's what Apple wants you to think. Any number of more sinister explanations are possible, ranging from the obvious "invasion of privacy" scenarios to the more outré "littlebuddy is secretly coordinating a massive attack plan and at zero hour all Macs will rise up and turn against their masters" possibility. In reality, though, we find Apple's explanation pretty logical after all-- and if the posted fix works, then there's no harm done. Your Mac will be littlebuddy-free... except for those nights when it gets really drunk and calls it up at three o' clock in the morning.