Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

> comes at the cost of increasing the risk to its own users.

iMessage using SMS to communicate with Android devices increases the risk to iOS users. Apple customers are still Apple customers when they communicate with Android users.

Every risk you describe is still present in the current implementation of iMessage when communicating with Android users, except the risks are much greater because SMS is much easier to exploit and intercept than an E2EE protocol would be.

A message platform that forces Apple users to use an insecure protocol when communicating with Android users decreases the security and privacy of Apple users.

So even an imperfect implementation of real E2EE between Apple and Android users, even with all the risks you describe above, is still an improvement in security over what we have right now: a situation where Apple forces iMessage users to use to what is quite possibly the least secure communication method possible when communicating with their friends and family in different ecosystems.

It's not necessarily about helping the users of another competing platform, Apple users who are using normal iPhones are sending unencrypted and unsecured messages to their friends and family members because Apple is more interested in vendor lock-in than it is interested in making sure that its customers are able to communicate securely with their contacts.

The idea that Apple users would suddenly stop caring about security or that they wouldn't want their conversations encrypted just because they're talking to someone else who's on an Android device is very strange to me -- it suggests that Apple is willing to sacrifice security for paying iOS users just to keep Android users from seeing any of the benefits of those security improvements.

Yes, there may exist reasons to distinguish between locked down vendor-controlled devices where users do not have the autonomy to change device settings that could damage encryption, and devices where users do have that autonomy. I understand that concern, even if I think it's usually disengenous. But there is really no reason and no excuse (especially now that we know how easy it would be for Apple to take its encryption multiple-platform) for going beyond distinguishing between those devices, and going so far as to actively drop all security measures and all encryption from those conversations. It's like saying that because a window can be broken we might as well take the door off of its hinges and put up a "burglars welcome" sign -- and, incredibly, it's claiming that anyone who tries to replace the door without permission is somehow decreasing security. Apple doesn't just distinguish between controlled and uncontrolled environments, it removes the door entirely by dropping its users into a messaging format with no end-to-end encryption at all. It's a bad policy that hurts Apple users and decreases their safety.

You need a device key to use an iCloud account, and all Beeper clients were using the same device key. So unsurprisingly, it’s not hard for Apple to block. And this doesn’t mean they peep into the messages.

Who doesn’t like the first few tools you mentioned? YouTube-do and ublock origin are great.

Does it still work?

Wishful thinking.

The EU set up the rules of the game, and it turns out iMessage falls outside the rules (to the EU’s dismay).

Even if it would fall within the rules, EU regulations work on a policy level, not a technical one. In other words, they can force Apple to change their policy and facilitate interoperability, but there’s no legal mechanism to force Apple to allow unauthorized use of their service.

The best you can do, if you're so inclined, is hope that the EU will change the rules of the game, but that would be such a transparent attempt at targeting a specific company (a big no-no in the legal reality within the EU) that the European courts will strike it down before they finish their breakfast.