Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#981

Post by dwaite » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 3:21 AM UTC

twicetwice wrote: post #805

dwaite wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Completely agreed about the nonsensical first claim. We have many third-party clients for other messaging platforms where privacy and security are a primary feature. I can't think of an any with independent implementations. For instance, have a few third party Signal clients, which work by using the official libSignal . These are not third party clients, but third party GUIs. Use of libSignal on the official Signal…

Does Matrix not qualify?

I suppose it is determined by where you set the bar, even more so with privacy which still varies person-to-person and can sometimes take a qualitative feel.

Security wise, there is interesting work adopting MLS (and I believe key transparency) under Matrix, see https://arewemlsyet.com for example.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#982

Post by grouchomarx » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 4:54 AM UTC

dontlaugh wrote: post #968

shultays wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are people that buys iphone just to get a blue bubble, why would Apple want to stop that?

That’s a small subset of their customers in a single country. I don’t think they really care either way.

the american consumer punches far above its weight. apple cares and goes to great lengths to wall imessage. See the article linked in this post for instance

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#983

Post by globular-toast » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 8:33 AM UTC

sbuk wrote: post #804

globular-toast wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. You can't blame uses for this. The reason we have governments at all is because individuals all operating independently cannot get out of local optima like this

I can and I did - installing alternatives is easy, as is using them, as proven by literally the rest of the world oustside of North America. In fact, free and open alternatives exist.

The rest of the world didn't get off iMessage, though. It would be just as hard for them to stop using WhatsApp.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#984

Post by sneak » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 11:13 AM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #286

mh8h wrote: post #49

An open source client for iMessage is going to be used for fraud and spam. Before this, a device being blocked by Apple because it was used for fraud or spam would increase the cost of business for fraudsters and spammers. But now it's a matter of picking a new phone number. Of course Apple would try hard to stop this.

This is exactly why Signal closed their source code: if you allow access to your network, you're only accepting spam. For their users' security, it's essential that they must guard access to their network as much as possible.

Every sentence in your comment is factually incorrect.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#985

Post by sneak » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 11:14 AM UTC

nicklevin wrote: post #2

Saw that coming. Just like Google did with the SEO heist a person bragged about a couple weeks ago, if you make big tech companies look foolish they are going to react quickly.

Nothing about reimplementing an iMessage/APNS client from scratch makes Apple look foolish.

If anything, it makes iMessage look desirable, like a long line in front of a nightclub.

Literally everyone “saw that coming”. It’s also obvious that the client will be updated to make it work again, and the cycle will repeat.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#986

Post by sneak » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 11:16 AM UTC

SilverBirch wrote: post #316

SirMaster wrote: post #280

So does this also now break iMessage for older iOS devices too? I thought someone said something about that to block beeper mini, Apple would have to also block older iOS devices as that’s the method they were using that wasn’t as locked down.

There's been a lot of speculation about this, and in principle it's correct. At the end of the day Beeper can work to spoof genuine devices until its indistinguishable from an old iPhone and to block it Apple would essentially have to either force push an update to every device and enforce its installation (they probably can't/won't do this). But in reality Beeper probably leaks a load of data to Apple that Apple can…

It’s end users connecting to Apple’s APNS API endpoints, not Beeper.

Apple can try suing Beeper for publishing software, but ultimately software (that doesn’t infringe trademarks or copyrights) is protected expression.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#987

Post by jeroenhd » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 11:27 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #984

jeroenhd wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why Signal closed their source code: if you allow access to your network, you're only accepting spam. For their users' security, it's essential that they must guard access to their network as much as possible.

Every sentence in your comment is factually incorrect.

I thought people would catch on to the sarcasm because of that. Too late to edit a /s in now.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#988

Post by misnome » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 12:17 PM UTC

gkbrk wrote: post #970

mr_toad wrote: post #964

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's strange Apple doesn't sell an iMessage Android app Apple doesn’t sell apps they sell hardware and services. There’s no incentive for them to provide a free iMessage app for android, and I doubt many people would pay for one.

> I doubt many people would pay for one. Enough people paid for one. Enough to make Apple scared and use engineer time to ban/block people anyway.

Do we know that and that it wasn’t e.g. a massive influx of messages coming from a single hardware ID triggering an anti-spam system.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#989

Post by sbuk » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 12:47 PM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #983

sbuk wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can and I did - installing alternatives is easy, as is using them, as proven by literally the rest of the world oustside of North America. In fact, free and open alternatives exist.

The rest of the world didn't get off iMessage, though. It would be just as hard for them to stop using WhatsApp.

I failing to understand your point. Use of iMessage in the rest of the world is extremely limited - we're talking figures of about 1% global use.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#990

Post by sneak » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #536

I'm pretty sure this quote from the founder is wrong on multiple levels: > “That means that anytime you text your Android friends, anyone can read the message. Apple can read the message. Your phone carrier can read the message. Google… literally, it’s just like a postcard. Anyone can read it. So Beeper Mini actually increases the security of iPhones,” he [the founder of Beeper] had told TechCrunch. The phone carrier…

All of the SMSes that iPhone users send and receive are backed up nightly automatically via iCloud Backup, which is NOT end to end encrypted, and is completely readable by Apple. They provide it to the US government without a warrant frequently, something like data on over 70,000 users each year (per their own annual transparency report). The number is even bigger if you include the times they turn it over with warrants.

The iCloud Backup also includes the “Messages in iCloud” cross-device synchronization keys, so it is indeed true that Apple can read all of the iMessages. It’s not end to end encryption if the endpoint devices sync their endpoint keys to the middle transit service.

Apple’s own knowledge base article HT202303 is very clear on these points.

Note also that enabling e2ee for iCloud (currently opt in, and very buggy) does not protect you, as everyone else you iMessage with is escrowing their keys to Apple in their backups, so Apple can still read all of your iMessages from the other end of the conversations even if you enable e2ee on your backup.