Using a Mac Without a Network Connection ⇥ eclecticlight.co

Howard Oakley:

During Gatekeeper checks, two internet connections are normally made, to api.apple-cloudkit.com for notarization checks, and ocsp2.apple.com for the validity of the code-signing certificate. The first of those was attempted once, failed, and was promptly abandoned. The OCSP check was attempted multiple times, but was also abandoned quickly.

Failure of those two online checks didn’t prevent or delay successful app launching.

It sounds like this is a more graceful failure mode than the situation which plagued the Big Sur launch. A reminder that Apple said it would introduce a way of opting out of OCSP and, years after making that promise, it has yet to do so.