That's a pretty stupid requirement. The stats collector socket is bound to itself, so it's inaccessible from anywhere else (on machine or off) regardless of firewall settings. There's no need to worry about it, and no there is not a provision for doing it via unix socket instead.
Indeed it is a totally harmless thing and the request makes little (if any) sense. I will pass the answer over and I do share your stance regarding excess in paranoid modes :)
Bèrto
-- ============================== If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in a darkened room munching pills and listening to repetitive music.
