Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 665 posts

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

#371

Post by makeitdouble »

ethanbond wrote: post #351
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.

I care about it because lack of iMessage is still a very good heuristic for spam. Not perfect anymore, but I reckon this will make it much worse.

Your advice was "There are plenty of cross-platform things out there. Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp", but you don't seem happy to take it and move away from iMessage either.

This tension is at the center of the it all, and why Beeper Mini exists in the first place.

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

#372

Post by ToucanLoucan »

SpaghettiCthulu wrote: post #335
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android users have been banging this drum about the iPhone supremacists for an actual decade at this point and it so, so goddamn tiring. I buy iPhones for a number of reasons: - Ecosystem which has been explained at length so often you'd have to have your head under a rock to not know what it means - Ease of transfer of data between phones/tablets and replacements, along with constant sync - Excellent build quality -…

> - Excellent build quality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS0SItAzEXg Keep drinking your kool-aid.

Yeah I'd be willing to bet open flame on pretty much any smartphone screen is going to cause damage. I get around that by not lighting my phone on fire.

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

#373

Post by hackernewds »

NettleBurr wrote: post #28

>Apple on Wednesday appeared to have blocked what Beeper described as "~5% of Beeper Mini users" from accessing iMessages >Apple previously issued a (somewhat uncommon) statement about Beeper's iMessage access, stating that it "took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage." Citing privacy, security, and spam concerns, Apple stated it would "c…

block 5% for experimentation data to observe whether it's net viable for their metrics to allow cross-pollinating the users finally

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

#374

Post by rezonant »

turquoisevar wrote: post #363
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…

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.

Well they could block the client itself, independent of blocking the Apple ID. It's the client that sends the serial information. Your Apple ID only gets associated with it indirectly.

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

#375

Post by ToucanLoucan »

skeaker wrote: post #240
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android users have been banging this drum about the iPhone supremacists for an actual decade at this point and it so, so goddamn tiring. I buy iPhones for a number of reasons: - Ecosystem which has been explained at length so often you'd have to have your head under a rock to not know what it means - Ease of transfer of data between phones/tablets and replacements, along with constant sync - Excellent build quality -…

What makes your anecdote more valuable than GP's? You may not know anyone who does the "snobby conformist" act, but GP does. Why should I care that you haven't experienced it when someone who actually has experienced it tells me so? Moreover, since you admit those people exist, why wouldn't you support interoperability between iMessage and other platforms? It would only benefit you as a user since it would allow you…

> What makes your anecdote more valuable than GP's? You may not know anyone who does the "snobby conformist" act, but GP does. Why should I care that you haven't experienced it when someone who actually has experienced it tells me so?

Arguably you should care about neither then.

> Moreover, since you admit those people exist, why wouldn't you support interoperability between iMessage and other platforms?

There is interoperability. SMS texting is built into the same app. No, you don't get reactions... because that's not supported on SMS. No, you don't get replies for the same reason. However everything that is possible in the SMS standard is implemented in Messages completely normally, the sole difference being the chat color, and personally I'm fine with that because it lets me know immediately that Messages only features are going to be a no-go for this particular conversation.

> Where is your defensiveness coming from?

Implicit in the notion that iPhones are merely fashion accessories is that those who buy them are foolish. You're free to say I'm getting defensive, I wouldn't say you're entirely wrong. But if you really want to talk anecdotes, I have pages upon pages I could write of various experiences of having my credentials as an network engineer questioned because I don't have an android device or that I prefer a Mac computer.

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

#376

Post by rezonant »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #370
dylan604 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What about when the hardware is legitimately sold and reset and a new Apple ID starts using it?

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

#377

Post by rpmisms »

JoblessWonder wrote: post #122

As I mentioned in the previous discussion[1], users are going to have to put up with the system going down... and I just don't see that happening. From the article: "It was losing messages during the outage and never being entirely certain they had been sent or received. There was a gathering on Saturday, and she had to double-check with a couple people about the details after showing up inadvertently early at the wr…

Doesn't bother me at all. I'm ok with losing a text or two to help bring regulatory pressure against Apple to un-wall the garden so I can use it again.

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

#378

Post by lolinder »

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…

> They can certainly escalate with protocol changes, but they still have to contend with older Macs, iPhones and iPads which are out of the support window losing access

This is what people were saying before Apple cut Beeper off the first time. It would be great if there was just one mistake that they made and fixed, but I'm not holding my breath.

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

#379

Post by mastazi »

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.

> on a purely technical game of cat and mouse

based on the history of tech-related cat and mouse games, then Apple will probably lose.

Just like Sony could not prevent people from pirating Playstation DVDs, Apple itself could not prevent iOS jailbreaks, music labels could not prevent CD ripping, etc etc etc

if there are enough people who are strongly motivated to bypass whatever protection, eventually they will probably bypass it.

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

#380

Post by refulgentis »

joshmanders wrote: post #60
dataangel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not entitled, it's pushing back against a gigantic company exploiting network effects to create user lock-in, because that's easier than competing on the merit of your products.

Now apply this logic to any other company product, maybe even your own or the company you work for and tell me if this sounds as ridiculous to you as it does me.

I'm curious, before (and even while!) they do their assigned thought exercises, would you mind explaining to the rest of us how ridiculous it is?
Post reply on HN