23 ms·

This seems like it won't last, but it's AWESOME and I really hope you survive Apple's inevitable attempts to kill this. A universal chat application would be am

by bogwog 3y ago

This seems like it won't last, but it's AWESOME and I really hope you survive Apple's inevitable attempts to kill this. A universal chat application would be amazing, and will maybe help bring attention to the value of standards and interoperability (hopefully by governments/regulators).

cavisne 3y ago
The timing is potentially clever. Apple has committed to supporting RCS next year, and will face regulatory pressure in places like Europe. Even if short lived they could onboard a lot of Android users and then use RCS once it’s supported.
- rezonant 3y ago
  I wonder if these events are connected. Imagine Apple hearing through the grapevine that someone had a proper iMessage implementation and that they planned to release it for Android. Perhaps one way to get in front of that would be to commit to RCS. One could imagine the Nothing Phone events having the same cause.
toastal 3y ago
We had universal chat applications & standards and interoperability in the 2000s. Pidgin (et al.) + libpurple allowed users to use a singular application for chat--even the proprietary protocols. We also had (& still have) XMPP from that era which many of the big boys like Google jumped on, killed, then jumped off (EEE?). Are we just repeating history (https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-netwo...)? There’s an XKCD about inventing yet a new standard despite us having good ones for decades…
- rezonant 3y ago
  This was never enough for me. On paper Pidgin did the trick, but you still had to remember which of your friends preferred which platform, you had multiple "friend" entries for the same person, many used silly pseudonyms that they certainly didn't go by IRL, you had no way to tell if your friends actually were monitoring each of their accounts (I uninstalled aim months ago, have you been sending me messages on it?), you couldn't have group conversations across networks without mental gymnastics or compromise, the features offered on each platform were inconsistent, both on their native apps and the features pidgin actually implemented. That to me is not universal chat, that's just welding 10 chat apps into one, somewhat poorly. That being said XMPP was well on the way to becoming something universally supported, and though the protocol itself was way more complicated and crufty than I'd like, it's a shame that Google particularly abandoned it for really no reason.
  - toastal 3y ago
    Since those services all died off my memory is a bit foggy, but I recall stacking contacts in one with Adium & being able to prioritize in that meta contact which service they provided. But I really only ever used it for two-person conversations so I had no experience with the group situation. Even still, a multi-chat app was a vastly better user experience than running several independent applications (with the cost of missing ‘advanced’ features & occasional outages as protocols needed to be reverse engineered & the proprietary providers had no incentive for backwards compatibility). > Google particularly abandoned it for really no reason What most annoying is seeing Big Tech now trying to write a new standard to comply with the EU instead of using the existing standard they abandoned that already has all the mileage & scaling looked at. Instead all the same hurdles will have to be overcome yet again, just like the current growing pains of Matrix meanwhile XMPP is still quietly holding strong for massive chat/presence systems.
    - rezonant 3y ago
      I agree that it's better than using multiple applications, but today I just use one (for personal conversations at least, Slack for business and Discord for communities is a bit different), which is texting.
      - toastal 3y ago
        My texting is scattered. I’d prefer it to be all XMPP, but I engage with Signal, & Mattermost, IRC, & Matrix on a regular basis… & largely this is a result of me just quitting the other chat platforms that most are using here (LINE, Facebook Messenger) which has made communications more difficult for others. I could run gateway to puppet all those accounts which is a lot closer than Pidgin was at unifying it all, but I’ve been a bit lazy to set it all up (& if the common gateway tool wasn’t Python I’d be more thrilled to touch it).
- nani8ot 3y ago
  Given how many large chat systems are based on XMPP, it should be possible to select a set of standard extensions to interoperate with each other. Sadly, I don't see it happening.
  - toastal 3y ago
    True. But developers should push in that direction anyhow since it still means interop for those in that camp already… and considering how well those large systems have scaled, it’s a good idea.
vmfunction 3y ago
>A universal chat application would be amazing It would be, however would not bet my chatting account history on a phone number. Phone number does get lost over time. Email is more reliable, but may be a private key for authentication instead. Also a modern day chat app, one would expect to have chatting over bluetooth as well Internet such as Briar, and chatting over Tor such as Quite would be much more needed.
- nani8ot 3y ago
  I'm not so sure about email being more reliable than a phone number. I believe more people have a contract with their cellular provider than with their email. Free email accounts could be banned with no recourse.
DeathArrow 3y ago
>A universal chat application would be amazing Can't Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, Viber and other chat apps be installed on both Android and iOS?
chipgap98 3y ago
I saw an article on the topic where the reporter spoke with Beeper's CEO, Eric Migicovsky. He seems to believe that blocking Beeper might cause problems for legitimate Apple user's. Obviously that outcome is something he wants, but I still think its interesting. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23987817/beeper-mini-imessage-android-reverse-engineer https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23987817/beeper-mini-imes...
- BowBun 3y ago
  It's not too hard to think through - They would need to accept and verify a flag from messages that the copycats can't reproduce. At the very least that would require a client update from anyone using official iMessage clients, which covers many millions of devices. Unless they're able to hook into already existing flags/keys on the devices since they already verify application signatures and a whole other host of things. Apple can probably do it, but much like jailbreaking how fast can they release breaking changes?
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    They could probably require a new check but whitelist already registered numbers.
- afavour 3y ago
  That would make sense: because Apple have deeply coupled iMessage to the OS they can’t simply roll out a new version of the app with protocol changes that would block Beeper, they’d have to release entire OS updates. No matter the method it would be a scorched earth approach. I suspect the number of people actually using Beeper will be far below a rounding error for Apple.
  - crystaldecanter 3y ago
    will iMessage Contact Key Verification coming in iOS 17.2 break Beeper — or just make it super annoying like the “not a genuine Apple part” warning when replacing a screen or battery
  - 3y ago
Rygian 3y ago
On the contrary, the EU law that enforces interoperability should put some wind under this project's wings.
- geraldhh 3y ago
  it might even be the reason for it's existence
- hansoolo 3y ago
  Exactly what I thought
  - jackjeff 3y ago
    But EU interoperability laws are cancelled out by DMCA (aka EUCD). That’s why reading a DVD with VLC has always been “technically” illegal. If Apple is able to update the protocol in such a way that it requires some kind of signed attestation from the secure enclave (basically a DRM) they’ll get legal protection. Also. Nobody uses iMessage in the EU. It’s all WhatsApp here. Blue bubbles are an American obsession.
    - Youden 3y ago
      The recently enacted DMA requires interoperability. Unless Apple wins its case against iMessage being classified as a gatekeeper service, it'll be required to support interoperability. I'd be surprised if tricks like hardware attestation were compliant, unless Apple allowed other companies' hardware.
      - rezonant 3y ago
        Furthermore some implementations cannot provide hardware attestation, so it probably couldn't be limited to implementations which can, if the EU really means "interoperable"
      - anticensor 3y ago
        However, iMessage (the software) is already interoperable with SMS and MMS.
wslh 3y ago
One of my companies lives from this kind of things so it would last if someone could fund it. More food for thought: "Reflecting on 16 Years of Work on Adversarial Interoperability" (now, more than 20...) [1] [1] https://blog.nektra.com/2020/01/12/reflecting-on-16-years-of-work-on-adversarial-interoperability/ https://blog.nektra.com/2020/01/12/reflecting-on-16-years-of...
- smashah 3y ago
  Have you ever received C&D for your work? There's a big problem of OSS projects being TOS-trolled by billion dollar companies and having to shut down out of fear.
  - wslh 3y ago
    You know, your question is very interesting: no, we didn't. Anecdote: we reverse engineered several Microsoft products and before Microsoft Windows 7 launch we were contacted by Microsoft QA and they offered us support to check if our software was compatible with it! BTW, our software was installed in millions of computers around the globe. For example, Trend Micro used our software for supporting their antivirus in Outlook Express and Windows Mail. Our Deviare Hooking Engine [1] was eclipsed when Microsoft Detours [2] turned to an MIT license and free. Even when our was superior in several ways. This is why I wrote that you should continuously fight for "adversarial interoperability". [1] https://github.com/nektra/Deviare2 https://github.com/nektra/Deviare2 [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/detours/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/detours/
    - smashah 3y ago
      I agree. After receiving a C&D from Meta for my OSS project (along with some other maintainers from some other projects) I strongly believe adversarial interop is a basic digital right that is required to fulfil the broken or revoked promises of web 2.0 If you know anybody that can help please let me know because I want to get back to maintaining the project.
      - 3y ago
djvdq 3y ago
> A universal chat application would be amazing You mean like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and dozens of different chat apps available for both Android and iOS?
- sohzm 3y ago
  Relavent xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- bleachedsleet 3y ago
  Beeper is an app that unifies all the messaging protocols you mentioned (and others) into a single app. They are not introducing another protocol. Universal in this context is referring to the ability to use a single app across protocols rather than the ability to use a single app across platforms.
  - jayknight 3y ago
    I miss the days of jabber being able to senselessly talk to aim, msn, yahoo, icq, etc. All chat contacts in one account.
    - anthk 3y ago
      Jabber transports, they were great.
  - djvdq 3y ago
    Ok, I get it. It's what EU mandated and from March '24 all major chat apps have to be able to communicate with each other.
superduty 3y ago
What is currently not interoperable between the majors mobile OS makers?
- rezonant 3y ago
  Well messaging for one thing... Some others: - Find my device features including Bluetooth ping networking (airtags, Tile, Android's upcoming network) - Airdrop/Nearby Share - Bluetooth LE proximity pairing (at least I doubt this works when pairing cross ecosystem) - Carplay/Android Auto - Airplay/Google Cast
  - windexh8er 3y ago
    > Find My / Airtags Another Apple ecosystem that can be used by non-Apple devices. OpenHaystack [0] has been working well for quite a while. [0] https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack
    - nolongerthere 3y ago
      Does this still work? that repository appears to be abandoned.
      - fy20 3y ago
        Apple did actually open up the network, there are plenty of third party devices that are 'Find My' compatible. It's intended for integration into things like bikes or scooters. You can buy tags from AliExpress for $5 that implement it. I've been using a few for a couple of months, and no issues so far.
        rezonant 3y ago
        It would be preferable if Find My capable smart devices could forward tag pings on to non-Apple owners and vice versa. Right now, Find My is strong in the US where iPhones are very common, but it works worse in places where most phones are Android, and vice versa for Androids in the US versus abroad. You are referring to being able to track devices via the Find My portal on Apple.com or your Apple devices, but I am referring to being able to merge the networks so that Apple devices will forward pings onto Android's Find My network and vice versa.

by bogwog 3y ago

cavisne 3y ago

The timing is potentially clever. Apple has committed to supporting RCS next year, and will face regulatory pressure in places like Europe. Even if short lived they could onboard a lot of Android users and then use RCS once it’s supported.

rezonant 3y ago
I wonder if these events are connected. Imagine Apple hearing through the grapevine that someone had a proper iMessage implementation and that they planned to release it for Android. Perhaps one way to get in front of that would be to commit to RCS. One could imagine the Nothing Phone events having the same cause.

toastal 3y ago

We had universal chat applications & standards and interoperability in the 2000s. Pidgin (et al.) + libpurple allowed users to use a singular application for chat--even the proprietary protocols. We also had (& still have) XMPP from that era which many of the big boys like Google jumped on, killed, then jumped off (EEE?). Are we just repeating history (https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-netwo...)? There’s an XKCD about inventing yet a new standard despite us having good ones for decades…

rezonant 3y ago
This was never enough for me. On paper Pidgin did the trick, but you still had to remember which of your friends preferred which platform, you had multiple "friend" entries for the same person, many used silly pseudonyms that they certainly didn't go by IRL, you had no way to tell if your friends actually were monitoring each of their accounts (I uninstalled aim months ago, have you been sending me messages on it?), you couldn't have group conversations across networks without mental gymnastics or compromise, the features offered on each platform were inconsistent, both on their native apps and the features pidgin actually implemented. That to me is not universal chat, that's just welding 10 chat apps into one, somewhat poorly. That being said XMPP was well on the way to becoming something universally supported, and though the protocol itself was way more complicated and crufty than I'd like, it's a shame that Google particularly abandoned it for really no reason.
- toastal 3y ago
  Since those services all died off my memory is a bit foggy, but I recall stacking contacts in one with Adium & being able to prioritize in that meta contact which service they provided. But I really only ever used it for two-person conversations so I had no experience with the group situation. Even still, a multi-chat app was a vastly better user experience than running several independent applications (with the cost of missing ‘advanced’ features & occasional outages as protocols needed to be reverse engineered & the proprietary providers had no incentive for backwards compatibility). > Google particularly abandoned it for really no reason What most annoying is seeing Big Tech now trying to write a new standard to comply with the EU instead of using the existing standard they abandoned that already has all the mileage & scaling looked at. Instead all the same hurdles will have to be overcome yet again, just like the current growing pains of Matrix meanwhile XMPP is still quietly holding strong for massive chat/presence systems.
  - rezonant 3y ago
    I agree that it's better than using multiple applications, but today I just use one (for personal conversations at least, Slack for business and Discord for communities is a bit different), which is texting.
    - toastal 3y ago
      My texting is scattered. I’d prefer it to be all XMPP, but I engage with Signal, & Mattermost, IRC, & Matrix on a regular basis… & largely this is a result of me just quitting the other chat platforms that most are using here (LINE, Facebook Messenger) which has made communications more difficult for others. I could run gateway to puppet all those accounts which is a lot closer than Pidgin was at unifying it all, but I’ve been a bit lazy to set it all up (& if the common gateway tool wasn’t Python I’d be more thrilled to touch it).
nani8ot 3y ago
Given how many large chat systems are based on XMPP, it should be possible to select a set of standard extensions to interoperate with each other. Sadly, I don't see it happening.
- toastal 3y ago
  True. But developers should push in that direction anyhow since it still means interop for those in that camp already… and considering how well those large systems have scaled, it’s a good idea.

vmfunction 3y ago

>A universal chat application would be amazing It would be, however would not bet my chatting account history on a phone number. Phone number does get lost over time. Email is more reliable, but may be a private key for authentication instead. Also a modern day chat app, one would expect to have chatting over bluetooth as well Internet such as Briar, and chatting over Tor such as Quite would be much more needed.

nani8ot 3y ago
I'm not so sure about email being more reliable than a phone number. I believe more people have a contract with their cellular provider than with their email. Free email accounts could be banned with no recourse.

DeathArrow 3y ago

>A universal chat application would be amazing Can't Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, Viber and other chat apps be installed on both Android and iOS?

chipgap98 3y ago

I saw an article on the topic where the reporter spoke with Beeper's CEO, Eric Migicovsky. He seems to believe that blocking Beeper might cause problems for legitimate Apple user's. Obviously that outcome is something he wants, but I still think its interesting. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23987817/beeper-mini-imessage-android-reverse-engineer https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23987817/beeper-mini-imes...

BowBun 3y ago
It's not too hard to think through - They would need to accept and verify a flag from messages that the copycats can't reproduce. At the very least that would require a client update from anyone using official iMessage clients, which covers many millions of devices. Unless they're able to hook into already existing flags/keys on the devices since they already verify application signatures and a whole other host of things. Apple can probably do it, but much like jailbreaking how fast can they release breaking changes?
- IshKebab 3y ago
  They could probably require a new check but whitelist already registered numbers.
afavour 3y ago
That would make sense: because Apple have deeply coupled iMessage to the OS they can’t simply roll out a new version of the app with protocol changes that would block Beeper, they’d have to release entire OS updates. No matter the method it would be a scorched earth approach. I suspect the number of people actually using Beeper will be far below a rounding error for Apple.
- crystaldecanter 3y ago
  will iMessage Contact Key Verification coming in iOS 17.2 break Beeper — or just make it super annoying like the “not a genuine Apple part” warning when replacing a screen or battery
- 3y ago

Rygian 3y ago

On the contrary, the EU law that enforces interoperability should put some wind under this project's wings.

geraldhh 3y ago
it might even be the reason for it's existence
hansoolo 3y ago
Exactly what I thought
- jackjeff 3y ago
  But EU interoperability laws are cancelled out by DMCA (aka EUCD). That’s why reading a DVD with VLC has always been “technically” illegal. If Apple is able to update the protocol in such a way that it requires some kind of signed attestation from the secure enclave (basically a DRM) they’ll get legal protection. Also. Nobody uses iMessage in the EU. It’s all WhatsApp here. Blue bubbles are an American obsession.
  - Youden 3y ago
    The recently enacted DMA requires interoperability. Unless Apple wins its case against iMessage being classified as a gatekeeper service, it'll be required to support interoperability. I'd be surprised if tricks like hardware attestation were compliant, unless Apple allowed other companies' hardware.
    - rezonant 3y ago
      Furthermore some implementations cannot provide hardware attestation, so it probably couldn't be limited to implementations which can, if the EU really means "interoperable"
    - anticensor 3y ago
      However, iMessage (the software) is already interoperable with SMS and MMS.

wslh 3y ago

One of my companies lives from this kind of things so it would last if someone could fund it. More food for thought: "Reflecting on 16 Years of Work on Adversarial Interoperability" (now, more than 20...) [1] [1] https://blog.nektra.com/2020/01/12/reflecting-on-16-years-of-work-on-adversarial-interoperability/ https://blog.nektra.com/2020/01/12/reflecting-on-16-years-of...

smashah 3y ago
Have you ever received C&D for your work? There's a big problem of OSS projects being TOS-trolled by billion dollar companies and having to shut down out of fear.
- wslh 3y ago
  You know, your question is very interesting: no, we didn't. Anecdote: we reverse engineered several Microsoft products and before Microsoft Windows 7 launch we were contacted by Microsoft QA and they offered us support to check if our software was compatible with it! BTW, our software was installed in millions of computers around the globe. For example, Trend Micro used our software for supporting their antivirus in Outlook Express and Windows Mail. Our Deviare Hooking Engine [1] was eclipsed when Microsoft Detours [2] turned to an MIT license and free. Even when our was superior in several ways. This is why I wrote that you should continuously fight for "adversarial interoperability". [1] https://github.com/nektra/Deviare2 https://github.com/nektra/Deviare2 [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/detours/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/detours/
  - smashah 3y ago
    I agree. After receiving a C&D from Meta for my OSS project (along with some other maintainers from some other projects) I strongly believe adversarial interop is a basic digital right that is required to fulfil the broken or revoked promises of web 2.0 If you know anybody that can help please let me know because I want to get back to maintaining the project.
    - 3y ago

djvdq 3y ago

> A universal chat application would be amazing You mean like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and dozens of different chat apps available for both Android and iOS?

sohzm 3y ago
Relavent xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
bleachedsleet 3y ago
Beeper is an app that unifies all the messaging protocols you mentioned (and others) into a single app. They are not introducing another protocol. Universal in this context is referring to the ability to use a single app across protocols rather than the ability to use a single app across platforms.
- jayknight 3y ago
  I miss the days of jabber being able to senselessly talk to aim, msn, yahoo, icq, etc. All chat contacts in one account.
  - anthk 3y ago
    Jabber transports, they were great.
- djvdq 3y ago
  Ok, I get it. It's what EU mandated and from March '24 all major chat apps have to be able to communicate with each other.

superduty 3y ago

What is currently not interoperable between the majors mobile OS makers?

rezonant 3y ago
Well messaging for one thing... Some others: - Find my device features including Bluetooth ping networking (airtags, Tile, Android's upcoming network) - Airdrop/Nearby Share - Bluetooth LE proximity pairing (at least I doubt this works when pairing cross ecosystem) - Carplay/Android Auto - Airplay/Google Cast
- windexh8er 3y ago
  > Find My / Airtags Another Apple ecosystem that can be used by non-Apple devices. OpenHaystack [0] has been working well for quite a while. [0] https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack
  - nolongerthere 3y ago
    Does this still work? that repository appears to be abandoned.
    - fy20 3y ago
      Apple did actually open up the network, there are plenty of third party devices that are 'Find My' compatible. It's intended for integration into things like bikes or scooters. You can buy tags from AliExpress for $5 that implement it. I've been using a few for a couple of months, and no issues so far.
      - rezonant 3y ago
        It would be preferable if Find My capable smart devices could forward tag pings on to non-Apple owners and vice versa. Right now, Find My is strong in the US where iPhones are very common, but it works worse in places where most phones are Android, and vice versa for Androids in the US versus abroad. You are referring to being able to track devices via the Find My portal on Apple.com or your Apple devices, but I am referring to being able to merge the networks so that Apple devices will forward pings onto Android's Find My network and vice versa.