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“It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

android.com

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Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#931

Post by smoldesu »

paganel wrote: post #924
JimDabell wrote: post #914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It turns out I cannot "reload" any of those offloaded apps if any one of them doesn't support my iOS version anymore. You can – unless the application publisher decides to disable this. It sounds like Facebook disabled your ability to install an older version of WhatsApp that supports the version of iOS you are running. All it would take for this to work for you is for somebody at Facebook to tick a single box that…

Got it. So it’s a shared blame between Apple de facto uninstalling one of the few installed apps I was using on a regular basis and FB not allowing their app to run on iOS versions that are approaching their estimated end-of-life. Not sure how that helps users like me, but had you told me 20+ years ago that this was going to be “the state of the art” when it comes to app management (by two of the biggest tech compani…

Apple (like Google) gets to decide what the pain points are in their ecosystem, so likewise they also get to peddle the solution.

"Want to sideload apps? No problem, just pay us $99/year for temporary installation privileges!"

"Want to sell your app? Here, just give us 30% of your proceeds."

"Running out of storage? Here's a red-dot notification in your Settings app begging you to pay for iCloud."

I don't think any of these companies will (or should) get out of this antitrust litigation unscathed. The amount of control all of these platform-holders exert is unreasonable, and unless the government steps in we're helpless to stop it.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#932

Post by hot_gril »

baby wrote: post #837
hot_gril wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what the words mean, but I don't know what the ends are doing. Facebook practically controls either end, unless users are reverse-engineering. I also don't know what the middle is doing. Client still trusts the server to give the correct identity aka pubkey for the other clients. Server could give its own and mitm, like a corrupt root CA for TLS. Yes this requires more deliberate action on FB's part, so it's a…

No the middle is not trusted, that’s the whole point of end to end encryption. Users can check security keys. Also yes some people are reverse engineering clients. If you’re claiming that the whatsapp clients are backdoored and faking the end to end encryption claim that would be a pretty big news

The middle is trusted for the identity exchange and not afterwards. This is fundamental and has nothing to do with what protocol is used. If you explain to me an e2ee messaging protocol with a centralized server that you think is trustless, I can always show you a leap of faith in there.

The first time your client messages another on WhatsApp, it knows nothing other than the phone number and has to somehow go through WhatsApp to exchange keys with the other client. WhatsApp can simply fake that entire exchange. Now, WhatsApp also lets you physically visit another user and scan a QR code to verify the identity out-of-band, which escapes that "centralized server" limitation I mentioned, but few use that feature. Compare this to how HTTPS works; you trust the certificate authority unless you gather the certs yourself.

I doubt the clients are backdoored to defeat the encryption, but idk what advertising metrics they're sending or what might change in the future.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#933

Post by hot_gril »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #898
xcskier56 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will agree that one of the few places that the imperial system is hands down better than metric is that on the highway it's roughly 1 mile per minute. That and it's just barely possible to run a mile in under 4 minutes, so makes for a nice clean time barrier. But these are just coincidences and are the exception not the rule

IMO the imperial system is full of these coincidences, and if you look at history, you can see how they emerged: from historical people changing the size of the units until they had enough useful coincidences. A mile is about 1000 steps for a marching army, about 20 minutes of walking, or about 1 minute by car. Comfortable Farenheit temperatures roughly run from 0 to 100. A foot is about the length of a foot or a for…

Yeah, the only thing human-centric about metric is using the same base as the number of fingers most people have.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#934

Post by dcow »

altairprime wrote: post #895
dcow wrote: post #822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. No, you don't need device IDs to stop spammers. 2. I don't think you know what you're talking about. Android supports the device attestation: https://source.android.com/security/keystore/attestation > ID attestation allows the device to provide proof of its hardware identifiers, such as serial number or IMEI. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-bweeks-acme-device-at... It feels like you've concocted some narrat…

Okay, I’ll assume you’re right, which considerably worsens the case for RCS: Google could have given us device-signed messaging with RCS, so that users and carriers could block devices for spamming regardless of the source address. Google didn’t . They had the power to do so in RCS using their own APIs, and yet they chose not to offer an effective protection. How is this failure by Google a selling point for RCS? Why…

Maybe your hypothesis that device attestation is the answer to spam is just… wrong?

Maybe Google doesn't think you need device attestation to manage spam on a messaging platform. There are numerous examples of apps today that don’t suffer from spam and don’t use device attestation. And there are examples of spam on iMessage.

Furthermore, I can already receive messages on my iPhone from non-iMessage users so I don’t even understand how any of what you’re saying makes sense in the first place. RCS is a protocol (not a platform) that would make the experience of receiving those messages better. It does not add some new attack vector for spammers.

Have you tried using a device with an RCS messenger app and been plagued with spam more-so than on iPhone? I switch between devices all the time and have not noticed any difference.

It’s not about spam. It’s about Apple playing lazy/dirty. Hence the OP.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#935

Post by sneak »

giantrobot wrote: post #889
sneak wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disabling syncing of Messages with iCloud closes this hole. It does not. The people you iMessage with still have it turned on, because it is on by default, and Apple will get it from those devices instead.

Which is the same as any other E2EE system. Your OpSec is only as good as the worst OpSec as whoever you communicate with. Pretending this is an Apple issue is absurd.

This is also false! Signal stores messages and keys in iOS storage classes that do not leave the device and are not included in backups.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#936

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gambiting wrote: post #901
GekkePrutser wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that uses MMS which many networks here (Europe) don't support anymore, or they charge a hefty fee (even though big SMS bundles are still a thing here). Especially for international use. I didn't realise it was still used in the US though. MMS definitely doesn't work on my phone, though I'm not sure if this is a provisioning/settings thing or that the provider has abandoned it. I never really looked into it as I'v…

I send international MMSes from my phone(android) to my mum's iphone, from UK to Poland, and it seems to work fine. Hasn't bankrupted me yet either(I just checked and it's apparently 30 pence per text).

MMS are 50p for me, that too much to use in the same way SMS are used.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#937

Post by CharlesW »

superchink wrote: post #736
CharlesW wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with moving groups over to iMessage is that you'll always leave some Android users out. I'm on several text chains with a mix of iOS and Android users. It works fine.

I think maybe your idea of “fine” differs from mine. It is a much worse experience than iMessage. 1. No threading is supported. If you reply, it duplicates the message being replied to. 2. “Tapbacks” (reactions) duplicate the message being reacted to with “so-and-so likes message … message” 3. Photos are reduced to a size that fits in MMS (very low quality) 4. Videos look like postage stamps 5. The chat cannot be ren…

We can disagree and still be friends.

> 1. No threading is supported. If you reply, it duplicates the message being replied to.

Threading (using "Reply") is not supported in mixed iMessage/SMS/MMS text chains. (I'm using iOS 16, so this may have been (unwisely) supported in earlier Message versions.)

> 2. “Tapbacks” (reactions) duplicate the message being reacted to with “so-and-so likes message … message”

You can now see iPhone tapbacks on Android phones in Google Messages. I'm not sure if it's on defaultly yet. https://www.macworld.com/article/610908/google-messages-andr...

The other things you list are limitations and side-effects of the standards used. They're valid, but I consider the experience "fine" without them. If the groups I text with cared about these we would probably use WhatsApp since everyone has that. Signal would be my preference, but it's hard to change people's habits.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#938

Post by hot_gril »

KaiserPro wrote: post #857
RussianCow wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US market standardized on mobile plans with unlimited texting a long, long time ago, so I think this caused people to mostly stick to SMS/MMS for communication since it was the path of least resistance. I don't know what the situation in Europe is like now, but in the past I remember it being difficult to find plans without very small SMS caps when traveling. That could be why Europeans naturally gravitated towar…

I still don't understand how SMS took off in the US. for a long time you had to pay to receive texts, which is madness. given that undercurrent of expense, I'm still not sure why the US hasn't moved to whatsapp/signal/other. The only thing I can think of is that mobile data is even more expensive.

When you had to pay to receive SMS, WhatsApp didn't exist. Your only other options were more cumbersome things like email and AIM, which still required paying for a phone internet plan and having a capable phone.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#939

Post by hot_gril »

angio wrote: post #266
RussianCow wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US market standardized on mobile plans with unlimited texting a long, long time ago, so I think this caused people to mostly stick to SMS/MMS for communication since it was the path of least resistance. I don't know what the situation in Europe is like now, but in the past I remember it being difficult to find plans without very small SMS caps when traveling. That could be why Europeans naturally gravitated towar…

Unlimited SMS plans have been a thing in western europe for the past 15 years, at least. People switched to whatsapp because you can send pictures, not only text.

When people in America want to send pictures without both ends having iMessage, they either use MMS (aka "text it to me") or share them some other way.

Re: “It’s time for Apple to fix texting”

#940

Post by hot_gril »

leokennis wrote: post #850
ivoras wrote: post #205

This is a US thing, right? Haven't received an SMS from a real person (in other words, all SMSes I get are 2FA etc) for, at least 5 years, maybe 10. Even people who use iPhones don't send SMSes, MMSes or anything as obsolete (including RCS). Everyone just seems to use WhatsApp and Telegram (or if they don't know any better, Viber). Locale: Central Europe. So, why would anyone stick to the obsolete stuff? Are there re…

Want to reply on: > Everyone just seems to use WhatsApp and Telegram (or if they don't know any better, Viber). To remark that Telegram by default is not E2E encrypted, you need to explicitly start a "secret chat". And group chats are not encrypted as well. And when you start a secret chat it uses Telegrams "probably maybe secure, but possibly not because it's a non-standard in house built" encryption scheme with wei…

And they rolled their own crypto.
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