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Beeper vs. Apple battle intensifies: Lawmakers demand DOJ investigation

168 points by mendyberger 3y ago

richwater 3y ago
[flagged]
- exabrial 3y ago
  Imagine that you created a monopoly by forcing users to switch to your product. You then locked out competitors, then intentionally degrade quality when your users attempt to contact the outside world. Then you created and fostered a culture of bullying other users (especially teens). There is no "Poor Apple", there were mistakes, but mostly intentional malic the entire way. People repeatedly asked them to stop, people asked to be let in, and Apple had plenty of chances to allow RCS and additional layers of security like "Verified sent from Apple hardware". I hope this one seriously hurts for them.
  - joshmanders 3y ago
    > Imagine that you created a monopoly by forcing users to switch to your product. Oh for crying out loud, NOBODY is forced to use iPhones. Can we stop this narrative already?
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Many aspects of society dictate that we use a phone. Apple forbidding interoperability of the phones so that you’re either all in or all out is anti competitive.
    - anotherhue 3y ago
      I am. Your point needs to be stronger.
      - joshmanders 3y ago
        How's this for stronger? You're weak if you got a device you don't want because someone else said you should get it.
        zamadatix 3y ago
        Not everyone is in the position to turn down a job because of a moral stance on the device(s)/tools they are assigned. Even if you think they are "weak" saying that to continue to fan the flames isn't going to help anything. Why not argue why you think those types of use cases shouldn't impact the decision instead?
        joshmanders 3y ago
        Who said anything about turning down a job? You're just moving the goalposts at this point. Everyone has their own personal device. I chose iPhone. But if I had a job where I had to use an Android for some reason, I wouldn't feel I was FORCED to use an Android, because I would only use that device for work related things, and my preferred device, the personal iPhone for everything else.
        zamadatix 3y ago
        The goalposts remain the same, it's a one example of what they are. Some people are forced into situations they have to use one product over another, the situation isn't a matter of people having equal footing to just choose a non-integrated device all the time. Of course you're welcome to use another device for your personal things but this doesn't mean the other choice limitations of the device in the required case are no longer present. Personally I don't like whether an example of being boxed in is present as a decider though. My argument against it, instead of saying it just never happens, is that there needs to be a critical mass of occurrences. I.e. I think there are costs to both choosing to regulate or not regulate and it's a matter of when one outweighs the other not as much when some specific event occurs to some people. So, while many people do have to use Apple products for certain things in certain scenarios, it's not necessarily wrong by that fact. It's that it's so entrenched. I wouldn't call it a monopoly but I also don't want to wait until things are that bad to ever do anything, otherwise you end up with Microsofts doing massive damage before being reeled in.
  - richwater 3y ago
    > created a monopoly by forcing users to switch to your product Under what possible manipulated definition of "forced" are you using? That Apple makes a desirable product? That they don't replace their messaging app every two years? That they don't bloat the phone with garbage? > [Apple] fostered a culture [serious citation needed]
  - exabrial 3y ago
    Down voted -3 for stating nothing but the truth rofl
- anotherhue 3y ago
  Oh stop. iMesssge has long since passed the point of 'fun app' and is well into the realm of public utility. They're a victim of their own success. If our regulators weren't asleep at the wheel this would have been forcibly spun out years ago. The blue/green icon debacle should have been ruled discriminatory. Anecdotally I had to switch to iOS due to iMessage being used amongst my colleagues.
  - richwater 3y ago
    > public utility Can we stop labeling everything that people like a "public utility"? What is ridiculous phrase. At any point in time I can open 10 chat apps and talk to my friends. There are _existing_ public utilities that have way more, _actual_ monopoly power than iMessage and federal, state and local governments do nothing - nay - support it.
    - xanaxagoras 3y ago
      But public utilities are a human right!
    - anotherhue 3y ago
      I hate iMessage but I’m forced to use it because I need to communicate with people who don’t understand anything else. Try and chat to a group including 50+ year olds and see how far you get without it. This feels like “Please submit documents in Microsoft Word format” all over again.
      - kashunstva 3y ago
        > with people who don’t understand anything else. or with people who _do_ understand other messaging platforms but choose to use iMessage? I fall (mostly) into the latter category. I well understand that other messaging systems exist, have accounts on a handful; but the people I communicate most with use iMessage. I'm not going to persuade them otherwise; and I'm not going to be harangued with notifications on a half-dozen different messaging apps. > 50+ year olds It's how I message with my 15 year old. And mostly how she messages with her friends. I think the usage patterns are more nuanced than old/young and simpleton/cognoscenti.
- reactordev 3y ago
  This wouldn't be if Apple had done the right thing and made iMessage a standard or worked with Google on RCS. No. Apple wants to control. Beeper wants to make a profit. Android users are tired of feeling second-class to iOS users when they have the same hardware. Lawmakers are still clueless. End-users just want to be able to send media to friends and family. You're right it's getting ridiculous. Apple has every right to deny and go after Beeper. Apple publicly will say its for the security of their users. The reality is it's all about their bottom line and making sure people on iOS, stay on iOS.
- pocketarc 3y ago
  As someone who used to use multi-IM clients (Pidgin, Trillian, Meebo) back in the MSN/AIM/ICQ days, I have to say, it's surreal to see how the conversation has shifted to the point that this is now a reasonable-sounding comment.
  - ntauthority 3y ago
    Notably so, I believe Trillian was a paid product and Meebo was actually treated like a real tech startup. Interesting, indeed, how much the sentiment has shifted over the course of 10-15 years...
  - leokennis 3y ago
    Ideologically you are of course correct...but I would say Apple/iMessage is about as good/bad an actor in the IM-space as their competition.
    - paulgb 3y ago
      AFAIK the players like AIM, MSN, ICQ didn’t cut off access to third party clients. Maybe they wanted to, but it was too onerous back then to force client software updates that they had to continue supporting reverse-engineered versions of the protocol?
      - plushpuffin 3y ago
        They absolutely did. AOL in particular used a buffer overflow bug in AIM to execute arbitrary code to determine if the client was actually AIM or a third-party client pretending to be AIM. MSN Messenger and Yahoo IM both cried foul about this and called out for interoperability, but then turned around and denied third-party clients access to their own networks once they got big enough.
  - izacus 3y ago
    Yeah, it's outright incredible how much even tech libertarian HN commonly visceraly HATES market competition and wants to outright remove the possibility of market alternatives for critical services. I bet if HDMI and USB wouldn't exist, they'd protest against being able to connect their MacBooks to non-Apple TVs and non-Apple keyboards - to keep them safe from evil Samsung monitors and bad Logitech mice.
- tempodox 3y ago
  Then I hope you will never, ever, send an email to someone else's mail server.
  - richwater 3y ago
    You mean the mail server they own/operate/pay for with the _explicit_ purpose of accepting public, incoming SMTP traffic? Terrible comparison.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Jealous? Is this Ford vs Chevy corporate worship? For me, the big problem with Apple's behavior is that combined with their market dominance with minors in the US, they're able to use social peer pressure to crush any competition. Having the wrong color text bubble in a chat is social death in many teen groups, so they all have to get Apple products to avoid this. Apple is all too happy to exploit the desire of children still developing their social skills to belong to a peer group. Edit >A survey reveals that an overwhelming 87% of American teens own an iPhone, and an even more staggering 88% plan to purchase an iPhone as their next smartphone. https://www.pipersandler.com/teens https://www.pipersandler.com/teens
- zamadatix 3y ago
  I'm not sure I buy particularly the "Android users are jealous of a coherent ecosystem" part on two counts. The first because you just said there is outstanding competition in the rich messaging space. Competition means a lot more than quantity of companies trying to do something. If, at a large scale, consumers are truly jealous of something they can't get without swapping hardware and OS providers to the message provider then competition is poor at best. The second because I'm an iPhone owning user who uses Beeper, it has much better multi-os iMessage sync without having to sync/mirror my phone locally. So it's not just Android users it's even owners/users of Apple's products wanting to break a bit out of needing to use a Mac to get proper access to their iMessage. This widens the overall scope of the discussion quite a bit. I will agree Beeper is entitled and lawmakers are clueless. We may differ on whether that entitlement is warranted or what lawmakers are clueless about though :).
Dalewyn 3y ago
Anyone got a crash course on WTF Beeper is for someone who hasn't paid much attention? All I've heard is Apple "shut down" Beeper.
- t3rabytes 3y ago
  Reverse engineered the API that iMessage uses and made an app for Android making use of them (while charging a fee for it). There's more to it than that (what got them smacked originally was using fake device credentials for attestation), but that's the tl;dr.
- reactordev 3y ago
  It's an iMessage compatible messaging client for Android. https://www.beeper.com/ https://www.beeper.com/
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  It's an open-source (open core? not sure if the serverside is open) multi-platform single-pane-of-glass instant messaging client (Beeper) with a cloud/webapp (Beeper Cloud I think it's called).
  - ripply 3y ago
    The server is matrix, you can host your own opensource official beeper bridges on your own matrix server and use your own matrix application. The official beeper cloud applications only talk to their matrix server, but everything the bridges do are end to end encrypted to your device via matrix so as long as you trust they do not log your messages or you run your own bridges they can’t read any of your messages.
- layer8 3y ago
  From the article: “The two Beeper messaging apps allow Android users to interact with iPhone users through iMessage — an interoperability Apple has been opposed to for a long time now.”
- saynay 3y ago
  Beeper has an application to consolidate many different messaging applications into a single app. One of those messaging apps was iMessage, with the added ability to use iMessage on Android. Previously, they did this by effectively having you sign-in to iCloud on a Mac system running in their datacenter. Handing over your iCloud password to a third-party obviously has security implications, even if you trust Beeper wont intentionally abuse it. Recently, they had a new Beeper-Mini, that instead reversed-engineered the iMessage protocol and spoofed your Android phonenumber as being an Apple device. This allowed you to use iMessage without ever handing over your password to some remote server (although, still handing it over to a third-party application, and trusting it doesn't do something shady). Beeper, for its part, has claimed this reverse-engineering falls under the protection of allowed exceptions for the purpose of interoperability. Apple has not yet made any legal claim one way or another, and instead just shutdown the method being used to gain access to iMessage from non-Apple devices.
SamBorick 3y ago
For once, I'm proud to be a customer of a company that is willing to stand up against monopolies.
- leokennis 3y ago
  How is iMessage a monopoly? I would like open communications standards as much as the next guy, but next to iMessage there are WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, WeChat, Facebook Messenger etc. etc. And as far as I know, you have to use the official WhatsApp app to chat on WhatsApp, same for Telegram, etc. etc. So apart from iMessage not being a monopoly, they are also not more restrictive than their competition. So besides not matching with our "open" ideology for communication, what exactly has Apple done wrong here?
  - joshmanders 3y ago
    Apparently since Apple made it more convenient to iPhone users to not only message other iPhone users from iMessage, but also receive their text messages in that single app too, it's a monopoly?
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      That probably didn't help things but I think the root cause comes down to the usual source of monopolies in this case: having vertical integration and a default app. Technically you don't even need an iPhone or SMS service to use iMessage. It is by the most common use case though, and one which increased the amount of integration a bit.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    You do not want open communication standards as much as the next guy. You’re advocating for a closed communication standard.
  - SamBorick 3y ago
    My view is that all of those messaging platforms blocking alternative clients are equally problematic. I've arrived at this position because I'm not able to use any of those platforms because they don't provide accessibility tools that I need. Beeper does, and most matrix clients do also. I recognize that the open source "everything should be open" view is not remotely mainstream, but the only way forward is to demand better.
notamy 3y ago
Serious questions, I haven’t been paying enough attention to all of this to know the answers: Looking at Beeper’s website, I can see > We currently offer a 7 day free trial, afterwards there is a $1.99 per month subscription. I can’t imagine any company being okay with another company reverse-engineering their product and then charging for it, without at least paying for the infrastructure they’re using. Why is Apple expected to accept it? Isn’t the reverse-engineering against Apple ToS anyway? As far as I know, it’s a pretty standard clause in basically every company’s ToS. How is Beeper supposed to "win" here, short of that sort of ToS clause being declared unenforceable?
- post-it 3y ago
  Beeper hasn't necessarily agreed to Apple's ToS.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    CFAA would be unenforceable if it required unauthorized users to have agreed to the terms of service of the systems they were abusing. You’re not supposed to be there and that’s sufficient.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    All its users have, as Beeper is aware, and Beeper has taken extensive steps, predicated on the existing of that customer agreement (in fact: meaningful only because of that agreement) to help them renege.
    - greyface- 3y ago
      Beeper isn't marketed at Apple users - they already have access to iMessage. Are we to presume that all Android users have agreed to the iOS ToS?
      - JoshuaRogers 3y ago
        If we’re presuming that the end-user has not agreed to any term of service, then why are we assuming that they have the right to use the service in anyway whatsoever? It’s basically the definition of unauthorized use at that point.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Reminds me of the old battles with AOL Instant Messenger compatible clients like GAIM, that used the TOC protocol. Think that ended up in an extended cat and mouse game of AOL changing things to lock out GAIM and other clients while the developers found new ways around the changes. Not sure if there was much, if any, encryption being used back then for instant messaging system. If not, clear text would have been much easier to hack around.
- saghm 3y ago
  A friend shared this with me the other day after we were discussing the current drama: https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ Apparently AOL eventually "beat" MSN trying to reverse engineer their protocol by exploiting a known buffer overflow in their own implementation, and then MSN fumbled by trying to leak the security issue to put pressure on AOL but being too transparent in their manipulations and losing the PR battle that ensued.
fh9302 3y ago
So Beeper is charging money to let users access Apple's servers in an unauthorized way by spoofing a serial number, and then they complain to regulators when Apple locks them out?
- sigzero 3y ago
  That about sums it up.
- xvector 3y ago
  And foolish regulators take Beeper's side. Klobuchar is a clown.
- Spivak 3y ago
  I think that was their play from the beginning, get something working to prove it's technically possible and eliminate that line of argumentation, wait for the retaliation, and then sue them for anticompetitive practices that now clearly demonstrates consumer harm. Get the regulators to force Apple to open the front door for them.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    They were charging for iMessage over a year ago in what is now called Beeper Cloud. I wonder why Beeper Mini created the ruckus, perhaps because it was iMessage only?
    - AndroidKitKat 3y ago
      I think it is because this new Beeper Mini spoofs a Mac, whereas the older Beeper Cloud used a real Mac in a datacenter to forward your messages to you. Personally, I don't think that Apple would have any leg to stand on if they went after the Beeper Cloud on-a-real-Mac implementation.
- layer8 3y ago
  Do we know Beeper complained to regulators here?
aforty 3y ago
So Beeper is piggybacking off Apple’s servers that facilitate iMessages and is charging $1.99 per month to users and they thought Apple would be okay with this?
- layer8 3y ago
  You could make a somewhat similar argument about an email provider sending emails to iCloud email addresses, thus “piggybacking” off Apple’s iCloud servers. Granted, Beeper probably doesn’t prevent it being used between two Android users, but the primary function, and why people would pay for it, is to communicate with Apple users. The primary difference is that in one case it’s a closed proprietary protocol and in the other an open protocol. But who pays for what is not the main concern. Apple would still disagree even if Beeper would be willing to share an appropriate part of their revenue.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    But the user with the iCloud address is (probably) an Apple customer. Similarly, with plain SMS, the cellular provider owns (some of) the infrastructure, but the user is a customer. With Beeper, the customer is paying Beeper, but Beeper is using Apple's infrastructure (without paying for it).
    - layer8 3y ago
      I don’t understand your point. The user with iMessage that the Android user wants to communicate with is an Apple customer as well, and arguably pays Apple to be reachable via iMessage. And in the iCloud Mail example, the non-Apple user who is sending an email to the iCloud user also is not an Apple customer and doesn’t pay for Apple’s iCloud Mail infrastructure.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - alistairSH 3y ago
        I was thinking two non-Apple users could use the iMessage protocol through Beeper. Maybe that's not possible?
howmayiannoyyou 3y ago
An obvious solution would be for Apple to offer users an integrated messaging experience of its own across platforms. I understand why on the surface that seems in error, but its badly needed.
- tomalbrc 3y ago
  There are so many 3rd party communication sevices you can use free of charge.
  - verwalt 3y ago
    "But that one chick I met on tinder laughed at my green bubbles, so I want to use iMessage!!!"
    - theklr 3y ago
      This feels like the crux of the beeper battle. I can’t wait for the Aaron Sorkin adoption on a Netflix miniseries.
      - pxmpxm 3y ago
        So mostly android users doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify some company selling stealing compute for two bucks a month.
    - mr_toad 3y ago
      Buying an iPhone might not be the most expensive part of dating.
hnfong 3y ago
If I make a commercial app that serves Youtube videos without ads, can I get the DOJ to investigate when Youtube blocks my app? I mean, it even makes sense, Youtube is more closer to a monopoly than iMessage is. :-/
colanderman 3y ago
Genuinely surprised at the prevalence of "Apple is right, Beeper is wrong" comments on Hacker News of all places. Beeper is filling a market need via a technologically creative solution. Since when is protectionism of large entrenched actors our cause? I miss the days of GAIM/Pidgin/Trillium/Adium and hope Beeper prevails here.
- joshmanders 3y ago
  Probably because while we're hackers at heart, we're also don't think that because a company is large and profitable we're entitled to their resources free of charge to sell to other people violating all of their terms of service.
  - colanderman 3y ago
    I don't think Apple cares about the resource usage here. (Note that's not their argument, they argue that Beeper clients will bypass content protections.) The servers running iMessage, heck even the team supporting it, are probably a drop in the bucket for them. Apple's goal is for iMessage to remain an exclusive feature of their hardware. That exclusivity is what Beeper -- or an Apple-vended Android client, or RCS interoperability, or federation generally -- threatens. And -- it's exactly the proposition of, "to use our popular offering in market X, you must also purchase our offering in market Y" which is anticompetitive.
    - shazzdeeds 3y ago
      Lots of platforms like gaming consoles have exclusive content where the same company is both the hardware/services owner and the content creator. What would be anticompetitive is they leveraged their position as an app platform to stunt other legitimate chat apps from gaining popularity. Beeper claims that’s what’s happening to them but their legitimacy is debatable.
  - asadotzler 3y ago
    [flagged]
- 3y ago
magnio 3y ago
I don't get the angle from these lawmakers. Beeper could be doing nothing illegal, but Apple has every right to block unwanted access to their server. Just as Reddit has the right to block all third-party clients and YouTube has every right to block ad-block users. I thought what Beeper did was fun at first, but now I consider their work dangerous, since it rationalizes a push for remote attestation, which is what Apple has been meaning to do for a long time. Now they have a valid reason to fully utilize it, after which Google may try to follow suit and probably face less backlashes.
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  Lawmakers make the law. They have to consider not only what is currently illegal but also what should be illegal. Just because Apple is currently allowed to block access from competitors doesn't mean they should be allowed to.
- s3p 3y ago
  >since it rationalizes a push for remote attestation No it doesn't. By this logic, Apple should have gone through with plans to implement CSAM scanning on iCloud. Except customers complained and they abandoned it. Then they debuted e2e encrypted iCloud storage 2 years later; completely antithetical to the school of thought used by CSAM scanning advocates.
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    As I understand it, the CSAM feature was created because the E2EE was on the horizon. They were trying to have their cake and eat it too. Then they choked on the cake.
- fulafel 3y ago
  Lawmakers make and change laws, so it seems sensible to find out whether they need changing. "This isn't illegal now therefore it shouldn't be looked into by lawmakers" would be circular reasoning.
saghm 3y ago
One possibility I haven't seen discussed is whether this will end with some sort of "compromise" where Beeper is allowed to continue to operate but users are marked in some way differently than both iMessage (client) users and SMS users. Beeper would claim a victory in being allowed to continue existing and provide iMessage access on Android with encryption, sans-SMS, etc., and Apple would be able to mark the "others" in a chat (and perhaps add features to chats with only iMessage clients that aren't supported in chats with other clients).
- latexr 3y ago
  Beeper has explicitly suggested that. > If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users. https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mini-is-back https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mini-is-back
minerva23 3y ago
Tangentially, this has been great for Apple to get metrics on Android demand for iMessage. Sure, one can assume every Android user would want access, but instances like this show people are willing to pay for access as well. Apple should bundle iMessage access for Android into iCloud's subscription and release an official Android app. Maybe some eyes from the DOJ will get that on Apple's roadmap (I can dream, right?).
amazingman 3y ago
I already have to trust that Apple adheres to its promise not to abuse their privileged position to break E2E encryption. Now I have to trust Apple to continually verify that Beeper is not breaking E2E encryption? I don't know what the folks at Beeper are smoking, but it appears that a lot of very smart people are smoking it too.
- dimask 3y ago
  "Interoperability" was cool and all 20 years ago or so, but I do not understand how nowadays anybody really considers it a good idea tbh. It has pretty much obvious security risks (it need not have in theory, but in practice it certainly does). And it is not that we lack decent multiplatform, secure solutions that people can use independent of platform.
webworker 3y ago
It's really disappointing to see how Apple went from championing open standards in the early days of Mac OS X, especially with regard to communication protocols, to this. I want a premium messaging experience on my iPhone, regardless of what the other party has. I do not want compressed images and videos, and as an end-user, it's bullisht that I have to figure out how to do that using 3rd party apps.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
issafram 3y ago
I've got an idea. Apple could man up and create an android app instead of all this bullshit. They have been forced into RCS which will be huge, but they have already decided to keep the green bubble garbage. They will do their best to make sure the user experience is as degraded as possible.
kriskrunch 3y ago
The irony is Wozniak and Jobs manufactured and sold devices, called Blue Boxes, that hacked the phone system to provide free phone calls. > "If it hadn't been for the Blue Boxes, there would have been no Apple. I'm 100% sure of that." -Steve Jobs For your Apple collection: https://www.bonhams.com/auction/24495/lot/109/wozniak-steve-b1950-and-steve-jobs-1955-2011-blue-box-c1972/ https://www.bonhams.com/auction/24495/lot/109/wozniak-steve-...
- graeme 3y ago
  Sure, but no one was arguing that ought to have been legal or that the phone system would be in the wrong to attempt to patch exploits found by hacking. Their Blue Box efforts were very cool! So is the coding that let Beeper do this. But it is mystifying to me that people are arguing it is illegitimate (under our current system) for Apple to try to secure its system.
  - sahila 3y ago
    The irony is people are rooting for a company (Apple) which only exists because it did something similar like Beeper early on, but root against Beeper. Apple is its present and history.
_8j50 3y ago
This whole thing is absurd! DOJ investigation against whom? Aren't beeper's author's technically in violation of CFAA for knowingly bypassing security measures and accessing systems (imessage servers) against authorization? This entire society us upside down! Just because apple is big bad corp doesn't mean any issue against them is right! Kudos to beeper but don't make this a legal thing against apple.
kotaKat 3y ago
It's not a constitutional right to be able to access iMessage.
shortsunblack 3y ago
Hostile interoperability is what made Facebook successful.
not_me_ever 3y ago
With beeper actively attacking security critical infrastructure it's just a question of time until someone pulls out the patriot act and jails them as terrorists.

168 points by mendyberger 3y ago

richwater 3y ago

[flagged]

exabrial 3y ago
Imagine that you created a monopoly by forcing users to switch to your product. You then locked out competitors, then intentionally degrade quality when your users attempt to contact the outside world. Then you created and fostered a culture of bullying other users (especially teens). There is no "Poor Apple", there were mistakes, but mostly intentional malic the entire way. People repeatedly asked them to stop, people asked to be let in, and Apple had plenty of chances to allow RCS and additional layers of security like "Verified sent from Apple hardware". I hope this one seriously hurts for them.
- joshmanders 3y ago
  > Imagine that you created a monopoly by forcing users to switch to your product. Oh for crying out loud, NOBODY is forced to use iPhones. Can we stop this narrative already?
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Many aspects of society dictate that we use a phone. Apple forbidding interoperability of the phones so that you’re either all in or all out is anti competitive.
  - anotherhue 3y ago
    I am. Your point needs to be stronger.
    - joshmanders 3y ago
      How's this for stronger? You're weak if you got a device you don't want because someone else said you should get it.
      - zamadatix 3y ago
        Not everyone is in the position to turn down a job because of a moral stance on the device(s)/tools they are assigned. Even if you think they are "weak" saying that to continue to fan the flames isn't going to help anything. Why not argue why you think those types of use cases shouldn't impact the decision instead?
        joshmanders 3y ago
        Who said anything about turning down a job? You're just moving the goalposts at this point. Everyone has their own personal device. I chose iPhone. But if I had a job where I had to use an Android for some reason, I wouldn't feel I was FORCED to use an Android, because I would only use that device for work related things, and my preferred device, the personal iPhone for everything else.
        zamadatix 3y ago
        The goalposts remain the same, it's a one example of what they are. Some people are forced into situations they have to use one product over another, the situation isn't a matter of people having equal footing to just choose a non-integrated device all the time. Of course you're welcome to use another device for your personal things but this doesn't mean the other choice limitations of the device in the required case are no longer present. Personally I don't like whether an example of being boxed in is present as a decider though. My argument against it, instead of saying it just never happens, is that there needs to be a critical mass of occurrences. I.e. I think there are costs to both choosing to regulate or not regulate and it's a matter of when one outweighs the other not as much when some specific event occurs to some people. So, while many people do have to use Apple products for certain things in certain scenarios, it's not necessarily wrong by that fact. It's that it's so entrenched. I wouldn't call it a monopoly but I also don't want to wait until things are that bad to ever do anything, otherwise you end up with Microsofts doing massive damage before being reeled in.
- richwater 3y ago
  > created a monopoly by forcing users to switch to your product Under what possible manipulated definition of "forced" are you using? That Apple makes a desirable product? That they don't replace their messaging app every two years? That they don't bloat the phone with garbage? > [Apple] fostered a culture [serious citation needed]
- exabrial 3y ago
  Down voted -3 for stating nothing but the truth rofl
anotherhue 3y ago
Oh stop. iMesssge has long since passed the point of 'fun app' and is well into the realm of public utility. They're a victim of their own success. If our regulators weren't asleep at the wheel this would have been forcibly spun out years ago. The blue/green icon debacle should have been ruled discriminatory. Anecdotally I had to switch to iOS due to iMessage being used amongst my colleagues.
- richwater 3y ago
  > public utility Can we stop labeling everything that people like a "public utility"? What is ridiculous phrase. At any point in time I can open 10 chat apps and talk to my friends. There are _existing_ public utilities that have way more, _actual_ monopoly power than iMessage and federal, state and local governments do nothing - nay - support it.
  - xanaxagoras 3y ago
    But public utilities are a human right!
  - anotherhue 3y ago
    I hate iMessage but I’m forced to use it because I need to communicate with people who don’t understand anything else. Try and chat to a group including 50+ year olds and see how far you get without it. This feels like “Please submit documents in Microsoft Word format” all over again.
    - kashunstva 3y ago
      > with people who don’t understand anything else. or with people who _do_ understand other messaging platforms but choose to use iMessage? I fall (mostly) into the latter category. I well understand that other messaging systems exist, have accounts on a handful; but the people I communicate most with use iMessage. I'm not going to persuade them otherwise; and I'm not going to be harangued with notifications on a half-dozen different messaging apps. > 50+ year olds It's how I message with my 15 year old. And mostly how she messages with her friends. I think the usage patterns are more nuanced than old/young and simpleton/cognoscenti.
reactordev 3y ago
This wouldn't be if Apple had done the right thing and made iMessage a standard or worked with Google on RCS. No. Apple wants to control. Beeper wants to make a profit. Android users are tired of feeling second-class to iOS users when they have the same hardware. Lawmakers are still clueless. End-users just want to be able to send media to friends and family. You're right it's getting ridiculous. Apple has every right to deny and go after Beeper. Apple publicly will say its for the security of their users. The reality is it's all about their bottom line and making sure people on iOS, stay on iOS.
pocketarc 3y ago
As someone who used to use multi-IM clients (Pidgin, Trillian, Meebo) back in the MSN/AIM/ICQ days, I have to say, it's surreal to see how the conversation has shifted to the point that this is now a reasonable-sounding comment.
- ntauthority 3y ago
  Notably so, I believe Trillian was a paid product and Meebo was actually treated like a real tech startup. Interesting, indeed, how much the sentiment has shifted over the course of 10-15 years...
- leokennis 3y ago
  Ideologically you are of course correct...but I would say Apple/iMessage is about as good/bad an actor in the IM-space as their competition.
  - paulgb 3y ago
    AFAIK the players like AIM, MSN, ICQ didn’t cut off access to third party clients. Maybe they wanted to, but it was too onerous back then to force client software updates that they had to continue supporting reverse-engineered versions of the protocol?
    - plushpuffin 3y ago
      They absolutely did. AOL in particular used a buffer overflow bug in AIM to execute arbitrary code to determine if the client was actually AIM or a third-party client pretending to be AIM. MSN Messenger and Yahoo IM both cried foul about this and called out for interoperability, but then turned around and denied third-party clients access to their own networks once they got big enough.
- izacus 3y ago
  Yeah, it's outright incredible how much even tech libertarian HN commonly visceraly HATES market competition and wants to outright remove the possibility of market alternatives for critical services. I bet if HDMI and USB wouldn't exist, they'd protest against being able to connect their MacBooks to non-Apple TVs and non-Apple keyboards - to keep them safe from evil Samsung monitors and bad Logitech mice.
tempodox 3y ago
Then I hope you will never, ever, send an email to someone else's mail server.
- richwater 3y ago
  You mean the mail server they own/operate/pay for with the _explicit_ purpose of accepting public, incoming SMTP traffic? Terrible comparison.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Jealous? Is this Ford vs Chevy corporate worship? For me, the big problem with Apple's behavior is that combined with their market dominance with minors in the US, they're able to use social peer pressure to crush any competition. Having the wrong color text bubble in a chat is social death in many teen groups, so they all have to get Apple products to avoid this. Apple is all too happy to exploit the desire of children still developing their social skills to belong to a peer group. Edit >A survey reveals that an overwhelming 87% of American teens own an iPhone, and an even more staggering 88% plan to purchase an iPhone as their next smartphone. https://www.pipersandler.com/teens https://www.pipersandler.com/teens
zamadatix 3y ago
I'm not sure I buy particularly the "Android users are jealous of a coherent ecosystem" part on two counts. The first because you just said there is outstanding competition in the rich messaging space. Competition means a lot more than quantity of companies trying to do something. If, at a large scale, consumers are truly jealous of something they can't get without swapping hardware and OS providers to the message provider then competition is poor at best. The second because I'm an iPhone owning user who uses Beeper, it has much better multi-os iMessage sync without having to sync/mirror my phone locally. So it's not just Android users it's even owners/users of Apple's products wanting to break a bit out of needing to use a Mac to get proper access to their iMessage. This widens the overall scope of the discussion quite a bit. I will agree Beeper is entitled and lawmakers are clueless. We may differ on whether that entitlement is warranted or what lawmakers are clueless about though :).

Dalewyn 3y ago

Anyone got a crash course on WTF Beeper is for someone who hasn't paid much attention? All I've heard is Apple "shut down" Beeper.

t3rabytes 3y ago
Reverse engineered the API that iMessage uses and made an app for Android making use of them (while charging a fee for it). There's more to it than that (what got them smacked originally was using fake device credentials for attestation), but that's the tl;dr.
reactordev 3y ago
It's an iMessage compatible messaging client for Android. https://www.beeper.com/ https://www.beeper.com/
aspenmayer 3y ago
It's an open-source (open core? not sure if the serverside is open) multi-platform single-pane-of-glass instant messaging client (Beeper) with a cloud/webapp (Beeper Cloud I think it's called).
- ripply 3y ago
  The server is matrix, you can host your own opensource official beeper bridges on your own matrix server and use your own matrix application. The official beeper cloud applications only talk to their matrix server, but everything the bridges do are end to end encrypted to your device via matrix so as long as you trust they do not log your messages or you run your own bridges they can’t read any of your messages.
layer8 3y ago
From the article: “The two Beeper messaging apps allow Android users to interact with iPhone users through iMessage — an interoperability Apple has been opposed to for a long time now.”
saynay 3y ago
Beeper has an application to consolidate many different messaging applications into a single app. One of those messaging apps was iMessage, with the added ability to use iMessage on Android. Previously, they did this by effectively having you sign-in to iCloud on a Mac system running in their datacenter. Handing over your iCloud password to a third-party obviously has security implications, even if you trust Beeper wont intentionally abuse it. Recently, they had a new Beeper-Mini, that instead reversed-engineered the iMessage protocol and spoofed your Android phonenumber as being an Apple device. This allowed you to use iMessage without ever handing over your password to some remote server (although, still handing it over to a third-party application, and trusting it doesn't do something shady). Beeper, for its part, has claimed this reverse-engineering falls under the protection of allowed exceptions for the purpose of interoperability. Apple has not yet made any legal claim one way or another, and instead just shutdown the method being used to gain access to iMessage from non-Apple devices.

SamBorick 3y ago

For once, I'm proud to be a customer of a company that is willing to stand up against monopolies.

leokennis 3y ago
How is iMessage a monopoly? I would like open communications standards as much as the next guy, but next to iMessage there are WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, WeChat, Facebook Messenger etc. etc. And as far as I know, you have to use the official WhatsApp app to chat on WhatsApp, same for Telegram, etc. etc. So apart from iMessage not being a monopoly, they are also not more restrictive than their competition. So besides not matching with our "open" ideology for communication, what exactly has Apple done wrong here?
- joshmanders 3y ago
  Apparently since Apple made it more convenient to iPhone users to not only message other iPhone users from iMessage, but also receive their text messages in that single app too, it's a monopoly?
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    That probably didn't help things but I think the root cause comes down to the usual source of monopolies in this case: having vertical integration and a default app. Technically you don't even need an iPhone or SMS service to use iMessage. It is by the most common use case though, and one which increased the amount of integration a bit.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  You do not want open communication standards as much as the next guy. You’re advocating for a closed communication standard.
- SamBorick 3y ago
  My view is that all of those messaging platforms blocking alternative clients are equally problematic. I've arrived at this position because I'm not able to use any of those platforms because they don't provide accessibility tools that I need. Beeper does, and most matrix clients do also. I recognize that the open source "everything should be open" view is not remotely mainstream, but the only way forward is to demand better.

notamy 3y ago

Serious questions, I haven’t been paying enough attention to all of this to know the answers: Looking at Beeper’s website, I can see > We currently offer a 7 day free trial, afterwards there is a $1.99 per month subscription. I can’t imagine any company being okay with another company reverse-engineering their product and then charging for it, without at least paying for the infrastructure they’re using. Why is Apple expected to accept it? Isn’t the reverse-engineering against Apple ToS anyway? As far as I know, it’s a pretty standard clause in basically every company’s ToS. How is Beeper supposed to "win" here, short of that sort of ToS clause being declared unenforceable?

post-it 3y ago
Beeper hasn't necessarily agreed to Apple's ToS.
- paulmd 3y ago
  CFAA would be unenforceable if it required unauthorized users to have agreed to the terms of service of the systems they were abusing. You’re not supposed to be there and that’s sufficient.
- tptacek 3y ago
  All its users have, as Beeper is aware, and Beeper has taken extensive steps, predicated on the existing of that customer agreement (in fact: meaningful only because of that agreement) to help them renege.
  - greyface- 3y ago
    Beeper isn't marketed at Apple users - they already have access to iMessage. Are we to presume that all Android users have agreed to the iOS ToS?
    - JoshuaRogers 3y ago
      If we’re presuming that the end-user has not agreed to any term of service, then why are we assuming that they have the right to use the service in anyway whatsoever? It’s basically the definition of unauthorized use at that point.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

Reminds me of the old battles with AOL Instant Messenger compatible clients like GAIM, that used the TOC protocol. Think that ended up in an extended cat and mouse game of AOL changing things to lock out GAIM and other clients while the developers found new ways around the changes. Not sure if there was much, if any, encryption being used back then for instant messaging system. If not, clear text would have been much easier to hack around.

saghm 3y ago
A friend shared this with me the other day after we were discussing the current drama: https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ Apparently AOL eventually "beat" MSN trying to reverse engineer their protocol by exploiting a known buffer overflow in their own implementation, and then MSN fumbled by trying to leak the security issue to put pressure on AOL but being too transparent in their manipulations and losing the PR battle that ensued.

fh9302 3y ago

So Beeper is charging money to let users access Apple's servers in an unauthorized way by spoofing a serial number, and then they complain to regulators when Apple locks them out?

sigzero 3y ago
That about sums it up.
xvector 3y ago
And foolish regulators take Beeper's side. Klobuchar is a clown.
Spivak 3y ago
I think that was their play from the beginning, get something working to prove it's technically possible and eliminate that line of argumentation, wait for the retaliation, and then sue them for anticompetitive practices that now clearly demonstrates consumer harm. Get the regulators to force Apple to open the front door for them.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  They were charging for iMessage over a year ago in what is now called Beeper Cloud. I wonder why Beeper Mini created the ruckus, perhaps because it was iMessage only?
  - AndroidKitKat 3y ago
    I think it is because this new Beeper Mini spoofs a Mac, whereas the older Beeper Cloud used a real Mac in a datacenter to forward your messages to you. Personally, I don't think that Apple would have any leg to stand on if they went after the Beeper Cloud on-a-real-Mac implementation.
layer8 3y ago
Do we know Beeper complained to regulators here?

aforty 3y ago

So Beeper is piggybacking off Apple’s servers that facilitate iMessages and is charging $1.99 per month to users and they thought Apple would be okay with this?

layer8 3y ago
You could make a somewhat similar argument about an email provider sending emails to iCloud email addresses, thus “piggybacking” off Apple’s iCloud servers. Granted, Beeper probably doesn’t prevent it being used between two Android users, but the primary function, and why people would pay for it, is to communicate with Apple users. The primary difference is that in one case it’s a closed proprietary protocol and in the other an open protocol. But who pays for what is not the main concern. Apple would still disagree even if Beeper would be willing to share an appropriate part of their revenue.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  But the user with the iCloud address is (probably) an Apple customer. Similarly, with plain SMS, the cellular provider owns (some of) the infrastructure, but the user is a customer. With Beeper, the customer is paying Beeper, but Beeper is using Apple's infrastructure (without paying for it).
  - layer8 3y ago
    I don’t understand your point. The user with iMessage that the Android user wants to communicate with is an Apple customer as well, and arguably pays Apple to be reachable via iMessage. And in the iCloud Mail example, the non-Apple user who is sending an email to the iCloud user also is not an Apple customer and doesn’t pay for Apple’s iCloud Mail infrastructure.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - alistairSH 3y ago
      I was thinking two non-Apple users could use the iMessage protocol through Beeper. Maybe that's not possible?

howmayiannoyyou 3y ago

An obvious solution would be for Apple to offer users an integrated messaging experience of its own across platforms. I understand why on the surface that seems in error, but its badly needed.

tomalbrc 3y ago
There are so many 3rd party communication sevices you can use free of charge.
- verwalt 3y ago
  "But that one chick I met on tinder laughed at my green bubbles, so I want to use iMessage!!!"
  - theklr 3y ago
    This feels like the crux of the beeper battle. I can’t wait for the Aaron Sorkin adoption on a Netflix miniseries.
    - pxmpxm 3y ago
      So mostly android users doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify some company selling stealing compute for two bucks a month.
  - mr_toad 3y ago
    Buying an iPhone might not be the most expensive part of dating.

hnfong 3y ago

If I make a commercial app that serves Youtube videos without ads, can I get the DOJ to investigate when Youtube blocks my app? I mean, it even makes sense, Youtube is more closer to a monopoly than iMessage is. :-/

colanderman 3y ago

Genuinely surprised at the prevalence of "Apple is right, Beeper is wrong" comments on Hacker News of all places. Beeper is filling a market need via a technologically creative solution. Since when is protectionism of large entrenched actors our cause? I miss the days of GAIM/Pidgin/Trillium/Adium and hope Beeper prevails here.

joshmanders 3y ago
Probably because while we're hackers at heart, we're also don't think that because a company is large and profitable we're entitled to their resources free of charge to sell to other people violating all of their terms of service.
- colanderman 3y ago
  I don't think Apple cares about the resource usage here. (Note that's not their argument, they argue that Beeper clients will bypass content protections.) The servers running iMessage, heck even the team supporting it, are probably a drop in the bucket for them. Apple's goal is for iMessage to remain an exclusive feature of their hardware. That exclusivity is what Beeper -- or an Apple-vended Android client, or RCS interoperability, or federation generally -- threatens. And -- it's exactly the proposition of, "to use our popular offering in market X, you must also purchase our offering in market Y" which is anticompetitive.
  - shazzdeeds 3y ago
    Lots of platforms like gaming consoles have exclusive content where the same company is both the hardware/services owner and the content creator. What would be anticompetitive is they leveraged their position as an app platform to stunt other legitimate chat apps from gaining popularity. Beeper claims that’s what’s happening to them but their legitimacy is debatable.
- asadotzler 3y ago
  [flagged]
3y ago

magnio 3y ago

I don't get the angle from these lawmakers. Beeper could be doing nothing illegal, but Apple has every right to block unwanted access to their server. Just as Reddit has the right to block all third-party clients and YouTube has every right to block ad-block users. I thought what Beeper did was fun at first, but now I consider their work dangerous, since it rationalizes a push for remote attestation, which is what Apple has been meaning to do for a long time. Now they have a valid reason to fully utilize it, after which Google may try to follow suit and probably face less backlashes.

TheCoelacanth 3y ago
Lawmakers make the law. They have to consider not only what is currently illegal but also what should be illegal. Just because Apple is currently allowed to block access from competitors doesn't mean they should be allowed to.
s3p 3y ago
>since it rationalizes a push for remote attestation No it doesn't. By this logic, Apple should have gone through with plans to implement CSAM scanning on iCloud. Except customers complained and they abandoned it. Then they debuted e2e encrypted iCloud storage 2 years later; completely antithetical to the school of thought used by CSAM scanning advocates.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  As I understand it, the CSAM feature was created because the E2EE was on the horizon. They were trying to have their cake and eat it too. Then they choked on the cake.
fulafel 3y ago
Lawmakers make and change laws, so it seems sensible to find out whether they need changing. "This isn't illegal now therefore it shouldn't be looked into by lawmakers" would be circular reasoning.

saghm 3y ago

One possibility I haven't seen discussed is whether this will end with some sort of "compromise" where Beeper is allowed to continue to operate but users are marked in some way differently than both iMessage (client) users and SMS users. Beeper would claim a victory in being allowed to continue existing and provide iMessage access on Android with encryption, sans-SMS, etc., and Apple would be able to mark the "others" in a chat (and perhaps add features to chats with only iMessage clients that aren't supported in chats with other clients).

latexr 3y ago
Beeper has explicitly suggested that. > If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users. https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mini-is-back https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mini-is-back

minerva23 3y ago

Tangentially, this has been great for Apple to get metrics on Android demand for iMessage. Sure, one can assume every Android user would want access, but instances like this show people are willing to pay for access as well. Apple should bundle iMessage access for Android into iCloud's subscription and release an official Android app. Maybe some eyes from the DOJ will get that on Apple's roadmap (I can dream, right?).

amazingman 3y ago

I already have to trust that Apple adheres to its promise not to abuse their privileged position to break E2E encryption. Now I have to trust Apple to continually verify that Beeper is not breaking E2E encryption? I don't know what the folks at Beeper are smoking, but it appears that a lot of very smart people are smoking it too.

dimask 3y ago
"Interoperability" was cool and all 20 years ago or so, but I do not understand how nowadays anybody really considers it a good idea tbh. It has pretty much obvious security risks (it need not have in theory, but in practice it certainly does). And it is not that we lack decent multiplatform, secure solutions that people can use independent of platform.

webworker 3y ago

It's really disappointing to see how Apple went from championing open standards in the early days of Mac OS X, especially with regard to communication protocols, to this. I want a premium messaging experience on my iPhone, regardless of what the other party has. I do not want compressed images and videos, and as an end-user, it's bullisht that I have to figure out how to do that using 3rd party apps.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

issafram 3y ago

I've got an idea. Apple could man up and create an android app instead of all this bullshit. They have been forced into RCS which will be huge, but they have already decided to keep the green bubble garbage. They will do their best to make sure the user experience is as degraded as possible.

kriskrunch 3y ago

The irony is Wozniak and Jobs manufactured and sold devices, called Blue Boxes, that hacked the phone system to provide free phone calls. > "If it hadn't been for the Blue Boxes, there would have been no Apple. I'm 100% sure of that." -Steve Jobs For your Apple collection: https://www.bonhams.com/auction/24495/lot/109/wozniak-steve-b1950-and-steve-jobs-1955-2011-blue-box-c1972/ https://www.bonhams.com/auction/24495/lot/109/wozniak-steve-...

graeme 3y ago
Sure, but no one was arguing that ought to have been legal or that the phone system would be in the wrong to attempt to patch exploits found by hacking. Their Blue Box efforts were very cool! So is the coding that let Beeper do this. But it is mystifying to me that people are arguing it is illegitimate (under our current system) for Apple to try to secure its system.
- sahila 3y ago
  The irony is people are rooting for a company (Apple) which only exists because it did something similar like Beeper early on, but root against Beeper. Apple is its present and history.

_8j50 3y ago

This whole thing is absurd! DOJ investigation against whom? Aren't beeper's author's technically in violation of CFAA for knowingly bypassing security measures and accessing systems (imessage servers) against authorization? This entire society us upside down! Just because apple is big bad corp doesn't mean any issue against them is right! Kudos to beeper but don't make this a legal thing against apple.

kotaKat 3y ago

It's not a constitutional right to be able to access iMessage.

shortsunblack 3y ago

Hostile interoperability is what made Facebook successful.

not_me_ever 3y ago

With beeper actively attacking security critical infrastructure it's just a question of time until someone pulls out the patriot act and jails them as terrorists.