Sure, but it is allowed, at least as far as I understand, to phone home if it otherwise needs network access. In practice it’s really hard to prevent unauthorized semantic network access once you allow any network access.
The main benefit is that kernel space is drastically smaller which means that the opportunity for a kernel-level exploit is minimal vs something like the Linux kernel that a single device exploit compromises your entire machine.
The main benefit is that kernel space is drastically smaller which means that the opportunity for a kernel-level exploit is minimal vs something like the Linux kernel that a single device exploit compromises your entire machine.