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,
I wish Apple would just release an iMessage app for Android and be done with it.
They specifically don’t want to do this. They’ve admitted that they want peer pressure to support and bolster their iPhone sales.
It’s super fucked up.
If this sparks an interoperability discussion (and actions) in the USA, it’ll be ironic for Apple who might escape interoperability in the EU.
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.
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.
Who the hell uses iMessage? Do some people really only have friends with apple phones?
Over 50% in the US. And under 30 it’s something insane like 75%
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Honestly it’s hard to see how messages don’t fall under the protection of net neutrality.
I mean they do, but that doesn’t mean a message platform can’t platform lock itself.
The ISP isn’t discriminating… that’s net neutrality.
I think you might be a bit confused.
It just feels like users being restricted to not having any incoming or outgoing communication across operating systems is discriminating. The reason Beeper’s previous and current solutions stopped working is because they started blocking it. If Apple had successfully built a protocol that couldn’t be accessed by Android devices then that would be one thing, but they failed to do that and now they’re discriminating against otherwise valid connections.
It’s a competitive advantage. Nothing wrong with that from a business perspective.
Why should Apple build something to work with Android? That would allow people in Apple’s hand to swap. No business reason to do it. Why waste server time servicing a competing platform’s user’s messages?
Then again, there isn’t really a reason why iMessage is a big benefit with RCS, Whatsapp, Messenger, SMS, Signal, etc. exist.
According to the given logic, logic if I reverse engineer Facebook Messenger, I should be able to have my app that talks to FB Messenger users. I would have it until, they block me out. They have a terms of service that likely disallows this usage. They have a right to enforce that.
At the end of the day I could care less about iMessage but can defend Apple’s right to be a walled garden if they want, even if I disagree, etc.
Because controlling what people send between each other on devices they purchased and own is not something that the regular human beings at apple have any authority to do, least not for profit. Something very few people seem to understand these days is that in a functioning democracy it pays to have good Business Ethics, or else your company is doomed to eventually buckle and fall apart.
… you can still send MMS. It works fine. They’re not controlling what you can send. Soon they’ll support RCS too to have parity with Android. That’s a goodwill gesture in my eyes.
Capitalism doesn’t pay for ethics, it pays for profits and press. It’s paying for RCS support.
iMessage will have no benefit after that: the color of a bubble shouldn’t mean anything.
Yeah another user filled me in that iMessage didn’t mean what I thought it did.
But going a bit off topic, if you want to run an unethical business in the USA then what you should do is cut back the staff until it’s barely viable, then sell everything and close the locations, and finally file bankruptcy after giving yourself a bonus. Why? Because an Unethical Business of any nature has no future. There is no long term. Countless large banks and nationwide businesses have collapsed before, there is no “too big to fail.”
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
If it accessed the message system directly then it makes sense. They’re was one just before it that ran on Mac mini farms.
