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Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#361

Post by stonogo »

Terretta wrote: post #355
rezonant wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Apple embraced texting by supporting SMS, then extended it by forcing all the text conversations that they could into their own proprietary infrastructure, and is extinguishing it by using punitive product design to create pressure on communities of people to all use their products so that everything goes over their proprietary network. I don't want an over the top chat app, I just want to text people.

How do you want Apple to tell iPhone users whether their messages to someone are being recorded by that person's telco and made available to other plan holders on that phone plan? How do you want Apple to indicate if this chat participant is costing you money by the message or free? Everyone's concerned about teens. Presumably teens know that T-Mobile and the other carriers give the family plan adults the ability to…

T-Mobile does not give primary account holders access to messaging content of other lines, regardless of the relationship between users.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#362

Post by turquoisevar »

jwells89 wrote: post #208
turquoisevar wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not commenting about the ethics of all this, just wondering why technically Apple can only block ~5% of Beeper Mini users instead of all of them? Could this potentially be tied to the use of an email id as the iMessage handle? Apple could block 100% of the people using Beeper and throw Hackintosh users into that as a bonus as well. The reason they’re not doing that is because it could have unintended consequences a…

> The reason they’re not doing that is because it could have unintended consequences as some are using someone else’s actual device serial number and those people would be inconvenienced. One is supposed to try to find a plausible (follows certain rules) but invalid serial to use for hackintoshing and not use real serials, but of course in practice there’s always some number of careless users…

Yeah, that's what they're supposed to do, and to the credit of the Hackintosh community, that’s what most tutorials suggest.

But like you said, there are always people who don’t care about others as long as they have theirs.

There is, so far anyway, no reason to go against this best practice because, even though Apple can instantly detect a bogus serial, their currently used scoring threshold still allows you to use iMessage provided you’ve got a non-fresh Apple ID in good standing.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#363

Post by turquoisevar »

rezonant wrote: post #331
jwells89 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason they’re not doing that is because it could have unintended consequences as some are using someone else’s actual device serial number and those people would be inconvenienced. One is supposed to try to find a plausible (follows certain rules) but invalid serial to use for hackintoshing and not use real serials, but of course in practice there’s always some number of careless users…

This is interesting. How do you define "invalid" and why can Apple not also detect such invalidity? There's been some talk that blocking this for Beeper will also block this for Hackintosh, but are we just talking about iMessage? Because I have a hard time believing that (A) Apple can't just block this for iMessage without affecting whatever other system services rely on it and (B) That Apple would care if Hackintosh…

Apple can detect this, but they’ve allowed it in most cases when it’s done with an Apple ID in good standing and some history.

Why they allowed it is anyone’s guess, but the leading theory is that they valued not hindering established customers over locking iMessage completely down and perhaps the bad PR that comes with banning someone’s Apple ID over this.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#364

Post by turquoisevar »

jwells89 wrote: post #358
rezonant wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting. How do you define "invalid" and why can Apple not also detect such invalidity? There's been some talk that blocking this for Beeper will also block this for Hackintosh, but are we just talking about iMessage? Because I have a hard time believing that (A) Apple can't just block this for iMessage without affecting whatever other system services rely on it and (B) That Apple would care if Hackintosh…

My understanding is that the serials represent information, including model and date/location of manufacture. It’s therefore possible to create correctly formed but impossible serials, for example one that represents a pre-touchbar 2015 MBP manufactured in Ireland in 2018. Apple should easily be able to tell when someone has done this.

They indeed used to have data like that encoded in it.

Not too long ago, however, they moved to a completely randomized serial format, perhaps partly because of iMessages shenanigans.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#365

Post by just2043 »

rgbrenner wrote: post #286
tshirthoodie wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's iMessage implementation loses messages all the time. It happens about once every month between my girlfriend and I. I have also had iMesages be sent to the wrong recipient. In one ongoing case, my aunt and uncle frequently receive each other's iMessages, suggesting it's related to their group carrier plan but it's hard to say. The extended family all knows to use SMS instead, which reliably goes to the intend…

iMessage is routed through apple's servers over TCP. So this is like saying: sometimes I go to google.com but it randomly loads bing.com... must be related to my group carrier plan What data made you make that association? Seems unlikely. If that happens, then apple would have to be routing messages incorrectly, but that would be a massive bug/security issue... especially considering how E2EE works.

Yeah sounds more like the aunt and uncle once shared an Apple ID and then moved to seperate ones later.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#366

Post by rezonant »

turquoisevar wrote: post #364
jwells89 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the serials represent information, including model and date/location of manufacture. It’s therefore possible to create correctly formed but impossible serials, for example one that represents a pre-touchbar 2015 MBP manufactured in Ireland in 2018. Apple should easily be able to tell when someone has done this.

They indeed used to have data like that encoded in it. Not too long ago, however, they moved to a completely randomized serial format, perhaps partly because of iMessages shenanigans.

Hmm, how many bits of entropy are in one of these things? Can we calculate the likelihood of collision?

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#367

Post by jauntywundrkind »

unstatusthequo wrote: post #327
rezonant wrote: post #313

I think this is kinda technically a win for Beeper. I would've expected another 100% lockout to be Apple's priority. They were instead only able to block 5%, which sounds like a heuristic being applied, and possibly not even an intentional block of Beeper (in the sense that some anti-spam service may be identifying some Beeper users). They can certainly escalate with protocol changes, but they still have to contend w…

Apple owns the delivery mechanism. I don’t believe that a third party using their ecosystem will last long. Nor do I want it. There are plenty of cross-platform things out there. Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp. Why does everyone care so much? Google can paint their Android robot blue. Then maybe all this silliness will end?

> Why does everyone care so much?

Happy to explain. First thought, why do you care so much?

> Nor do I want it.

Why? What about exclusivity makes the world better? Why shouldn't I be able to communicate well with someone using an Apple device? Why should someone using an Apple device not want someone to communicate well with them?

Sure there are other systems. But switching costs are so high. Especially with iMessage, folks are going to use what's provided them out of the box. It doesn't seem like a reasonable ask to get everyone en masse to agree to & switch to a lone cross-platform system. What's really needed is standards & interop. You should be able to use what you like, be that iMessage or RCS or Signal or XMPP. But none of these options should be locked out of working with others.

I'm so baffled by the strident defenses against possibility. From someone whose name is @unstatusthequo at that, going to bat for status quo lock in seems like a low and dark comedy. Un status quoer, un status quo thineself. Don't triple down on the fixed & limited!

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#368

Post by makeitdouble »

hx8 wrote: post #343
makeitdouble wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nor do I want it > Why does everyone care so much? You seem to both care about it, and also wonder why other people care about it ? Otherwise, looking from the sideline it's fascinating seeing Apple fighting this battle that they brought upon themselves and have no chance of winning.

> have no chance of winning I think Apple will almost certainly win on a purely technical game of cat and mouse. I think you need to adjust your definition of winning. Blocking 5% of messages is a 'win' for Apple. I won't use a messaging service with a 95% success rate. I won't migrate from iMessage to Beeper. I will submit, Apple would have liked a more decisive victory.

My definition of a win for Apple would be to have the problem go away and the attention dissipate. That's how it went for Nothing's attempt for instance, where it was instantly ridiculed and everyone forgot about it.

Right now, they blocked a part of Beeper mini, and nobody expecting a rock solid service would join Beeper Mini so Apple's won't be losing any of their core customers.

But the news cycle keeps going on, Beeper Mini is still there for those the group of users that wants it alive, and I wouldn't be surprised if next week for instance actual iMessage users came out to complain about getting kicked out of the service as colateral damage from the whole additional filtering.

And of course this whole publicity for Beeper is a door opened to any other company to give it a shot, as Apple is playing the cat and mouse game, and not taking any more drastic option.

Apple isn't losing either, but they're now dragged into guerrila like battle with no upside for them.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#369

Post by MR4D »

wrboyce wrote: post #324
MR4D wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, people clearly aren't reading the first few words (nor the last line) of my post: "I don't understand..." "Can someone explain this to me? "

I think the problem is that you do understand and have explained it perfectly, but some people can’t handle the truth. These threads have brought out some ludicrous opinions (as anything Apple centric tends to on HN).

Well, I actually don’t think I do.

For instance, wouldn’t this have to be reported as an unauthorized intrusion (getting access to a user’s messages without using their ID) ?

Also, nothing I’ve read has any criminal aspect to it (ignoring DMCA stuff).

Given all the issues with SMS security and spoofing, you’d think this would be an issue, but nobody has brought it up.

Seems unlikely that given all the coverage that I’d be the first and only person to notice that, which is why I don’t think I truly understand it.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#370

Post by MuffinFlavored »

dylan604 wrote: post #211
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bigger question is how are any Beeper Mini users getting through (aka how is Beeper Mini's backend getting around the fact that... I thought you needed a valid serial # to an Apple device specific to you to log in + use iMessage)

at some point Serial Box will have a list of valid/invalid hardware serial numbers. or, someone will crack the code to generate valid codes. oh wait. i drifted off back to the 90s software cracking days.

if apple checks an online database for "you authenticated and paired this hardware ID to this apple ID", is that a "Beeper Mini" killer?
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