Comment by AnonHP | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AnonHP | Hacker News Reader

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> The main question I want addressed is: If SMS messages can be directly shown in iMessage, and are not secure, then the argument of not allowing "insecure" 3rd-parties to integrate with iMessage goes out the window. All I want is Android messages to be shown in iMessage. Sure we can make them green, but at least they will be sent over the data network and not SMS.

There’s the Messages app and the iMessage protocol — two different things. How would Apple allow messages from Android that are not SMS? That’s by adding RCS support, which is coming later this year. It still won’t have end to end encryption (like the iMessage protocol does) because Apple isn’t going to support (as of now) the proprietary and closed extensions Google has developed for RCS. Any Android message that comes over the data network will have to have some sort of encryption. Otherwise SMS is just fine, as it is today.

> How would Apple allow messages from Android that are not SMS?

Quite easily: by releasing a standalone iMessage app on Android. The Beeper folks have shown this of course can be done (even if Apple doesn't like it and blocks them).

Doing this would certainly be orders of magnitude easier than implementing RCS. It's quite telling that Apple still wants to maintain iMessage as iOS-only. And if Apple doesn't work with Google to implement the E2EE extension (assuming Google is reasonable about it), that tells us all we need to know (and should have already known): Apple doesn't actually care about their users and user privacy. They just care about their market position and "prestige", and want to maintain these silly "class divisions".

> The Beeper folks have shown this of course can be done (even if Apple doesn't like it and blocks them).

They hacked together a solution that “quite easily” exposed your private comms to them..

> It's quite telling that Apple still wants to maintain iMessage as iOS-only.

Also iMessage also works on macs and ipads, Apple Watches, and maybe Vision Pro (haven’t looked)

> And if Apple doesn't work with Google to implement the E2EE extension (assuming Google is reasonable about it), that tells us all we need to know

Apple is implementing the Universal profile. Instead of forcing companies to rely on google, GSMA can improve that profile.

> They hacked together a solution that “quite easily” exposed your private comms to them..

Beeper Cloud did (does?), but Beeper Mini did not! It was all on device, nothing was relayed through Beeper's servers.

>It still won’t have end to end encryption (like the iMessage protocol does)

If Apple can access it in any way (which they can) then it is not real E2EE.

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