I absolutely am not an iPhone or iMessage fan, but criticizing a company for blocking someone who reverse engineered they platform to gain access isn’t right in my opinion.
If a 3rd party app is allowed to utilise Apple’s iMessage protocol/network, then every other messaging provider (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc) will be required to open up their platforms.
I cant wait to see the day where WhatsApp allows 3rd party apps to use their messaging network.
It’s very right. All messaging platforms should be open or interoperable.
Imagine if from Hotmail you could only email others on Hotmail. Or the same with Gmail. Or not being able to SMS anyone on at&t from any other telco. There’s no good reason to limit it like that.
Also consider that they were charging for the service. The only part of the deal I wasn’t keen on. 1 because again, messaging should be open and interoperable. 2 they were basically charging a recurring fee for access to Apple’s service, not specifically theirs in this instance. Which seems bad on Beeper, until you realize that Apple is basically refusing to make money from their service. And they’re not doing it out of principle, ideology, or good will. They’re doing it because they don’t want to compete. Not with regards to iMessage, or anything else.
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Maybe we wouldn’t have the spam ridden hellscape that is modern email if it worked more like current messaging platforms
Apple has reverse engineered a lot of stuff to make it work on apple products. A fair number of Microsoft products specifically. I don’t know why they should be exempt from having similar happen to them.
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DMCA specifically protects the right to reverse engineer something for interoperability. There is no reason other than being cordial to request “permission”.
And that’s fine. Beeper and the 16yo hacker haven’t broken any laws, haven’t done anything wrong, and won’t go to jail. But that doesn’t mean Apple can’t close the hole they exploited. It is their messaging network, and they can make any changes to it that they want.
I never made that claim. I never said it wasn’t Apple’s prerogative to close any loopholes or backdoors. I didn’t claim any ethics on the part of Beeper or the original exploiter. I am asking for a provable viable instance where the law was broken and what law and how. The person who blocked me made a lot of claims that they failed to back up with factual information with sources and repeated themselves several times with claims of unlawful conduct. They didn’t explain which laws had been broken or how. I would like that information still.
I called myself a layman specifically because in the case of Apple products that’s what I am. I’m not criticizing apple for closing a potentially exploitable security flaw. I am saying that this tech company (like every other) is absolutely borrowing within the constraints of the law and outside it from other tech companies and that because that is the case there is some hypocrisy in the stance that somehow other companies are expected not to.
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Has Beeper actually charged money for it? My understanding is that this rollout was planned to be paid eventually but nobody has paid anything as of yet for the functionality.
By your own admission though, beeper is using an exploit that they did not reverse engineer. They paid for someone else’s process which probably was covered under DMCA at the time. I will wait to see if Apple decides on litigation because so far I haven’t even heard a word about them suing beeper and I absolutely think they would if beeper has done something illegal.
You quote directly from the same source I was using (Cornell law) and your quote directly suggests that reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability (in this case with iMessage and it’s use on iPhones and the interoperability with android phones) appear to both be covered. If they aren’t covered you haven’t explained why your suggestion that they are doing so to profit makes sense except they haven’t charged anyone that I can find for the service. Even their FAQ has been updated to say they will continue offering the service free of charge and will warn users when it moves to a paid service. I don’t dispute that they do plan to have a paid service but at this juncture they haven’t actually implemented that.
I don’t “misunderstand the purpose of DMCA”. I actually couldn’t care less about apple or beeper. I don’t use either brand or service and this is a solution to a problem I don’t have. I find the tech discussion around the interoperability of iMessage and RCS (assuming that actually happens) interesting, but again it doesn’t directly benefit me in any way. Pretty much my whole family use android phones. I don’t have any friends who appear to care about the blue bubble green bubble nonsense, though I am tangentially aware of it, mostly through tech articles.
Are beeper required to agree to Apple’s EULA? If so, why? Please explain that.
You assert that I am “defending”. I haven’t actually defended anything. I simply pointed out that wording in the DMCA would suggest that Beeper was exempt from certain restrictions. That’s not the same thing.
Did I hurt your feelings or something? Are you taking out your frustrations with other people on me? Because it does seem like it.
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I read everything you wrote. I’m trying to understand and you come off as hostile and appear to be forgetting that not everyone has all the details you seem to be keeping in your head. Calm down and explain it for a layman, please.
Edit: Also, is Apple so exclusive that I can’t just have an interest in knowing about the tech? Because literally that’s why I am here.
Yawn snooze. Nothing to see here. Hackers complaining their exploit got blocked.
I just fine it odd that people are unhappy with Apple. Beeper was spoofing Apple’s servers to make it look like an iMac was requesting the ping. Apple isn’t a charity they do not have to allow unauthorised third party access. I would hope none of us would allow unauthorised access to our servers.
I feel like if they initially didn’t try to force people to pay a subscription for a free service, Apple wouldn’t have closed the issue.
That being said, they fixed what was inarguably an exploit that could have led to scammers using Bluestacks to run iMessage spam campaigns. (These exist now, but would be amplified)
*is
