Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#551

Post by dkdbejwi383 » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #531

bambax wrote: post #478

I'm sorry but don't understand exactly what this is. Is it a universal text app that you can use for all your contacts? Or do you need to know if the person you're texting with has an iPhone or not? Given the excitement and number of upvotes I'm obviously missing something, but I'm at a loss.

The excitement is because previously it was impossible for Android users to communicate with iPhone users over iMessage. If you're not in the US, you probably won't get this, but in the US it's very easy to be "the odd man out" as the only Android user in a group of friends. Group chats between iMessage and Android users is basically horrible right now - I seriously considered getting an iPhone solely because friends…

What is it about iMessage that breaks group chats? Where I live everyone uses WhatsApp (SMS is for 2fa codes pretty much exclusively for me)

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#552

Post by nusl » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #454

Beeper is a really cool idea by some cool people (people behind the Pebble smartwatch) but I've resisted using it for fear of bans. I don't want my Slack/Discord/Instagram/AppleId/etc to get banned for using something not allowed under the terms of service. How are people who use Beeper dealing with this? Are you just using dummy/test accounts that you don't care about or are you just rolling the dice. I would like t…

I’ve been using Beeper as my main chat client for multiple years and haven’t had any issues with account blocks or bans on any of their supported platforms. I have Discord, Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage, and LinkedIn connected. There are technical issues at times but they are well communicated and usually resolved pretty quickly.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#553

Post by chatmasta » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #533

chatmasta wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Messages has a bunch of special privileges on iOS, which is why they had to add the whole Blastdoor protection framework and why it's such a juicy target for sandbox escape exploits.

Nope. It just happens to be on everyone’s device and usually enabled

Yes, and when it's enabled it has more privileges than most other apps, doesn't it? But yeah you can still remove the app.

Btw, maybe related, on iOS I have "app privacy report" enabled, to show me a list of apps and the recent entitlements they used. Every Apple app, even those that don't need access to them, is shown as having recently accessed my Contacts. I find this weird. Anyone know why they do that? e.g. I've never even used the Health app and yet it's accessing my Contacts for some reason.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#554

Post by mkingston » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #544

ttul wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple does start enforcing signed attestations, they will say that it's to reduce abuse. I have no doubt (being in the anti-abuse world) that spammers and phishing gangs will immediately begin using Beeper to spam iMessage users because this allows them to avoid buying an iOS device. With end-to-end encryption, Apple may also decide to roll out privacy-protecting client-side spam and phishing detection, which woul…

> With end-to-end encryption, Apple may also decide to roll out privacy-protecting client-side spam and phishing detection, which would IMHO be a really great thing. Spam protection should be on the recipient , rather than the sender .

That's a brief statement which makes me think I'm missing something obvious, but it doesn't seem obvious to me. Would you please expand on that?

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#555

Post by c0pium » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #544

ttul wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple does start enforcing signed attestations, they will say that it's to reduce abuse. I have no doubt (being in the anti-abuse world) that spammers and phishing gangs will immediately begin using Beeper to spam iMessage users because this allows them to avoid buying an iOS device. With end-to-end encryption, Apple may also decide to roll out privacy-protecting client-side spam and phishing detection, which woul…

> With end-to-end encryption, Apple may also decide to roll out privacy-protecting client-side spam and phishing detection, which would IMHO be a really great thing. Spam protection should be on the recipient , rather than the sender .

As we’ve learned very clearly over the last 20 years of commercialization of spam, that never works. The only tractable way to fight fraud and abuse is to impose cost.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#556

Post by nusl » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

yellow_lead wrote: post #472

joshstrange wrote: post #454

Beeper is a really cool idea by some cool people (people behind the Pebble smartwatch) but I've resisted using it for fear of bans. I don't want my Slack/Discord/Instagram/AppleId/etc to get banned for using something not allowed under the terms of service. How are people who use Beeper dealing with this? Are you just using dummy/test accounts that you don't care about or are you just rolling the dice. I would like t…

Since they've been on waitlist-mode for several years, it's not currently easy to try out in any case.

They’ve opened invites from existing users

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#557

Post by altintx » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:58 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #548

altintx wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither. Their cloud server is a farm of Mac Minis or similar. Then Beeper Cloud is basically a proxy from the app to that data center.

Ah I see. I thought I remembered reading about that on Twitter (in the context of people criticizing it as false advertising). So basically this Beeper mini is the "proper" implementation of full e2e encryption, while the cloud service was the bridge to get them here?

That's my understanding, yeah. I don't love my apple ID being signed into a box I can't access, so would love to see THIS service go cross platform.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#558

Post by JoshTriplett » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:58 PM UTC

mkingston wrote: post #554

JoshTriplett wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With end-to-end encryption, Apple may also decide to roll out privacy-protecting client-side spam and phishing detection, which would IMHO be a really great thing. Spam protection should be on the recipient , rather than the sender .

That's a brief statement which makes me think I'm missing something obvious, but it doesn't seem obvious to me. Would you please expand on that?

I think it's a bad idea to lock out unattested clients, and as long as third-party clients are accepted, spam will always be sendable. If you're not doing end-to-end encryption, you can catch it at send time by having the server reject the client for sending spam. If you're doing end-to-end encryption, the only options are the sender or the recipient, and attempting to block it at the sender would require prohibiting interoperability.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#559

Post by rpmisms » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 11:00 PM UTC

tibbydudeza wrote: post #504

Good luck with this one - dunno how Apple is going to react - a Steve Jobs nuking upon from high via API changes or Tim Cook ignoring it and just disgruntled acceptance that it exists but not care why folks in the US choose Apple.

There is probably a tense debate happening internally right now about how they want to respond. PR says no, Product says nuke it, Legal is stretching their fingers, and Engineering just finished reproducing the issue.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#560

Post by anon373839 » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 11:00 PM UTC

psittacus wrote: post #16

cdchn wrote: post #7

The unfortunately fatalist question to ask is... how long until Apple shuts it down?

Besides being allegedly hard to shut down without breaking iPhones, there's also this statement given to Ars Technica: > Migicovsky had a few different answers. The broadest one, regarding the tech behind the app, is that reverse-engineering for interoperability is legal—a fair use exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's restrictions against circumventing encryption or other protections. The app also goes…

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.