451–460 of 902 posts
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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.
There are reverse engineering/interoperability exemptions to the DMCA so it may not be that simple. So would be curious if they have already sought legal advice which says they are in the clear.
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> Even if they do the work to publish iMessage updates for the old iOS versions it just buys a little time before the new version gets reverse engineered There's probably a cliff in complexity. Once Apple starts requesting signed attestations from the secure enclave on the devices that have one, it's game over. They probably don't just yet, since still too many people use iMessage on first-party clients that don't ha…
Apple can break Beeper without relying on the secure enclave: If Apple devices just send their serial number (IMEI for their GSM products), their servers can refuse to talk to hardware they didn't manufacture.
Can anyone explain to me why it matters if you have iMessage or not? So what my friends see a green bubble when I message them?
I would like to live in a world where I could use Beeper without worry but I don't feel like we currently live in that world. Am I wrong?
If this really works, it is what Nothing's partnership with Sunbird claimed to do (and lied about) a couple weeks ago - before being called out and shut down https://texts.blog/2023/11/18/sunbird-security/
It's really not. Beeper (and Sunbird, and others) up until today used a Mac server to sync messages. OP is describing an Android app that's natively talking directly to iMessage infrastructure, for the first time.
It looks like Beeper has actually managed to do the latter, which is really exciting!!
Can anyone explain to me why it matters if you have iMessage or not? So what my friends see a green bubble when I message them?
The distinction between iMessage (blue bubbles) and regular SMS/MMS (green bubbles) on iPhones matters because iMessage offers additional features like read receipts, typing indicators, higher-quality media sharing, and seamless syncing across Apple devices. While the color of the bubble itself may not be significant, the functionality and experience differ between the two, impacting communication capabilities.
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If what you care about is the color of your bubbles, then that won't make a difference. Green bubbles don't mean "second-class citizen" or "doesn't support proper group chats"; they mean "SMS" (or possibly "not iMessage"; that's not yet clear). It's extremely unlikely Apple will make RCS bubbles blue—even if they don't make them green (and keep that reserved specifically for SMS), they'll make them some other color.…
> It's not a way to make sure you can identify the outgroup and shun them; it's a meaningful signal of what technology other people you're chatting with are using, which tells you useful information about their capabilities. That seems like a false dichotomy to me as those are not mutually exclusive, and indeed can (and are) both easily accomplished with the current system.
Apple does not in any way intend it to be used to identify the outgroup and shun them.
SMS on the iPhone used green bubbles for years before iMessage existed. When iMessage was introduced, it had blue bubbles simply to distinguish it and make clear "these are users of the new service you can video chat with, send files to, etc". Like I said: a useful informational signal.
It wasn't until years after that that this wailing and gnashing of teeth about blue vs green bubbles started. To the extent that such a social dichotomy exists, it is a purely emergent socially-created one, not one that Apple has pushed in any way.
Furthermore, it would be a regression for Apple to remove that useful informational signal just because people are upset that they get accurately identified as "the one in the group who is using a different device, and thus cannot safely be added to group chats for reasons entirely outside of Apple's control".
The bubble color isn't the problem. The problem is, as you somewhat allude to, inseparable from the fact that there is a way to tell the difference between People Using iMessage on Apple Messages and People Using SMS.
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Yet. There's a decision happening next year. This also "takes seconds to Google". https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/google-argues-imessa... They are already a gatekeeper with core services that are required to be interoperable. Even if iMessage specifically hasn't yet been declared a core service, Apple is in the crosshairs and behavior like banning competitors will be harmful to their legal position at a very…
You said "They are legally required to be interoperable now." which is factually incorrect. It's okay to just admit that you were wrong.
The argument stands. It would be a bad idea for Apple to ban competition from iMessage, even with an attempt at plausible deniability, while they are fighting European regulators about interoperability on multiple fronts.
I remember Nothing tech did something similar-ish not too long ago, but I can't find their announcement of it. But then I stumbled upon a video talking about privacy concerns[0]. What's the difference between what they did and what Beeper is doing? Sounds cool though, impressive work! (also, "hacker"-news needs to be more embracing of their name lol) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMdj8RyMb64