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WhatsApp is already almost useless with Notifications turned on for me. Maybe this is specific to Japanese phone numbers, but iMessage was always the safe spot where no fishing/scams happened.
My mother actually got scammed out of ~2000 USD on WhatsApp.
I think I hope Apple kills this fast.
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One of my companies lives from this kind of things so it would last if someone could fund it. More food for thought: "Reflecting on 16 Years of Work on Adversarial Interoperability" (now, more than 20...) [1] [1] https://blog.nektra.com/2020/01/12/reflecting-on-16-years-of...
Have you ever received C&D for your work? There's a big problem of OSS projects being TOS-trolled by billion dollar companies and having to shut down out of fear.
Anecdote: we reverse engineered several Microsoft products and before Microsoft Windows 7 launch we were contacted by Microsoft QA and they offered us support to check if our software was compatible with it! BTW, our software was installed in millions of computers around the globe. For example, Trend Micro used our software for supporting their antivirus in Outlook Express and Windows Mail.
Our Deviare Hooking Engine [1] was eclipsed when Microsoft Detours [2] turned to an MIT license and free. Even when our was superior in several ways. This is why I wrote that you should continuously fight for "adversarial interoperability".
[1] https://github.com/nektra/Deviare2
[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/detours/
In principle - it's cool - but I already dread the increased iMessage spam that this will surely bring. WhatsApp is already almost useless with Notifications turned on for me. Maybe this is specific to Japanese phone numbers, but iMessage was always the safe spot where no fishing/scams happened. My mother actually got scammed out of ~2000 USD on WhatsApp. I think I hope Apple kills this fast.
Isn’t iMessage, amongst other things, the subject of some upcoming EU reg forcing it to be cross platform (or at least make APIs accessible)? Thus, preceding the need of Beeper Mini.
These companies have many years to comply and drop Fred functionality to 3PAs.
It's not enough imo.
DMA should've explicitly greenlight adversarial interop, superceding any existing agreement between gatekeeper and interop developers.
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I’m curious to know if this tech requires spoofing an iPhone or otherwise falsely representing to Apple’s servers that the Android device is an iPhone. If so, I would be looking at the CFAA more than the DMCA.
Van Buren protects it from CFAA. The only avenue that is untested is based on Terms of Service. I did a OSS WhatsApp reverse engineering project and got a C&D from 800 billion dollar Meta's lawyers all based on violation of their Terms of Service. As far as I'm aware, there's no precedent for interop against ToS.
The fee and requiring account signup are a dealbreaker. Hopefully someone will create a FLOSS alternative.
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That seems like a problem. Emulating the protocol is okayish-to-gray but having the binary there will just be a straight DMCA. Wonder what the actual app is doing since this is just the PoC.
I don't think the finer legal points matter too much. If Apple wants to sue them, they'll sue them, regardless of legal merit. And I suspect Beeper is betting they can make their case from a more philosophical angle, such that it's irrelevant what grounds Apple cites when suing them. Beeper will fight it either way. I'm an Apple user who has no need for this app. But I really appreciate that Beeper has the balls to r…
Copying and modifying binary with proprietary license is not OK.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Van Buren protects it from CFAA. The only avenue that is untested is based on Terms of Service. I did a OSS WhatsApp reverse engineering project and got a C&D from 800 billion dollar Meta's lawyers all based on violation of their Terms of Service. As far as I'm aware, there's no precedent for interop against ToS.
Way outside my area of experience, but Van Buren itself doesn’t appear to address this issue. I was thinking more in terms of Apple framing a claim based on access through an act of fraud.
> many people always ask ‘what do you think Apple is going to do about this?’ To be honest, I am shocked that everyone is so shocked by the sheer existence of a 3rd party iMessage client. These are two completely different concepts? I’m aware third-party clients have existed for eons. I also believe Apple would shut this down.