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There’s a new iMessage for Android app — and it actually works (www.theverge.com)
submitted 10 months ago by admin@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[-] fraydabson@sopuli.xyz 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It’s been out for a long time with limited access and nothing yet. Maybe Apple will change their mind toward it when it’s being used by a large group of people finally. Hopefully not.

Edit: I was wrong. See below.

[-] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 15 points 10 months ago

It’s been out for a long time with limited access and nothing yet.

you're thinking of regular Beeper, wthich used Macs hosted by the company to relay iMessage messages.

[-] atocci@kbin.social 3 points 10 months ago

That sounds exactly like what what Nothing Chats was shamed for a couple weeks ago, how has Beeper been fairing so well?

[-] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago

Beeper's entire premise is based on decrypting your messages on their servers, re-encrypting them and sending them to you, and pinky promising that they're not reading them.

[-] atocci@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

So it really is the exact same thing as Nothing Chats then? I don't think I trust them any more than Sunbird...

[-] beefcat@beehaw.org 22 points 10 months ago
  • Beeper can be self-hosted if you have a Mac, so you don't have to trust their servers
  • Sunbird's app (Nothing Chat) was riddled with its own security vulnerabilities that allowed users to read other users messages, which were all stored as unencrypted plaintext, all discovered by the community within 24 hours of launch
  • Beeper is actually open about how their technology works and what it's limitations are, while Sunbird/Nothing basically lied about their product and never provided any meaningful documentation
[-] IlliteratiDomine@infosec.pub 10 points 10 months ago

The difference, as I understand it, is Beeper hasn't claimed to not be doing that. Sunbird/Nothing touted E2EE and that was a lie.

[-] atocci@kbin.social 8 points 10 months ago

That makes sense I suppose. A company that doesn't outright lie about how their service works would have more goodwill behind it, wouldn't it.

[-] lea@feddit.de 5 points 10 months ago

Beeper's backend is also fully open-source, there's nothing stopping you from hosting your own iMessage bridge and accessing it via any matrix client.

[-] beefcat@beehaw.org 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It wasn't just that E2EE was a lie, their own server software was full of its own bugs that allowed third party access to user messages, which were stored unencrypted in their database.

[-] helenslunch@feddit.nl 4 points 10 months ago

Not even close. Sunbird was not open source and was storing plaintext messages on their servers.

this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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