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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months

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An adversarial iMessage client for Android

Adversarial interoperability is one of the most reliable ways to protect tech users from predatory corporations: that's when a technologist reverse-engineers an existing product to reconfigure or mod it (interoperability) in ways its users like, but which its manufacturer objects to (adversarial):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Adversarial interop" is a mouthful, so at EFF, we coined the term "competitive compatibility," or comcom, which is a lot easier to say and to spell.

Scratch any tech success and you'll find a comcom story. After all, when a company turns its screws on its users, it's good business to offer an aftermarket mod that loosens them again. HP's $10,000/gallon inkjet ink is like a bat-signal for third-party ink companies. When Mercedes announces that it's going to sell you access to your car's accelerator pedal as a subscription service, that's like an engraved invitation to clever independent mechanics who'll charge you a single fee to permanently unlock that "feature":

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/05/carmakers-push-forward-with-plans-to-make-basic-features-subscription-services-despite-widespread-backlash/

Comcom saved giant tech companies like Apple. Microsoft tried to kill the Mac by rolling out a truly cursèd version of MS Office for MacOS. Mac users (5% of the market) who tried to send Word, Excel or Powerpoint files to Windows users (95% of the market) were stymied: their files wouldn't open, or they'd go corrupt. Tech managers like me started throwing the graphic designer's Mac and replacing it with a Windows box with a big graphics card and Windows versions of Adobe's tools.

Comcom saved Apple's bacon. Apple reverse-engineered MS's flagship software suite and made a comcom version, iWork, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote could flawlessly read and write MS's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

It's tempting to think of iWork as benefiting Apple users, and certainly the people who installed and used it benefited from it. But Windows users also benefited from iWork. The existence of iWork meant that Windows users could seamlessly collaborate on and share files with their Mac colleagues. IWork didn't just add a new feature to the Mac ("read and write files that originated with Windows users") – it also added a feature to Windows: "collaborate with Mac users."

Every pirate wants to be an admiral. Though comcom rescued Apple from a monopolist's sneaky attempt to drive it out of business, Apple – now a three trillion dollar company – has repeatedly attacked comcom when it was applied to Apple's products. When Apple did comcom, that was progress. When someone does comcom to Apple, that's piracy.

Apple has many tools at its disposal that Microsoft lacked in the early 2000s. Radical new interpretations of existing copyright, contract, patent and trademark law allows Apple – and other tech giants – to threaten rivals who engage in comcom with both criminal and civil penalties. That's right, you can go to prison for comcom these days. No wonder Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Take iMessage, Apple's end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) instant messaging tool. Apple customers can use iMessage to send each other private messages that can't be read or altered by third parties – not cops, not crooks, not even Apple. That's important, because when private messaging systems get hacked, bad things happen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak

But Apple has steadfastly refused to offer an iMessage app for non-Apple systems. If you're an Apple customer holding a sensitive discussion with an Android user, Apple refuses to offer you a tool to maintain your privacy. Those messages are sent "in the clear," over the 38-year-old SMS protocol, which is trivial to spy on and disrupt.

Apple sacrifices its users' security and integrity in the hopes that they will put pressure on their friends to move into Apple's walled garden. As CEO Tim Cook told a reporter: if you want to have secure communications with your mother, buy her an iPhone:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-cook-says-buy-mom-210347694.html

Last September, a 16-year old high school student calling himself JJTech published a technical teardown of iMessage, showing how any device could send and receive encrypted messages with iMessage users, even without an Apple ID:

https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/

JJTech even published code to do this, in an open source library called Pypush:

https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush

In the weeks since, Beeper has been working to productize JJTech's code, and this week, they announced Beeper Mini, an Android-based iMessage client that is end-to-end encrypted:

https://beeper.notion.site/How-Beeper-Mini-Works-966cb11019f8444f90baa314d2f43a54

Beeper is known for a multiprotocol chat client built on Matrix, allowing you to manage several kinds of chat from a single app. These multiprotocol chats have been around forever. Indeed, iMessage started out as one – when it was called "iChat," it supported Google Talk and Jabber, another multiprotocol tool. Other tools like Pidgin have kept the flame alive for decades, and have millions of devoted users:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/tower-babel-how-public-interest-internet-trying-save-messaging-and-banish-big

But iMessage support has remained elusive. Last month, Nothing launched Sunchoice, a disastrous attempt to bring iMessage to Android, which used Macs in a data-center to intercept and forward messages to Android users, breaking E2EE and introducing massive surveillance risks:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23970740/sunbird-imessage-app-shut-down-privacy-nothing-chats-phone-2

Beeper Mini does not have these defects. The system encrypts and decrypts messages on the Android device itself, and directly communicates with Apple's servers. It gathers some telemetry for debugging, and this can be turned off in preferences. It sends a single SMS to Apple's servers during setup, which changes your device's bubble from green to blue, so that Apple users now correctly see your device as a secure endpoint for iMessage communications.

Beeper Mini is now available in Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beeper.ima&hl=en_US

Now, this is a high-stakes business. Apple has a long history of threatening companies like Beeper over conduct like this. And Google has a long history deferring to those threats – as it did with OG App, a superior third-party Instagram app that it summarily yanked after Meta complained:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

But while iMessage for Android is good for Android users, it's also very good for Apple customers, who can now get the privacy and security guarantees of iMessage for all their contacts, not just the ones who bought the same kind of phone as they did. The stakes for communications breaches have never been higher, and antitrust scrutiny on Big Tech companies has never been so intense.

Apple recently announced that it would add RCS support to iOS devices (RCS is a secure successor to SMS):

https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/

Early word from developers suggests that this support will have all kinds of boobytraps. That's par for the course with Apple, who love to announce splashy reversals of their worst policies – like their opposition to right to repair – while finding sneaky ways to go on abusing its customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

The ball is in Apple's court, and, to a lesser extent, in Google's. As part of the mobile duopoly, Google has joined with Apple in facilitating the removal of comcom tools from its app store. But Google has also spent millions on an ad campaign shaming Apple for exposing its users to privacy risks when talking to Android users:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883609/google-rcs-message-apple-iphone-ipager-ad

While we all wait for the other shoe to drop, Android users can get set up on Beeper Mini, and technologists can kick the tires on its code libraries and privacy guarantees.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

#pluralistic #multiprotocol #interoperability #adversarial interop #beeper #reverse engineering #blue bubbles #green bubbles #e2ee #end to end encrypted #messaging #jjtech #pypushbeeper mini #matrix #competitive compatibility #comcom

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hasanabivideos · 1 month

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youtube

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robpegoraro · 5 months

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The Apple story I wish I'd had time to write this week: The company caves on RCS

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After Apple killing off the Lightning connector on the iPhone (if only they would remember to do likewise with their input devices), the story I’ve most looked forward to writing about that company would involve it raising the lowest common denominator for Android-to-iPhone text messaging from its current miserable and unencrypted state. So of course that news broke, in the form of an Apple…

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#getthemessage #chat features #encryption in transit #end to end encryption #green bubbles #GSMA #iMessage #MMS #RCS #SMS #texting #texts

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sixofclovers · 2 years

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flips the fishbowl like an hourglass

#the sandman #netflix #morpheus #dream of the endless #dream #he has so many names #ignore the joke im just nervous abt this one in case the visuals dont make sense like i think they make sense #hes in the glass bubble all twisted up but its like an hour glass too #mr snadman man me a sand and all that #soc art #i need a tag for paintings specifically #painting #also ill stop using this green yellow grey palette when i die #wait i changed the comment the new ones better

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knifeforsale · 2 years

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TOOTSIE TOY MR.BUBBLE SWISS BUBBLE BLOWER | LISTING

#knife #pocket knife #tou #plastic #bubbles #yellow #pink #orange #green #text #font #white #character #multi

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ghostbsuter · 7 months

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Danny loved this dimension!

First, the yellow ring powered attacks, and now the fear gas! Jazz would have an aneurysm if she ever found out how high he's gotten in the past week alone.

Now, if only he could shake off these pesky green lanterns and the giant bat guy.

Haunting this dimension seems like promising bonding activity between him, Ember, Kitty, and Johnny!

He really should hunt down that yellow lantern guy, tho, that stuff was great quality.

#fera being drugs #fear = Marijuana #dcxdp #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #fic prompt #writing prompt #dc x dp prompt #danny johnny kitty ember quartet #my beloved #the green lanterns are only 50 percent sure that was a new lantern #a baby lantern egtting high #ancients help them #theyre gonna need ut #how would u feel if u saw a child breathing in fear gas with dilated pupils and bubbly #bruce is concerned tm #hes hiding the joker gas with his life

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heartnosekid · 11 months

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berawaldariember on ig

#aquaponics #goldfish #fish #stim #sfw #green #orange #white #plants #water #flowers #sea creatures #pouring #bubbles #trypophobia #ishy gifs #postish #clear

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avandelay20 · 2 years

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Pathetic.

Apple should look beyond its own shoes and contribute something to the world at large that isn’t just another attempt to lock customers into its self-indulgent product suite.

Here lies a company so completely devoid of any humility that it cannot even acknowledge how many open standards and protocols it has relied on over the years - standards developed by competitors, governments, and universities around the world - which Apple happily built upon to become the success they are.

But instead of participating in our shared evolution as a technology-enabled species on this planet, Apple spends obscene amounts of their revenue developing proprietary protocols, interfaces, and ports - all of which contribute to massive consumer waste, frustrations among technology vendors, and for what -- so Apple can capture their customers and ISVs for as long as possible under the guise that they have ‘the best’ widget.

Apple have NO regard for giving back to the tech industry or humanity at large and that’s demonstrated yet again by their continued refusal to adopt open standards that clearly benefit everyone without risking injury to Apple or its customers.

It’s only a matter of time until another round of EU regulations land on Apple to dictate how they should behave in this regard. Bring it on.

#rcs #apple #android #capture #EU #Tim Cook #green bubbles #imessage

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cureqt · 2 years

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ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ・・・・☆・・・・

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ｡˚ 𓂋 📷﹒✦﹒✿ ˚

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ like, reblog & follow

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artsbymei · 3 months

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#blues #reds #greens #powerpuff girls #blossick #boomubbles #butchercup #blossom #brick #bubbles #boomer #buttercup #butch

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forestduck · 1 year

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#weheartit #nature #cottagecore #serene #beautiful #wanderlust #naturism #scenery #green house #gardening #gardening aesthetic #green #shade house #bubble tent #round house #garden aesthetic #cottage garden

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bubbieboy · 1 month

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been kicking around an idea of these guys being forced to team up because something something universe shenanigans and they need to reunite with their siblings

#powerpuff girls #rowdyruff boys #powerpunk girls #ppg blossom #ppg bubbles #ppg buttercup #rrb brick #rrb boomer #rrb butch #ppnkg berserk #ppnkg brat #ppnkg brute #my art #brick said something stupid about girls and got flambéed <3 #originally the greens were supposed to be on fire for funnies but it ended up looking a lot more morbid than intended #they r fine i swear they just roughed each other up a bit 😭

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zegalba · 2 years

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