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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

#501

Post by realusername »

HenryBemis wrote: post #480
flomo wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem hard, people like your father can be allow-listed, he's not signing-up out of the blue. (I'm wondering if this "works" because the early adopters were hackintosh types who were already on imessage and not abusers. When the H3rb8l V18gr8 crowd shows up, that is the end.)

Now then.. if I am a professional spammer (which I am not), what stops me from buying a second hand mac or a second hand iphone (for $150 each) and start 'doing business' with iMessage? Unless it's an issue of 'iPhones can't be JB-ed like Androids can be rooted to run all shorts of malware/spamming softwares'. I get Apple's "this is our toy, you won't be making $2/month/user on us". But "keeping the spammers out" it'…

> what stops me from buying a second hand mac or a second hand iphone (for $150 each) and start 'doing business' with iMessage?

Nothing, that's why iMessage is full of spam already.

What scammers do is buying boxes of old half broken iphones and they turn them into relays exactly as you said.

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

#502

Post by kuschku »

paulmd wrote: post #86
quartesixte wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also entirely USA centric and a byproduct of everyone sticking to SMS-phone number systems to chat. It drives me nuts. WhatsApp. WeChat. Line. Kakao. Facebook Messenger. Most of the world has switched to these dedicated apps. Only glimmer of hope is that gen-z/gen-alpha is really into Discord (at least all the ones I know). Might finally bring down the iMessage group chats.

Discord is actually an interesting analogy because they share apple’s overall philosophy here. Discord doesn’t absolutely firewall themselves with attestation/etc but they will absolutely ban you for using alternative clients like Discord Advanced if they notice you behaving differently from an official client on the API. Some of the things the discord advanced client can do like animated smilies or cross-server smil…

And that's also why Beeper supports Discord in their primary product (see https://www.beeper.com/cloud#w-node-_2123a13e-0a0b-7de3-82e5... )

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

#503

Post by ldarby »

stouset wrote: post #137
josephcsible wrote: post #126

When Ma Bell didn't let people use third-party phones with their service, the government made them change their ways. Why is the government letting Apple get away with the equivalent?

Ma Bell had a monopoly. This is one messaging app on one brand of phone. Nothing stops you from using another phone, or multiple or other messaging apps. And messaging apps aren’t restricted by a “default” in quite the same way a web browser is. I have friends on WhatsApp and Signal and Instagram and I message them all without any appreciable difference in effort.

>. Nothing stops you from using another phone,

Do you realise phones cost money and not everyone can afford an iPhone?

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

#504

Post by lgbr »

unsigner wrote: post #479

These comments mention spam a lot as a reason to stick with iMessage. What kind of spam are people (presumably in the US) getting outside of iMessage? I’m in the EU, I get very little SMS spam (mostly for telecom’s clumsy attempts to find more ways to monetize me). I also have Viber, Telegram, and FB messenger, and the spam is virtually zero on Viber (less than an “offer” a month, and it’s from the likes of Coca Cola…

I don't have hard numbers, but I can say that spam on both sides of the ocean exist. In the US, we get a lot of SMS spam targeted at homeowners, pestering them about selling their property, since there's a lot of open data about property ownership. In Germany, there's frequently spam pretending to be one of the major shipping companies (DHL for example) or the local customs office (Zoll) saying you have a package that couldn't be delivered and to click on a link. I've found the source for this data to be customer data leaks.

So yes, spam is a serious concern. WhatsApp spam exists as well, but since there's a central authority, unlike with SMS, it's a lot harder to avoid being shutdown.

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

#505

Post by CaptainFever »

mngdtt wrote: post #279
beeboobaa wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple could also push out an update tomorrow that would end this once and for all by utilizing device attestation and leveraging Secure Enclave More proof that Remote Attestation is evil and does not exist to serve the user.

As a user, I am very well served by remote attestation when it is used to stop cheaters in videogames or spammers in messaging platforms.

iMessage already has a spam problem, even with attestation.

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

#506

Post by Grustaf »

realusername wrote: post #501
HenryBemis wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now then.. if I am a professional spammer (which I am not), what stops me from buying a second hand mac or a second hand iphone (for $150 each) and start 'doing business' with iMessage? Unless it's an issue of 'iPhones can't be JB-ed like Androids can be rooted to run all shorts of malware/spamming softwares'. I get Apple's "this is our toy, you won't be making $2/month/user on us". But "keeping the spammers out" it'…

> what stops me from buying a second hand mac or a second hand iphone (for $150 each) and start 'doing business' with iMessage? Nothing, that's why iMessage is full of spam already. What scammers do is buying boxes of old half broken iphones and they turn them into relays exactly as you said.

I have never received a single spam message through iMessage, but regardless. If they have to keep buying new phones all the time as they get blacklisted, in order to keep spamming, the economics of spamming changes.

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

#507

Post by Grustaf »

vintermann wrote: post #478
StressedDev wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a problem? I seriously doubt many people are going to leave someone out because they use an Android phone. I certainly won't because I like communicating with people and people are far more important than technology.

That's nice of you, but by all accounts from the US (where iphone is dominant): Yes, it's a problem. The visual marking and decreased integration/service towards users of non-iphones is pretty obviously part of why Apple has such a big phone market share in the US - if not, they wouldn't fight tooth and nail to keep those anti-features. There's plenty of examples of Apple being quite open and friendly to integration…

It’s not just about market share. In Scandinavia about 90% of middle class people use iphones, but this whole blue-green bubble nonsense is a total non-issue. We have group chats in whatsapp, fb messages or sms, nobody cares.

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

#508

Post by rezonant »

j16sdiz wrote: post #463
rezonant wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, if you break your iPhone on vacation and buy a phone that is not an iPhone so that you can still be contacted until you get home to your favorite Apple Store, you are also losing messages, assuming you forget to go through Apple's iMessage deregistration system. Really the design of iMessage is the problem.

Don't need to go to Apple store. It is self-seviced https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/

No the idea is that you forgot to deregister yourself while still on vacation and using a non-iPhone, the Apple Store bit was the "get a new iPhone" part after your vacation is over.

And what you link to is what I meant by

> assuming you forget to go through Apple's iMessage deregistration system.

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

#509

Post by danpalmer »

zem wrote: post #399
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…

i believe that thus far it's a win for apple - all they need to do is introduce the perception that beeper is not 100% reliable, which is the kiss of death for something as potentially important as a messaging service.

This could easily backfire. Given the blue bubbles it's not possible to know if you're talking to an Android user, which means from the iOS user's perspective, iMessage is just less reliable.

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

#510

Post by vintermann »

Grustaf wrote: post #507
vintermann wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nice of you, but by all accounts from the US (where iphone is dominant): Yes, it's a problem. The visual marking and decreased integration/service towards users of non-iphones is pretty obviously part of why Apple has such a big phone market share in the US - if not, they wouldn't fight tooth and nail to keep those anti-features. There's plenty of examples of Apple being quite open and friendly to integration…

It’s not just about market share. In Scandinavia about 90% of middle class people use iphones, but this whole blue-green bubble nonsense is a total non-issue. We have group chats in whatsapp, fb messages or sms, nobody cares.

> In Scandinavia about 90% of middle class people use iphones

Whoa, citation needed there. I don't use one, and most people I know don't use one.

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