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I find it utterly bizarre that an engineer/team competent enough to reverse engineer iMessage can release such a shitshow. Almost parody level. Is this some so

by oefrha 3y ago

I find it utterly bizarre that an engineer/team competent enough to reverse engineer iMessage can release such a shitshow. Almost parody level. Is this some sort of weird “they trust me, dumb fucks” social experiment?

erinnh 3y ago
There are open source bridges for iMessage. So I’m not convinced they did. Example: https://github.com/mautrix/imessage https://github.com/mautrix/imessage
askonomm 3y ago
But they didn't reverse engineer anything, afaik. Their Android app is just talking to a Mac Mini somewhere in a closet, logged in with the users Apple account (or so was stated in one of the interviews).
- nicolaslem 3y ago
  Does anyone know how many users a single Mac Mini handles? While I admire the hacker mindset, this solution seems incredibly wasteful so I am curious of its carbon footprint.
  - ChrisLTD 3y ago
    Why does it seem so wasteful?
    - nicolaslem 3y ago
      Because I assume that Apple put a fairly low limit on the number of accounts that can be tied to a single computer.
- oefrha 3y ago
  Okay, automating Apple account logins on a fleet of macOS VMs is still rarely treaded territory, so it takes some real technical chops, even if it’s mostly stitching together other people’s work. TLS termination on the hand takes <1hr following a guide, if you haven’t done it hundreds of times before…
  - chrisandchris 3y ago
    Naah, if I would to attempt it my first try would be something like VNC (out of the box support) and Automator (out of the box support), or then some other tool to control mouse & keyboard. The hardest part is probably keeping the duct-tapped stuff running.
    - JamesSwift 3y ago
      How are you keeping all those sessions updated in real time? How are you parsing messages sent from others to be able to forward them to the user? How are you handling 'reactions' and 'threaded replies' and attachments? You are dismissing a very hard problem with handwaving.
JimDabell 3y ago
iMessage just stores messages in SQLite on macOS. They have a server process that runs on macOS and reads that database. So it’s not like they reverse engineered the protocol; they just read a local database in a standard, open-source format.
smileybarry 3y ago
Some of the early research found "BlueBubbles"[1] mentions in some places, and the lack of TLS is almost definitely because BlueBubbles currently doesn't support TLS on its own. 1: https://bluebubbles.app/ https://bluebubbles.app/

by oefrha 3y ago

erinnh 3y ago

There are open source bridges for iMessage. So I’m not convinced they did. Example: https://github.com/mautrix/imessage https://github.com/mautrix/imessage

askonomm 3y ago

But they didn't reverse engineer anything, afaik. Their Android app is just talking to a Mac Mini somewhere in a closet, logged in with the users Apple account (or so was stated in one of the interviews).

nicolaslem 3y ago
Does anyone know how many users a single Mac Mini handles? While I admire the hacker mindset, this solution seems incredibly wasteful so I am curious of its carbon footprint.
- ChrisLTD 3y ago
  Why does it seem so wasteful?
  - nicolaslem 3y ago
    Because I assume that Apple put a fairly low limit on the number of accounts that can be tied to a single computer.
oefrha 3y ago
Okay, automating Apple account logins on a fleet of macOS VMs is still rarely treaded territory, so it takes some real technical chops, even if it’s mostly stitching together other people’s work. TLS termination on the hand takes <1hr following a guide, if you haven’t done it hundreds of times before…
- chrisandchris 3y ago
  Naah, if I would to attempt it my first try would be something like VNC (out of the box support) and Automator (out of the box support), or then some other tool to control mouse & keyboard. The hardest part is probably keeping the duct-tapped stuff running.
  - JamesSwift 3y ago
    How are you keeping all those sessions updated in real time? How are you parsing messages sent from others to be able to forward them to the user? How are you handling 'reactions' and 'threaded replies' and attachments? You are dismissing a very hard problem with handwaving.

JimDabell 3y ago

iMessage just stores messages in SQLite on macOS. They have a server process that runs on macOS and reads that database. So it’s not like they reverse engineered the protocol; they just read a local database in a standard, open-source format.

smileybarry 3y ago

Some of the early research found "BlueBubbles"[1] mentions in some places, and the lack of TLS is almost definitely because BlueBubbles currently doesn't support TLS on its own. 1: https://bluebubbles.app/ https://bluebubbles.app/