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As a non-North-American, Beeper mini keeps me thinking if the whole point of this feud is about the colour of the bubble surrounding a message. Of, course, I kn

As a non-North-American, Beeper mini keeps me thinking if the whole point of this feud is about the colour of the bubble surrounding a message. Of, course, I know there is more than that, I mean, there must be... but so far, the debate of whether or or not the common user cares about the cryptographic security of their conversations online does not seem to strike me as the selling point for this type of implementation.

candiddevmike 3y ago
A lot of iMessage user angst around this boils down to "how dare other folks have the privilege of blue bubbles without paying for them"
- shermantanktop 3y ago
  I already get increasing iMessage spam (e.g. random “hello”). I don’t love the idea of opening the door to a large population of additional users unless they are subjected to equivalent abuse controls. And I can’t tell from the discussion so far whether that’d be true or not. Having worked on large scale fraud systems before, the only controls that work are those where users are risking something of value when they commit abuse. A paid account with a lot of valuable history is great. Banning a free and easy to replace/farm account is useless.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- martimarkov 3y ago
  No it’s because I’m not sure if the messages I send to them can be easily harvested. Same goes for photos I have shared. Maybe it’s naked photos. Maybe they are photos which show me doing something considered illegal. Idk let’s say I’m speeding on my private road and I send the video which seen out of context is damaging to me. When the user uses iMessage I can be sure if it leaks - he was either hacked or shared the photo. If he uses a 3rd party client MY data can now be harvested by the 3rd party without my consent or knowledge. The knowledge is the key here because apart from the original 2 reasons for a leak now it’s also the other option of 3rd party app harvesting data. Get China as an investor is a year or two and… now my data 100% will be harvested.
  - pelagicAustral 3y ago
    Yes, because there are no zero-click attacks known for iMessage... > https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/apple-zero-click-imessage-exploit-used-to-infect-iphones-with-spyware/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/apple-zero-cl...
    - bestnameever 3y ago
      OP said: > When the user uses iMessage I can be sure if it leaks - he was either hacked or shared the photo I would call that a hack.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Don't worry, Apple's harvesting your data these days as well. More importantly though, end to end encryption means Beepers servers never see the videos of you breaking the law, but if you're truly paranoid, the closed nature of iMessage should scare you because we don't know that the NSA doesn't have decryption keys - iMessage in China is not run by Apple, which means the CCP has decryption keys for messages sent in China; who's to say theres not a similar arrangement with the US intelligence community. I'm not remotely Edward Snowden but if that's your worry, I wouldn't trust iMessage either.
    - martimarkov 3y ago
      My worry in this case is not the government it’s the unsecured rooted Android devices will malware. When I want to have secure conversations I either do IRL or Signal on iOS devices.
haswell 3y ago
There’s been too much focus on the color of the bubble, or security, or specific features. But the real issue boils down to human in/out group dynamics. Being excluded from group chats or having people get frustrated by the lone Android user in the group are powerful forms of peer pressure. And that pressure exists because Apple has pretty clearly made the experience intentionally frustrating. That said, in the specific feature category: lacking the ability to send a reasonable quality photo or video is also a pretty big issue in 2023.
- mbesto 3y ago
  bigger than that: - iMessage works on wifi without a cell connection - green txts constantly break group messaging to the point where I refuse to add my friends partners who dont have iOS - there are no abilities to admin group messaging with green txts (change the name, add/remove people, etc.) It's not just about the color.
  - izzydata 3y ago
    That makes it sound like android phones are at fault. It's an iOS problem where they refuse to be compatible. People who use iOS should be asking Apple to fix it if they cared about this problem at all.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      Not Android, but SMS. SMS is a terrible messaging layer; Apple is not going to sink (very expensive) engineer time into papering over its badness when they already have a working alternative that their customers use.
      - haswell 3y ago
        > Apple is not going to sink (very expensive) engineer time into papering over its badness Upcoming support for RCS is arguably doing exactly that. They didn’t seem interested until they started receiving regulatory pressure, though.
Rebelgecko 3y ago
For me, the big selling point is better quality photos/videos. Whether I get a video from a non-RCS user it looks like a VHS rip. Sure there's other apps you can use, but realistically I'm not going to convince my friend's grandma to install Signal so she can send me a 10 second cat video
DougN7 3y ago
I like that iMessage lets me know if a message was delivered, and also if it was read.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

candiddevmike 3y ago

A lot of iMessage user angst around this boils down to "how dare other folks have the privilege of blue bubbles without paying for them"

shermantanktop 3y ago
I already get increasing iMessage spam (e.g. random “hello”). I don’t love the idea of opening the door to a large population of additional users unless they are subjected to equivalent abuse controls. And I can’t tell from the discussion so far whether that’d be true or not. Having worked on large scale fraud systems before, the only controls that work are those where users are risking something of value when they commit abuse. A paid account with a lot of valuable history is great. Banning a free and easy to replace/farm account is useless.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
martimarkov 3y ago
No it’s because I’m not sure if the messages I send to them can be easily harvested. Same goes for photos I have shared. Maybe it’s naked photos. Maybe they are photos which show me doing something considered illegal. Idk let’s say I’m speeding on my private road and I send the video which seen out of context is damaging to me. When the user uses iMessage I can be sure if it leaks - he was either hacked or shared the photo. If he uses a 3rd party client MY data can now be harvested by the 3rd party without my consent or knowledge. The knowledge is the key here because apart from the original 2 reasons for a leak now it’s also the other option of 3rd party app harvesting data. Get China as an investor is a year or two and… now my data 100% will be harvested.
- pelagicAustral 3y ago
  Yes, because there are no zero-click attacks known for iMessage... > https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/apple-zero-click-imessage-exploit-used-to-infect-iphones-with-spyware/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/apple-zero-cl...
  - bestnameever 3y ago
    OP said: > When the user uses iMessage I can be sure if it leaks - he was either hacked or shared the photo I would call that a hack.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Don't worry, Apple's harvesting your data these days as well. More importantly though, end to end encryption means Beepers servers never see the videos of you breaking the law, but if you're truly paranoid, the closed nature of iMessage should scare you because we don't know that the NSA doesn't have decryption keys - iMessage in China is not run by Apple, which means the CCP has decryption keys for messages sent in China; who's to say theres not a similar arrangement with the US intelligence community. I'm not remotely Edward Snowden but if that's your worry, I wouldn't trust iMessage either.
  - martimarkov 3y ago
    My worry in this case is not the government it’s the unsecured rooted Android devices will malware. When I want to have secure conversations I either do IRL or Signal on iOS devices.

haswell 3y ago

There’s been too much focus on the color of the bubble, or security, or specific features. But the real issue boils down to human in/out group dynamics. Being excluded from group chats or having people get frustrated by the lone Android user in the group are powerful forms of peer pressure. And that pressure exists because Apple has pretty clearly made the experience intentionally frustrating. That said, in the specific feature category: lacking the ability to send a reasonable quality photo or video is also a pretty big issue in 2023.

mbesto 3y ago
bigger than that: - iMessage works on wifi without a cell connection - green txts constantly break group messaging to the point where I refuse to add my friends partners who dont have iOS - there are no abilities to admin group messaging with green txts (change the name, add/remove people, etc.) It's not just about the color.
- izzydata 3y ago
  That makes it sound like android phones are at fault. It's an iOS problem where they refuse to be compatible. People who use iOS should be asking Apple to fix it if they cared about this problem at all.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    Not Android, but SMS. SMS is a terrible messaging layer; Apple is not going to sink (very expensive) engineer time into papering over its badness when they already have a working alternative that their customers use.
    - haswell 3y ago
      > Apple is not going to sink (very expensive) engineer time into papering over its badness Upcoming support for RCS is arguably doing exactly that. They didn’t seem interested until they started receiving regulatory pressure, though.

Rebelgecko 3y ago

For me, the big selling point is better quality photos/videos. Whether I get a video from a non-RCS user it looks like a VHS rip. Sure there's other apps you can use, but realistically I'm not going to convince my friend's grandma to install Signal so she can send me a 10 second cat video

DougN7 3y ago

I like that iMessage lets me know if a message was delivered, and also if it was read.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]