Senator Warren calls out Apple for shutting down Beeper’s ‘iMessage to Android’ solution::U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is throwing her weight behind Beeper, the app that allowed Android users to message iPhone users via iMessage,
What’s the point of asking questions when this community just downvotes? Why even have a forum if it’s only use is to.upvote things that agree with your pre established opinions?
I’m having a brain fart, what movie is this from again? I remember the scene but can’t remember the movie
I, Robot
Your primary contribution to this conversation is to bitch about how no one engages with you? I see users responding to you but then all you are responding back with is editing your comment to say “thanks for answering”? Idk man… maybe it’s your approach to dialogue. Being super dismissive and retaliatory tends to bring downvotes.
I had asked the same question and was downvoted to -10 before I deleted it and reposted it. It’s an issue I’ve been seeing in this community growing for a while now, so yeah I’m gonna bitch when this place starts turning into reddit.
Oh I see. Didn’t realize you’d already deleted it. Anyway, best of luck; I think you bring up valid complaints but idk why the vitriol. This crowd is much less annoying than what’s found in some similar forums. Don’t let the downvotes bother you too much.
It’s not so much me being upset at fake internet points than it is at me being upset that I’ve been seeing how this place has changed since I joined, and it’s super easy for a place like this to become an echo chamber, especially when people are just asking questions. Genuine discussion is drowned out by people treating the vote system like Facebook likes
I wanted out of reddit long before the fiasco, and whenni got here it was way different than it’s starting to become
Very much with you on that stance. However, this “bubble battle” is very much an echo chamber scenario, regardless where it’s discussed.
Heck, let me just ask you directly: why does Apple maintain such a divisive stance on the subject?
I haven’t gotten much (on several forums) regarding that question, more than “they choose too”.
My only guess is that they developed a proprietary system and as a business want to maintain control of their proprietary system as one of the selling points to their hardware ecosystem. It makes them money, and a business in a capitalist market, they want to keep their competitive edge.
Which, honestly, I get. Imagine you created something (and note, not invented) and someone decides you should be forced to share it simply because it sells better than what the other guys have.
My only argument against this is that there already are internet based end to end encryption messaging systems in place, both private and FOSS. It’s not like Apple has a monopoly on this type of technology or system.
Yes but imagine in an established system, let’s use the US mail as an example, I create a stamp that meets the criteria of postage stamps but also (somehow; after all it is proprietary) requires the opening of the mailed parcel to be contingent upon something like watching an ad, or “signing in” unless you have a subscription at my fancy new parcel stamp company…
I would imagine that most of us would not want to simply “accept this new ecosystem” and would struggle with legitimizing it.
The sunken cost fallacy comes to mind; as those who have “subscribed” to such a business model don’t perceive themselves as inconvenienced… And only when comparing themselves to those who aren’t subscribed could they even know the shady business model even exists!
In the end, it feels like Apple is intentionally creating systemic division so that it’s customer base feels like they are a part of something exclusive (even if said exclusive content/system doesn’t appear to serve them in any way other than “feeling exclusive”).
Apple could very easily mitigate the echo chamber they have created. But they created it to serve the Apple shareholders, alone.
No?
It’s an issue I’ve been seeing
in this community growingon the internet for a while now, so yeah I’m gonna bitch when this place starts turning intoredditthe internet.There, fixed.
It’s the internet, grow some thicker skin, or figure out how to interface with your fellow netizens differently.
Imagine if most people had this shitty attitude. Nothing would ever change.
Mmhmm. 40+ years of online communities and nobody has figured it out at scale yet? Maybe because there will always be assholes.
It’s less resource intensive to tolerate a certain amount of assholery, rather than rule with an iron fist to the detriment of everyone else (false positives, reporting-system abuse, etc).
That’s where my suggestion above comes from, a realist perspective. Go ahead and ask the mods here how difficult it is to effect the “change” you’ve invoked.
Did Beeper clear its usage of the iMessage platform with Apple? Sign a contract? Get an SLA agreement with Apple in writing?
I was under the impression that they found essentially a back door/work around to latch into the iMessage platform… in that case this is no different than Cisco patching some routers or MS fixing a security hole. If anything I’d be more annoyed that Apple didn’t patch it quicker.
I’d love to be able to use iMessage with my android friends, but Beeper’s methods seemed sketchy as hell.
in that case this is no different than Cisco patching some routers or MS fixing a security hole. If anything I’d be more annoyed that Apple didn’t patch it quicker.
Beeper didn’t find a security hole, nothing was compromised for Apple.
Just the opposite. Apple forced people to text unencrypted with Android users, to monetize the blue-bubble ostracization effect, and this company found a way for people to turn encryption on between the two platforms.
Everyone taking Apple at their word is falling for it, Apple can’t name a single security reason to kill Beeper Mini support.
While it’s not mostly about security, and I generally agree that Apple’s dickitry with regard to iMessage should end (they’d be doing a solid in the US to just release an Android client and monetize via sticker packs or something like it) there is most certainly a security risk for Apple to allow a reverse-engineering of their spec to spoof real iPhones, which is how Beeper works.:
pypush is a POC demo of my recent iMessage reverse-engineering. It can currently register as a new device on an Apple ID, set up encryption keys, and send and receive iMessages!
Now, your quote and the others in this thread:
Beeper didn’t find a security hole, nothing was compromised for Apple.
They sure as fuck did, lol. iMessage isn’t public, it’s not intended to be used by anyone other than Apple, and the bandwidth and servers are not free. Its not as if every iMessage isn’t going through Apple’s servers, they’re paying for it. Though they didn’t find a technical hole like a zero day or compromise iMessage for customers, they absolutely found a security concern for Apple. If you walk in to your house, find your neighbor there grabbing a couple of eggs out of the fridge and they hand wave away and say “don’t worry I didn’t break a window, I just figured out you keep a spare key under the mat and also I’m going to use these to make cookies for the block party and I’m not going to charge a lot for them and only you have these eggs from your chicken you’re hogging them!” you’d kick them out in a hurry and probably call the cops.
So two things:
- We can absolutely be mad at Apple for the lock in effect of iMessage, there were some leaked emails a while ago that confirm what we all know, this is just there to prevent buying your kid a cheap android phone. Personally, I think if Apple was serious about keeping their customers secure, they’d either release an Android client or better, just make sure that the minimum spec for RCS supports E2EE for wide adoption. They can still have a more robust platform with iMessage, and it’s still going to integrate with Apple shit in a way that only they could do.
- Anyone, anywhere, who thought that this was a viable business for Beeper has lost their fucking minds. Their model was basically “trust me bro, we’re going to socially pressure Apple and that’s going to totally work” and while it sounds like they’re back up for now, it will be extremely surprising if it stays that way longer than another week or two. It would be akin to someone launching a business being like “well, we didn’t hack Microsoft/Google/Facebook, but we’re planning on hosting a bajillion users on their backend for free without their approval.”
It was an exploit that mimicked the device as apple hardware, but it wasent sketchy. Everything was still e2ee, with beeper having no access to any data.
It was the exact opposite of what the Nothing “middleman” did that was actually sketchy.
It was an exploit
…
but it wasent sketchy
Ah yes, businesses based on exploits. Very not sketchy.
It wasent a bug in software. As I understand it, they cloned an apple hardware ID.
They basically put on an “Im an apple!” mask and then used iMessage as expected. While an “exploit” it is not inherently a security issue.
Ah yes, businesses based on exploits. Very not sketchy.
Enabling interoperability in purposely walled gardens for the overall greater good of the Internet? Sounds like some good ol’ hackers spirit to me. If they make a few bucks while they do it, even better.
Yall realize youre on a tiny, open source network right now that employs the same kind of scrappy “do the right thing because it’s right” ethos, yeah? That at some point beeper might be a bridge to things like direct mastadon/iMessage/messenger/whatsapp/matrix compatibility?
Im rooting for them to keep it up.
I think you’re conflating two different things when it comes to my comment. While I can agree in spirit, and were someone to release a FOSS version of this that did the same thing, I’d go right along with you on the whole “hacker spirit” thing (like the kid who wrote the original exploit and put it up for free on GitHub), but that’s not what is happening here. This:
Enabling interoperability in purposely walled gardens for the overall greater good of the Internet?
is not what’s happening, this is Beeper just trying to make money basically selling fake ID’s so you can get into the club, and the whole “uwu I’m a wittle startup don’t hurt me Apple” is just marketing spin for what I have to imagine was the rather insane assumption on the part of Beeper that they thought they found something that was unpatchable, and/or that they could somehow publicly pressure Apple to not sue them out of existence for what is potentially a crime (laws against hacking usually don’t give a shit about the method you use to breech a system, just whether that use is authorized which this is clearly not.) Apple has reasonable claim to financial damage as well, since Beeper is using Apple’s servers/bandwidth without approval or compensation. Charitably, Beeper might be hoping that this gets the attention of regulators and they’ll legislate opening it up, but that ship has sailed in the EU, and the legal argument for doing it in the states is “we don’t like green bubbles” so I wouldn’t hold my breath, and even then assuming there is a will in the legislature to do this, I have a hard time seeing how Beeper stays funded long enough to see that law pass.
Anyway, I am not saying this because I personally don’t want to see iMessage on Android (realistically I’d like the RCS standards body to get their head out of their asses and relegate iMessage and the various Facebook messengers to irrelevance) what I am saying is that Beeper trying to pretend to be a real business is laughable. Like, this is the type of product I would expect to buy in an alternate App Store with bitcoin or something, not something I would expect a real business to release on purpose with all of the fanfare and 100k’s of downloads. It’s the technical equivalent of putting up a stand in front of Costco advertising that you’re going to print and sell fake cards so you can get into Costco, and you’re going to do that by plugging your printer setup into Costco’s power to do it. oh, and then when Costco cuts off power, you run an extension cord over to a different outlet. Like, you can argue that you think Costco should do away with membership, but we all see what an insane business plan that would be, right?
edit: This is a really good article from the Verge on the whole thing, but I’m afraid it’s more nuanced than “Apple BAD!” so ymmv.
Finally, some sanity. Just because it’s apple, doesn’t mean it’s okay to build a business model on piggybacking off their service. I know “apple bad” but I don’t get why people are defending Beeper.
I’ve only heard this particular stance from iPhone users.
Apple has done a stellar job propagandizing their brand as the “Good guys… just looking out for their customer’s best interests, is all”.
No evidence for this take whatsoever; it’s just naked, gullible brand loyalty.
Kind of an amazing phenomenon, if it weren’t so sad.
I’ve got both. iOS for work, android for personal use. I’m in DevSecOps and therefore tend to see everything from this sort of mindset. Apple didn’t make a deal with them, they don’t have an open standard. It’s proprietary, it’s locked down. Why would any company with that sort of a product allow another company to interface with their offerings without paying for it? Even if it’s nice and secure, this will add load to the iMessage servers that people aren’t paying Apple for. It could introduce errors/issues they never tested for because they have a closed ecosystem and only have to test with their own devices, a known quantity. It could even increase potential attack vectors.
If you offered wifi to your friends via a guest network and then someone figured out how to connect their whole neighborhood to it, would you be fine with that?
Good points. But, and using your LAN comparison: if my wifi’s guest network used some custom method (let’s also consider it a proprietary method for the sake of comparison) to, A) impose an arbitrary limit of uploading files no larger than 100KB (and/or have the files heavily compressed to meet said limit) while B) offering no clear method of communication to the non-guest users why this limitation is occuring (or even exists)… I can imagine both guests and non-guests would quickly become irritated and start bickering among themselves as to whose fault this arbitrarily-imposed “local network file sharing problem” should be blamed on.
I don’t think it’s the guests fault for being arbitrarily limited. And I wish the non-guests could be told why the limitations are imposed.
Because no one behind a trillion dollar company should (in good faith, at least) concern themselves with restricting non-Apple, shareable files to be seen as “just slightly, technically accessible to Apple devices”.
These constraints are clearly imposed on Apple users (by no one but Apple) to alienate “non-privileged, non-Apple customers” (them) from the “privileged Apple customers” (us).
And Apple’s goal on “finding common ground” seems to be: do not negotiate with any proposed solutions as the division we are creating is intentional.
Exactly. And this (community reverse engineering / interoperability / bridging etc), isn’t something new, it’s existed ever since a messaging protocol became popular - remember Trillian, Miranda, etc? Whether proprietary or not, it didn’t matter - people were going to find a way to bridge the gap sooner or later. So for Apple to think that this was somehow exclusive to just iPhone users - and that it will stay that way - is a bit shortsighted.
If profit is what they were after, they could’ve just as easily made an official, secure API and charged for it. I’m sure there’s plenty of folks out there willing to pay for iMessage, given how many of them are buying used Mac Minis and iPhones to use as a relay. Apple’s shortsightedness is making them miss out on a business opportunity.
What’s the choice? Apple isn’t going to license it for all the tea in China.
It’s entirely different in that it was not a vulnerability or exploit of any kind and actually improved the security of Apple’s users.
I have such a love/hate relationship with my senator.
- She basically brought the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into existence, which helps TONS of people not get fucked over by banks and stuff
- Simultaneously, she tends to support corporatist stuff a frustrating amount of the time, and (similar to how Feinstein was, but not quite as bad) doesn’t really know what she’s talking about when it comes to tech and the nuances involved
Edit: to be clear, this isn’t me doing a “hail corporate” and saying Apple is categorically in the right here - simply that there are a LOT more technical complexities going on here than the (reductive) statement Warren made seems to indicate
Get the fuck out of here with your nuance. You have no business being on the internet.
/s (in case it isn’t obvious)
If it accessed the message system directly then it makes sense. They’re was one just before it that ran on Mac mini farms.
Beeper Mini registered your phone number with Apple and connected directly to the iMessage servers. That version was killed after three days of usage. The mac mini farm still works but that’s just through an apple ID email address.
I recall reading somewhere that you could register your number by putting your SIM card in some old iPhone and activating iMessage and your number gets linked to your Apple ID, once that’s done, you could power off the iPhone and put it back in your Android. Although there was some caveat like needing to repeat this process a few months(?) or something otherwise your number would drop off. Not sure if all of this is still valid though.
They’re was one just before it that ran on Mac mini farms.
Pretty much every other service ran on what I assume are MacOS VMs, because buying a $3k MacBook for every user would not make sense.
BlueBubbles, Sunbird, Beeper, etc.
Why should our government care about this? I’ve been on android for over a decade now, I have 0 interest in this imessage bullshit and I don’t understand why our government representatives care
What benefits are there to expanding this system? Why should they waste resources spending time on this?
Also this community would rather just downvote than actually have a discussion. Engage with me instead of downvoting me this time, stop downvoting things you disagree with, this isn’t reddit. I’m contributing to the conversation and you have an opportunity to explain the reasons behind this
Edit: thank you to all the people who took the time to answer my question
To make the phone and messaging market more competitive. It may not affect you but it does affect most android users.
Also maybe she has an android, idk
Messaging interoperability between the two major mobile platforms greatly affects communication for those of us who have friends and family on the other platform. Cross-platform messaging allows us to communicate no matter which platform the friend or family member happened to buy. Blocking this feature is anti-competitive and detrimental to communication.
The entire purpose of government is to help make society better for all of its members. Some government representatives may decide that ‘better for society’ would be to allow the corporation to maximize profit even if it harms the consumer. This particular politician believes that society would benefit from this interoperability and that the company may be overstepping anti-competitive monopoly boundaries by blocking it.
Whether you agree with the idea or not, and whether it affects you personally or not is immaterial. It affects society at large and the government is supposed to represent members of its society.
It’s nice that you either don’t use SMS or all of your family/friends are on Android, or you simply don’t have family/friends, but for the rest of us, we would like to send pictures to our grandma without her complaining that it’s pixelated and tiny because she has an iPhone. It has been frustrating for years, but now that a solution has been realized, it seems anti-competitive that one of the vendors is now trying to block the fix. Regardless, even if this fix remains blocked, we do have hope that iOS will get RCS in the near future.
Signal is great. E2ee multiplatform messaging. Everybody’s happy.
I love third party messaging apps. It’s quite a bit more difficult to get every single extended family member on board. 2nd cousin I see at a family reunion every year or two? “Hit me up some time! Just install this app on your phone first and sign up for an account!”
I’ll get on board with this one if all phone manufacturers start installing signal as their default messaging app.
It’s not a messaging thing it’s an anti-trust thing. And for all the times I agree with Warren, I think she’s wrong here.
Instead they should force any phone manufacturer to integrate matrix in the SMS app, that would really benefit the user most…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Warren, an advocate for stricter antitrust enforcement, posted her support for Beeper on X (formerly Twitter) and questioned why Apple would restrict a competitor.
In explaining its decision to cut off Beeper’s access to its servers, Apple said that it took “steps to steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage.” It also suggested that Beeper’s techniques “posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks.”
In addition, Cupertino-based tech giant argued against Beeper’s security, saying it was not able to verify that messages sent through unauthorized means were able to maintain the end-to-end encryption iMessage offers.
Beeper, however, claims it was able to offer the same level of encryption as iMessage uses, but did not put its app through a third-party security audit prior to its launch, which would have strengthened its argument.
As of its most recent update on Sunday, the startup posted that work continues on the outage and it hopes to “have good news to share soon.”
Beeper Mini, then, became an app that focused solely on bringing iMessage to Android for $1.99/month, with the intention of expanding its capabilities over time.
The original article contains 474 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Apple is a private company what business does the gov have here?
The US is not a libertarian society. Private businesses play within the guardrails set by the people and their elected representatives.
Same reason the EU forced apple to change to usb-c. It benefits consumers.
Apple is already adopting RCS. There’s no benefit here other than to spammers looking for a backdoor into iMessage.
You seem confident about “no benefit here”. Are you sure about that or is that the flavor of the boot polish that you are tasting?
Also, “backdoor into iMessage”, wtf?
Proprietary, closed source, third-party software that hasn’t been audited by a third party, that’s hooking into another proprietary protocol without the owner of said protocol’s approval.
Sounds to me like Apple fixed a security vulnerability they were exploiting to gain access to the platform. Honestly it reminds me of Microsoft and AOL with the AIM and MSN Messenger wars. I believe AIM used a buffer overflow on purpose for authentication, despite it being a serious security vulnerability.
Ever heard of anti-trust?
Companies and Corporations are a creation of the government. The government creates the rules and legal structures that makes their existence possible. Without the government to create corporations there would only be individuals doing business. The individual would be personally responsible for any harm the business may cause.
Corporations take that responsibility away from the owners. But it doesn’t disappear. In effect, the behavior of corporations are now the responsibility of the government. Much like the actions of a child are the responsibility of the parent.
So to answer your question, the government as all the business of regulating Apple, and making sure they do the right thing.
Who the hell uses iMessage? Do some people really only have friends with apple phones?
iPhones have the largest share of the US smartphone market. iMessage is the default messaging app on every iPhone, and cannot be changed. Ergo, iMessage is one of the top 5 largest messaging apps in the US. I believe it’s number 3 or 4 behind FB Messenger, WhatsApp, and FaceTime (also an Apple product).
Anyone who doesn’t want to touch a Facebook product with a thousand foot pole.
And then there’s me, who doesn’t want to touch a Facebook, Apple, or Google product with a thousand foot-pole.
You don’t have a smartphone?
I use Android and disable as much google stuff as possible.
So it’s google then.
so you’re touching a google product…
Yes.
As appealing as going completely off-grid is in an idealistic kind of way, I still have to function in modern sOcIeTy, which requires me to make some compromises. If you know of any quality phones that aren’t controlled by any big tech companies, let me know.
I’ve heard of the Fairphone, unfortunately it’s not sold in the US.
Order one from Canada? Not sure. And of the big tech companies that control phones, Apple is by far the best (at privacy at least, repairability is on the other end of the scale), I wouldn’t touch anything made by Google or Samsung with a ten foot pole. Maybe an old windows phone? Nokia?
On that note though, I have a friend who literally doesn’t own a smart phone. He has a flip phone (a new one too, no clue where he bought it) and he seems to get along in society just fine. Idk. Definitely not for everyone.
Yo.
This is largely a North American problem. More than 50% of phones are iPhone, and the de facto texting for iPhone users is iMessage. While WhatsApp is the default IM for most of the rest of the world, it’s iMessage in North America.
I’m so annoyed by people dismissing a standard protocol for sending messages builtin to phones and the networks they run on as unnecessary. We should have choice, but why in the fuck should we not have the most basic fucking infrastructure already in place that works with every device and without needing a new account/ app and needing to wrangle people we know into using the that app? I truly don’t get why people seem against a fucking standard just because they found a workaround for not having one
So much incredible UX design work has been undertaken by the experts in charge of it… then we’re forced to reassess solutions (Signal or Telegram?), remarket them (everybody download this app!), support them (no grandma when you don’t have your glasses Siri can’t send Signal messages).
Great job with your stock Apple and for driving the blind to tears with such excellent accessibility features and epic hardware… but you suck for stigmatizing kids’ digital lives and causing so much duplicative effort and confusion in the messaging space.
iMessage is VERY popular in the Us.
Yes, apprently. I didn’t know that. I think less then 10% of the people I know have iPhones. It’s all Android.
Different countries have wildly different phone and messaging systems preferences.
And wildly different economic realities. The difference between three months and five days of salary to buy an iPhone 15 (roughly comparing India & USA).
Lots of rich countries have Android dominant mobile markets. Europe is full of them. Example, Germany.
Over 50% in the US. And under 30 it’s something insane like 75%
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In the US, iMessage is really popular.
Yes. Most of my family / peers have iPhones. So iMessage is the standard for them. We use signal for the rest.
I’d assume some people use it when it’s available and just use regular texts or something like Signal for non apple contacts.
I’d be really surprised if anyone only uses it and just never talks to anyone with an android…
Like RCS, iMessage falls back to SMS / MMS (aka “green bubbles”) if iMessage isn’t available.
People still talk cross-platform, but people dislike the drop in media quality / functionality when they get kicked to the old protocol.
Yawn.
If this sparks an interoperability discussion (and actions) in the USA, it’ll be ironic for Apple who might escape interoperability in the EU.
