Co-founder: "All data indicates that" Apple has cut off Beeper Mini's reverse-engineering.
  • jdrch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    Yeah I was wondering how they were pulling that off without registering the phone number or iCloud account with Apple.

    In any case, this also shows that iMessage can be spoofed.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      They were registering the number and iCloud account, that’s how it works.

      They just built their own ANP service to interface with GCM.

      I tried it, it used my existing iCloud account to send messages. Could do that if it didn’t connect to iCloud and get the RSA key.

      As a matter of fact, to stop using it you have to de-register your phone number from iCloud.

      If you read the apps or devs docs it’s all explained.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Beeper Mini, the Android app born from a reverse-engineering of Apple’s iMessage service, is currently broken, and it is unknown whether it will resume functioning.

    Beeper desktop users received a message from co-founder Eric Migicovsky late on Friday afternoon, noting an “iMessage outage” and that “messages are failing to send and receive.”

    Comments on Beeper’s status post on X (formerly Twitter) suggested mixed results, at best, among users.

    To both outlets, Migicovsky offered the same comment, re-iterating his belief that it was in the best interests of Apple to let iPhone owners and Android users send encrypted messages to one another.

    Reddit user moptop and others suggested that Beeper’s service used encryption algorithms whose keys were spoofed to look like they came from a Mac Mini running OS X Mountain Lion, perhaps providing Apple a means of pinpointing and block them.

    Beeper Mini’s iMessage capabilities, for which the company was planning to charge $1.99 per month after a seven-day trial, were more than a feature.

    The original article contains 440 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!