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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.

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.