Empty key appears as having asterisks as value

[BigMacAdmin]

🪲 Description

My MDM deploys an empty CatalogURL key in the SoftwareUpdate domain if no CatalogURL is configured in their GUI.

This is a problem with my MDM, and I've opened a ticket accordingly.

However, my inspection of this issue was complicated by the fact that Low Profile shows the value in the Plist as being the following:

<key>CatalogURL</key>
<string>********</string>

The output of sudo /usr/bin/profiles show -output stdout-xml shows what I believe to be the "true" value:

<key>CatalogURL</key>
<string></string>

📋 Steps to Reproduce

1. Open Low Profile.app
2. Find a SoftwareUpdate profile with CatalogURL set to an empty string
3. See that Low Profile reports the plist with a value not actually assigned (*****)

✅ Expected Behaviour

Low Profile plist viewer should show what I believe to be the "true" value, which is nothing <string></string>

💻 Environment

• Low Profile version (App menu ⇨ About Low Profile): Version 4.0.3 (4.0.3)
• macOS Version (sw_vers): 15.4 (24E247)
• Hardware (system_profiler SPHardwareDataType):
  • Model Identifier: Mac16,13
  • Chip: Apple M4

📷 Screenshots

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ℹ️ Additional context

• Links to 3rd-party tools / references / documentation