Over the past few days I discovered unusual network traffic (upload and download) identified as “LinkedIn” to and from my iPad Pro. This was reported in the Network Traffic Monitor section of my Unifi Dream Machine SE network controller and gateway. The LinkedIn traffic accounted for about 25% of the iPad’s network traffic over the past two months. “LinkedIn” traffic reported on my other network devices (Macs, iPhones) was much less - 4% on my Mac Studio and < 0.1% on two iPhones and another iPad Pro. See screenshots below.
Does anyone know why this LinkedIn traffic is present? I do not have a LinkedIn account and there are no LinkedIn apps on any of my devices. Is this some type of advertising or data collection activity, perhaps from a web browser while watching YouTube videos? I typically use Safari web browser for general web browsing activity, including YouTube videos. I don’t know of any Microsoft software usage (OneDrive, Outlook, etc.)
I was able to apply a blocking rule in the Application Firewall of the UDM SE settings and will watch over the next few days to see what effect this has on the performance of the iPad Pro and on the network traffic reports.
I have no expertise on LinkedIn and on the UniFi Network Traffic Monitor. Hopefully, somebody else with first-hand experience will be able to chime in.
This smells funny.
If you are no LinkedIn User with no LinkedIn account and no LinkedIn apps on your iPad, I wonder if this “LinkedIn” label in the monitor is “true” or if this traffic is something else not related to LinkedIn.
Good point. Agreed, it does smell funny. Of course we don’t know whether what is reported as “LinkedIn” by the Unifi Traffic Monitor is actually the well-known LinkedIn business-focused social network. We do know that the real LinkedIn is heavily involved in data collection since most of its revenue derived from selling its members’ information to businesses and recruiters.
Based on prior research, I am aware that there is a tremendous amount of network traffic dealing with analytics, tracking, data collection and serving up ads from the likes of Google, Facebook and affiliated companies.
My concern is that 25% or more of the traffic to and from my iPad is related to this “LinkedIn”, whatever it is. It just does not sit right; I would like to know what is going on. The entire environment of data collection, analytics, ad service and data selling has gotten our of hand, is not transparent and is consuming too much of our network traffic.
152.199.24.163 is associated with Edgecast Verizon DSL service in the mid West US
23.218.218.181 & 23.218.218.170 & are DSL in Ashburn VA 20149 Akamai (This is a major CDN)
