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New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

blog.beeper.com

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Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#71

Post by brianjking »

erohead wrote: post #35
mcsniff wrote: post #12

I want to use Beeper, but funneling all my communications through hosted bridges (especially so Signal) is gonna be a nope, until they release more very deep technical and verifiable information about how on-device bridges work. I'm big on unified messaging from the libpurple days, but now 99% of my chats are in Signal so perhaps I am just not the target demographic for this.

On-device bridging works like this https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works . We'll put together a full technical deep dive for the real launch, this is just an open beta. Our signal bridge code is open source: https://github.com/mautrix/signal You don't have to use our hosted bridges, we've made it ridiculously easy to self host: https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager

Will the new Beeper app gain support for Fitbit as the "Messaging" app? Before I could select Beeper, Google Messages, or WhatsApp. The new app isn't recognized by Fitbit as an SMS messaging app.

Is there still plans for supporting multiple G Apps accounts?

Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#73

Post by thatloststudent »

erohead wrote: post #35
mcsniff wrote: post #12

I want to use Beeper, but funneling all my communications through hosted bridges (especially so Signal) is gonna be a nope, until they release more very deep technical and verifiable information about how on-device bridges work. I'm big on unified messaging from the libpurple days, but now 99% of my chats are in Signal so perhaps I am just not the target demographic for this.

On-device bridging works like this https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works . We'll put together a full technical deep dive for the real launch, this is just an open beta. Our signal bridge code is open source: https://github.com/mautrix/signal You don't have to use our hosted bridges, we've made it ridiculously easy to self host: https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager

Isn't mautrix/signal supposed to work on the cloud? Or is there some work that has been done to make it work on the phone?

Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#74

Post by thatloststudent »

notso411 wrote: post #66
zufallsheld wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'd really like to do (and the poster you responded to) is to connect your app to my own self-hosted matrix-server.

Genuine question. Why do you do this?

Not the OP, but the beeper client looks better and has native GIF support, among other niceties that more "normal" users would prefer over other clients.

Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#75

Post by wkat4242 »

thatloststudent wrote: post #70
wkat4242 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beeper is already a paid product at $10 per month, see beeper.com

Used to be that way, they decided to give it out for free for the time being. [1] [1] - https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-is-now-free

Oops thanks. Should have checked my link but it feels like I only looked at it a couple months ago.

Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#76

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

erohead wrote: post #35
mcsniff wrote: post #12

I want to use Beeper, but funneling all my communications through hosted bridges (especially so Signal) is gonna be a nope, until they release more very deep technical and verifiable information about how on-device bridges work. I'm big on unified messaging from the libpurple days, but now 99% of my chats are in Signal so perhaps I am just not the target demographic for this.

On-device bridging works like this https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works . We'll put together a full technical deep dive for the real launch, this is just an open beta. Our signal bridge code is open source: https://github.com/mautrix/signal You don't have to use our hosted bridges, we've made it ridiculously easy to self host: https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager

Wait a minute. How does on device bridge work? Say WhatsApp?

Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#77

Post by ChainOfFools »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #63
ChainOfFools wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember? Pidgin is still a core piece of infrastructure in our company's managed services platform, and not for lack of interest "upgrading" but because it's just exactly the right tool for the job for certain kinds of internal company messaging, with self-hosted XMPP. Completely defining your own secure perimeter by self hosting everything possible makes for extremely perfunctory audits by regulatory bodies for the…

Is there a good way to get google chat/hangouts/whateveritscallednow into pidgin? It used to support xmpp, but it doesn't anymore :/

Sorry, can't help there. Although I'm not entirely sure if I understand what you're asking properly, because pigeons certainly does support xmpp, in fact it's the only thing it really supports quite well as far as I'm aware. Its these other services that either don't use XMPP or don't use it (or any open standard protocol) any more.

We only use Pidgin for native XMPP intra-org chat via self-hosted, AD-integrated private servers, a role which it has served remarkably well up to our largest client site of about 300 users or so. For phones, we support Xabber or Conversations but all BYOD usage comes with mandatory wireguard wrapping. We don't have much occasion to experiment with Pidgin's multi-protocol functionality, as our clients typically have little incentive to facilitate and support internet-facing chat capabilities.

Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#78

Post by lrvick »

batuhanicoz wrote: post #47
lrvick wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beeper at least has source code for the bridges, which you can have some hope is the same code that they run and that they don't get court orders to look at the messages. If they ever chose to implement remote attestation for bridges, and you chose to use an open source matrix client to control your local keys, there is at least a potential path for you to prove they can't look at messages so you don't have to trust…

Our code isn't open source but when you are using Texts, you are self-hosting it. It runs completely on your device!

So you tell user devices to run any code of your choosing, and no one but you is allowed to look at that code. Presumably you do not use reproducible builds, because almost no one does, so the choice of which code runs on user devices likely comes down to a single system administrator or release engineer.

A court order or someone holding a rubber hose could instruct that release engineer to ship tweaked code to any number of devices that sets "42" as the random seed for private keys, allowing anyone with that knowledge to decrypt all messages in transit covertly.

It would be in the best interest of your shareholders to lie if this was ever to happen.

Without the code being open source, everyone should assume this is the case.

Messengers are a massive target, and a target of that size on one person is certain to be exploited.

One of core areas of my research is supply chain attacks, and you have no hope of providing strong defense against them without open source reproducible builds.

Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#79

Post by noahtallen »

xniclb wrote: post #61
batuhanicoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our code isn't open source but when you are using Texts, you are self-hosting it. It runs completely on your device!

[flagged]

most software available is not open source. Any app you download from the iOS App Store might not even match what an entity claims to be its open source repository. Any app or service with a backend of any sort that you don’t host is not auditable by you.

Self hosting is fantastic, but it is 100% not common and especially not something most people are interested in setting up. So your framing that this is objectively terrible either applies to nearly the entire software industry or isn’t a fair framing.

Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

#80

Post by batuhanicoz »

lrvick wrote: post #78
batuhanicoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our code isn't open source but when you are using Texts, you are self-hosting it. It runs completely on your device!

So you tell user devices to run any code of your choosing, and no one but you is allowed to look at that code. Presumably you do not use reproducible builds, because almost no one does, so the choice of which code runs on user devices likely comes down to a single system administrator or release engineer. A court order or someone holding a rubber hose could instruct that release engineer to ship tweaked code to any n…

I agree that open source is very important — it’s one of the core values here at Automattic, where we have a long track record of open sourcing our products and vast majority of what we make is already open source.

Texts connects directly to the platform, from your device, without using any Texts servers having any access to your messages (even in encrypted form) and without breaking the E2EE the platform provides (for platforms that support that), similar to Beeper’s new Signal integration.

A major benefit of this is you can verify what requests are made and what responses are received. You can also use Texts, not upgrade, and would run the same WhatsApp code for example until you upgrade. Same can’t be said for WhatsApp Web for example. It might also be easier to compromise the platform themselves for a government entity, if that’s our threat factor.

It should go without saying we take user privacy and security very seriously, and have restrictions around who can build, sign and distribute our binaries.

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