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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#781

Post by ftmch »

jorvi wrote: post #764
chankstein38 wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, what? I grew up (in the same era) using AIM and Yahoo, ICQ was a little before my prime. Everyone I talk to about those days used them as well. MSN was fine but AIM and Yahoo were where it was at for the bulk of my early years of instant messaging with friends. At one point a friend even made me an AIM account because I was using MSN and they wanted to chat with me but didn't want to do it through MSN. Obviousl…

Perhaps it’s geographically correlated, I’m from The Netherlands, which would be West+Central Europe in terms of cultural zeitgeist. Would map neatly to the iMessage / WhatsApp divide too, if for different reasons.

Also from NL, was using ICQ at first then everyone switched to MSN. I do remember using AIM a little bit to chat with some Americans. This was the late 90's.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#782

Post by quantumsequoia »

Nextgrid wrote: post #283
MitchellKnight wrote: post #103

Isn't this a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or other US laws? Doesn't the fact they are trying to make money off of this negate any ethical hacker arguments?

Beeper doesn't "hack" anything though, it uses the exact same authorization mechanism as a real iOS device and grants the user access to no more than a real device would. I agree that the CFAA can be abused to try and prosecute this (as well as the DMCA), and I suspect Beeper is intentionally hoping for (heavily publicized) litigation to settle this once and for all and set a precedent.

> it uses the exact same authorization mechanism as a real iOS device and grants the user access to no more than a real device would.

And a hacker that social engineers someone's bank password is entering just like the account owner would. "Hacking" doesn't have to involve exploiting a technical vulnerability. It's just unauthorized system access, regardless of methodology

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#783

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

haswell wrote: post #584
modeless wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple wanted iMessage on Android they would have done it already. There are emails from executives made public in lawsuits discussing the possibility many years ago.

It’s very clear that Apple does not want iMessage on Android. My point was that if they chose to give in and acquire something like Beeper (presumably due to bad press, concerns about regulatory action, etc), it does not follow that this incentivizes more Beeper-like products.

[flagged]

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#784

Post by technothrasher »

pathartl wrote: post #692
bdavbdav wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost forgot that you could MMS to email addresses. Crazy times of old.

When I was in high school and not allowed to have a cell phone, I had to use email via Gmail in my PSP's web browser in order to message people. I relied on these addresses so heavily and many people gave me weird looks for "oh btw, I need to know which carrier you have so I can get the right email address"

When I was in high school and not rich enough to have a cell phone, I had to wait until midnight for my BBS to dial the upstream FidoNet host and exchange messages.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#785

Post by IshKebab »

sneak wrote: post #669
seanp2k2 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Apple needs to do is send a few scary C&D letters from their army of lawyers and this will be done. If they run the infrastructure for imessage, I'm sure there's something in a ToS somewhere that talks about spoofing device IDs and unauthorized use of their services blah blah Apple's sole discretion. In theory I love it but in reality it'll be dead soon as Apple has too much to gain from the walled garden they've…

Beeper isn’t using Apple services (at least not in Beeper Mini, their new e2ee iMessage client), and thus is not subject to any Terms of Service from Apple. They’re publishing client software, which is protected expression provided it’s original and doesn’t infringe any trademarks or copyrights. The end users are the ones potentially violating the ToS by connecting to Apple APIs. Apple has no basis to tell Beeper to…

Someone said they are embedding Apple binaries for crypto stuff. Clear copyright infringement if so.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#786

Post by tiltowait »

rezonant wrote: post #718
bushbaba wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t entire thread need to be light green. Wouldn’t android users not see the Tapbacks/threads in same visual UX. It makes sense to turn it off entirely than to deliver a subpar and confusing UX

Actually both tapbacks (for a long time) and reply threads (since the latest iOS release) are both supported in MMS group conversations. The iPhone will send a tapback as an SMS message such as "Liked 'contents of message that was liked'" and other iPhones convert that back into a tapback. Google Messages also does this (and in fact did it before Apple did). iOS does not convert Google Messages style tapback messages…

iOS does attempt to properly inline Android tapbacks and has done so since IIRC iOS 16. It's not perfect, though: if the tapback isn't one Messages recognizes, then you get it in message form, e.g. ":smile: to 'Have a nice day!'" (only with the actual emoji). It also fails all tapbacks if it's an image, presumably since it can't know which image is reacted to.

Hopefully the experience is improved when they implement RCS, though I'm not sure if tapbacks are part of the spec.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#787

Post by al_borland »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #586
mike_d wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Apple continues to cut off Beeper's access, it makes an antitrust argument stronger I'm not sure why everyone thinks it is an antitrust issue when it isn't. There is no legal obligation to support your services and software on third party platforms.

I'd argue that's not the right framing of the issue. Taking active steps to prevent your services from being used on competing platforms is more than merely "not supporting" them.

Apple has always made services primarily for the users of their hardware. They are a hardware company that makes their own software and services. The hardware purchase funds the software development.

Who decides which platforms get support, if it's not the company making and supporting the service? When BBM was popular, I know a lot of people without Blackberries would have liked to use it, but Blackberry didn't offer it, and no one was threatening legal action against them (that I know of). I don't see how this situation is any different.

There are a lot of exclusive services out there, which are locked to specific platforms. Affording legal protection to anyone who hacks their way into a system, and telling the company they can't do anything about it, would create chaos in the tech world. There might be some cool projects, but business models would fall apart, companies would fail, security would be worse than it already is, and I'd question why anyone would try and start something new when they wouldn't be allowed to control it in a way to ensure profitability. Having everything free and open is great, but at some point these services need to be paid for.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#788

Post by stouset »

hornban wrote: post #694
judge2020 wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's imagine it is an engineering problem; how do they solve it? Give a disclaimer that "your communications are not encrypted" and turn the bubbles maybe light green?

> how do they solve it? Release iMessage on Android. If there is a concern that it wouldn't be secure with Google controlling it, then they could put it out on F-Droid, which would simultaneously prove that they're serious and also undermine Google's own efforts at controlling the culture war.

Part of the iMessage security model is that devices are attested. Without this, the service as-is becomes widely open to spam and other forms of abuse.

Yes, there are other solutions to the spam problem. They are nowhere near as effective as what I’ve witnessed as an iMessage user so far. I regularly get spam chats on WhatsApp and Signal.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#789

Post by Miner49er »

lolinder wrote: post #779
Miner49er wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is free

From their website [0]: > We currently offer a 7 day free trial, afterwards there is a $1.99 per month subscription. Beeper Mini is available to download today with no waitlist. That doesn't sound free to me. Am I missing something? [0] https://www.beeper.com/

The article we are commenting on says they have made it free for now. I just don't think they've updated their main site yet.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#790

Post by quantumsequoia »

kbf wrote: post #474
g0atbutt wrote: post #363

The funniest outcome with this whole “Apple vs. Beeper” saga would be if Apple said, “Fine use the iMessage protocol. We won’t break interoperability and you can even have full feature parity… BUT… Any messages sent this way will still show up as the dreaded “Green Bubble”. (I hope Eric and the Beeper team can pull through!)

Messages sent via SMS or iMessage already look identical to the recipient, the only distinguishing feature is a small header at the top of the conversation that says either "Text message" or "iMessage".

SMS doesn't support emoji reactions, read receipts, typing indicators, high quality pictures/video, or groupchats over 10 people. These are deal-breaker for anyone that texts regularly
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