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EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

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Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#461

Post by dcow »

MarkSweep wrote: post #450
dcow wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get why you would regulate such a thing. Because there's absolutely no downside to telling Apple it can't artificially make its iMessage platform restricted to Apple devices. We literally have seen leaked emails where Apple deliberately does this as an anti-consumer platform lock in play. The slippery slope hypothetical you provide is not the reality. Nobody is asking governments to regulate adding cool new…

> Because there's absolutely no downside to telling Apple it can't artificially make its iMessage platform restricted to Apple devices. I would assume one downside is a higher amount of spam. Currently you need to have an Apple device to send an iMessage. So sending spam is an expensive proposition.

I've never understood the origins of this argument. I'm pretty sure it's rooted in deep misunderstanding.

If I want to spam you I buy a bunch of numbers on Plivo and start sending your number messages with SMS, the existing standard. They show up in iMessage on your phone. The only difference is they're green instead of blue.

So, how do I need an iPhone to send you spam? iMessage doesn't do anything related to spam other than let you delete and report it.

But if it did work that way, then the standard could include that messages need to be signed with a device attestation key from an approved vendor or something like that. There could be a way to have your attestation keys registered like we do for CAs today so that your attestation hardware could be used. Phone manufacturers would all implement device attestation, like Apple and Google do.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#462

Post by dbg31415 »

I don't want this.

I think this is the worst idea.

I don't need Apple Message to work with Facebook or Android.

Who wants that? All it means is spammers from Facebook are going to find me on Apple Message. Oof.

Why do we think having government mandating what tech can do, or how tech can work, is a good thing?

Apple has made two dumb decisions in 40 years... the touchbar on the MBP, and all the dongles on the last-gen of MBP. Everyone is allowed to fail, but jumping straight to, "We need government to tell companies how things should work..." No, that's fucking cringe.

This just comes across as super anti-American. "We don't like that American companies doing stuff, let's penalize them!"

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#463

Post by ThatPlayer »

sandgiant wrote: post #364
danrl wrote: post #224

A convenient first step for European governments towards killing effective end-to-end cryptography usage in everyday messaging. It used to be checks notes „terrorism“ and „child safety“ and now the hot new thing is „interoperability“. Who would have thought, that of all the above, „interoperability“ would be the one that makes it into legislation.

I'm curious about this too. At least now I have fairly decent confidence that when I send an iMessage to someone, Apple protects their identity to whatever standard they have. Whatever trust I put in Apple, at least it's a single point of failure. What happens if interoperability is enforced and messages have to be end-to-end encrypted? Wouldn't that mean that any side-loaded Android app would have to be able to get…

You can continue to put your trust in only Apple: the DMA also says users should be able to enable and disable interoperability.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#464

Post by EduardoBautista »

gorbypark wrote: post #129
prepend wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the desktop app better as it’s integrated better and thus easier to use. I have notifications set up for many different apps not just messages so I want them all to function the same. Also, I just think native apps still perform better than web apps. And I can install it on my work computer

The WhatsApp desktop beta for macOS is built using Catalyst, and it's pretty nice. Catalyst is when an iOS and macOS app share one codebase, but can have different interfaces. I've been using it for a few weeks and no complaints so far. I believe the stable version app is Electron (or some web technology). The beta is full on native now!

I wasn't aware of this. Thanks! The difference in performance is definitely noticeable and addresses the biggest issue I had with WhatsApp.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#466

Post by nickff »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #430
dcow wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get why you would regulate such a thing. Because there's absolutely no downside to telling Apple it can't artificially make its iMessage platform restricted to Apple devices. We literally have seen leaked emails where Apple deliberately does this as an anti-consumer platform lock in play. The slippery slope hypothetical you provide is not the reality. Nobody is asking governments to regulate adding cool new…

IOS 9 or 10 (been a while) turned off SMS fallback when the user upgraded to that version. People kept calling and complaining texting no longer worked, and it was just that they could only text IPhones. That was 100% a dark pattern / monopoly practice with no reason but to ensure market share.

What do you mean? My iPhone often falls back to SMS, even when the other party has an iPhone in a poor reception area.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#467

Post by pietro72ohboy »

rodgerd wrote: post #455
dcow wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get why you would regulate such a thing. Because there's absolutely no downside to telling Apple it can't artificially make its iMessage platform restricted to Apple devices. We literally have seen leaked emails where Apple deliberately does this as an anti-consumer platform lock in play. The slippery slope hypothetical you provide is not the reality. Nobody is asking governments to regulate adding cool new…

> Because there's absolutely no downside to telling Apple it can't artificially make its iMessage platform restricted to Apple devices. I am looking forward to Google being able to finally get ahold of my iMessage and hoover it into their surveillance capitalism machine. What a huge benefit to me!

Incorrect. If multiple services interoperate with each other, that does not mean that one service can vacuum up the entire data on that network. As an analogy, Gmail servers cannot touch emails that are stored on Outlook and have never been addressed to a Gmail recipient. And if your position is that Google gets access to traffic flowing on a heterogeneous group of iOS and Android users simply because of RCS, that is again incorrect. RCS does not enable any new insidious capabilities that Google may not already have by the virtue of building Android.

RCS will have no effect on iMessage whatsoever. Messages between a homogeneous group of iOS users has no reason to touch Google owned (or other) RCS servers. And for Android users, RCS is a meaningful upgrade from traditional SMS.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#468

Post by int_19h »

jsmith99 wrote: post #373
hellojesus wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of market economies is to let people vote with their resources. The alternative of having people vote for a representative body that regulates how they transact is far worse. Best case you get a almost as good outcome. Worst case is 49.9% of people suffer horribly under state enforced "social good".

Even the biggest fan of free markets agrees government need to prevent market failures, such as natural monopolies caused by network effects.

Peter Thiel famously argued that when monopolies arise in a free market, it's "actually a good thing".

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#469

Post by prmoustache »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #423
h1fra wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the take you think it is. The regulation was there to prevent companies from abusing cookies, banner is just a side-effect of companies not willing to respect privacy.

Ok, so how is it effective again? It’s 2023. You don’t need cookies like you did in 1996 to totally shit on everyone’s privacy, by the way.

It is effective for me to know which website owner is an asshole.

Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)

#470

Post by djvdq »

mh- wrote: post #193
jjulius wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Isn't this going to kill features that only some apps have or offer? What if one day Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp... Okay, this is where I think we need to make clear who this requirement applies to. If we click through the first link, found in the first sentence in the article, to the actual source text[0] and run it through Google Translate, we can find that this requirement only applies to companies... >... whose…

Aren't there only, say, two or three companies that fit that criteria? The legislators may as well have called them out by name.

Calling those companies by name would be extra stupid. Let's say out of nowhere there's a new company that fits to all the criteria but it's not called by name? The law would have to be changed to add their name to the law. It's wasting a lot of time. Instead of that there's a list of criteria and company is automatically on this "list".
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