Beeper vs. Apple battle intensifies: Lawmakers demand DOJ investigation

https://www.androidauthority.com/beeper-vs-apple-us-senators-letter-doj-3395333/

by mendyberger • 3 years ago

168 276 3 years ago

androidauthority.com

Dalewyn• 3 years ago

Anyone got a crash course on WTF Beeper is for someone who hasn't paid much attention?

All I've heard is Apple "shut down" Beeper.

t3rabytes• 3 years ago

Reverse engineered the API that iMessage uses and made an app for Android making use of them (while charging a fee for it). There's more to it than that (what got them smacked originally was using fake device credentials for attestation), but that's the tl;dr.

reactordev• 3 years ago

It's an iMessage compatible messaging client for Android. https://www.beeper.com/

aspenmayer• 3 years ago

It's an open-source (open core? not sure if the serverside is open) multi-platform single-pane-of-glass instant messaging client (Beeper) with a cloud/webapp (Beeper Cloud I think it's called).

ripply• 3 years ago

The server is matrix, you can host your own opensource official beeper bridges on your own matrix server and use your own matrix application. The official beeper cloud applications only talk to their matrix server, but everything the bridges do are end to end encrypted to your device via matrix so as long as you trust they do not log your messages or you run your own bridges they can’t read any of your messages.

layer85• 3 years ago

From the article: “The two Beeper messaging apps allow Android users to interact with iPhone users through iMessage — an interoperability Apple has been opposed to for a long time now.”

saynay• 3 years ago

Beeper has an application to consolidate many different messaging applications into a single app. One of those messaging apps was iMessage, with the added ability to use iMessage on Android.

Previously, they did this by effectively having you sign-in to iCloud on a Mac system running in their datacenter. Handing over your iCloud password to a third-party obviously has security implications, even if you trust Beeper wont intentionally abuse it.

Recently, they had a new Beeper-Mini, that instead reversed-engineered the iMessage protocol and spoofed your Android phonenumber as being an Apple device. This allowed you to use iMessage without ever handing over your password to some remote server (although, still handing it over to a third-party application, and trusting it doesn't do something shady).

Beeper, for its part, has claimed this reverse-engineering falls under the protection of allowed exceptions for the purpose of interoperability. Apple has not yet made any legal claim one way or another, and instead just shutdown the method being used to gain access to iMessage from non-Apple devices.

SamBorick2• 3 years ago

For once, I'm proud to be a customer of a company that is willing to stand up against monopolies.

leokennis• 3 years ago

How is iMessage a monopoly? I would like open communications standards as much as the next guy, but next to iMessage there are WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, WeChat, Facebook Messenger etc. etc.

And as far as I know, you have to use the official WhatsApp app to chat on WhatsApp, same for Telegram, etc. etc. So apart from iMessage not being a monopoly, they are also not more restrictive than their competition.

So besides not matching with our "open" ideology for communication, what exactly has Apple done wrong here?

joshmanders10• 3 years ago

Apparently since Apple made it more convenient to iPhone users to not only message other iPhone users from iMessage, but also receive their text messages in that single app too, it's a monopoly?

jncfhnb10• 3 years ago

You do not want open communication standards as much as the next guy. You’re advocating for a closed communication standard.

SamBorick2• 3 years ago

My view is that all of those messaging platforms blocking alternative clients are equally problematic.

I've arrived at this position because I'm not able to use any of those platforms because they don't provide accessibility tools that I need. Beeper does, and most matrix clients do also.

I recognize that the open source "everything should be open" view is not remotely mainstream, but the only way forward is to demand better.

tobias2014• 3 years ago

Definitely not true for Telegram, they are completely open about the client side infrastructure: https://telegram.org/apps (and there are dozens of third party clients, some even linked on their official website)

PrimeMcFly10• 3 years ago

How is iMessage a monopoly? I would like open communications standards as much as the next guy, but next to iMessage there are WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, WeChat, Facebook Messenger etc. etc.

Because it's the replacement for SMS for Apple phones and doesn't require an account in the same way those other services do. It just uses the Apple account iPhone owners already need to have.

3836293648• 3 years ago

Apples only escape here is that they're only popular in America. Whatsapp, Facebook messenger etc have to open up in the coming months because it's illegal in Europe. Apple should open up too, just like they have to with the App Store (because that is big enough to count as a gatekeeper)

overstay89303• 3 years ago

Here's how a monopoly hearing would work against iMessage:

Apple: We do not restrict who you can talk to on iPhone

Prosecutor: but the bubble is green and my friends won't talk to me :(

wraptile2• 3 years ago

So if your ISP like AOL makes all of their webpages nice and fast but competitors slower and uglier artificially then is AOL abusing their market position here? We already set the precedent here that this is market abuse. This new case is no different.

Also, Apple knows this. They know they'd lose that's why they are already ahead of this by announcing adoption of RCS in 2024.

How can anyone presume that Apple would stand some sort of ideological ground here? We literally have emails where Apple c-suits say that iMessages mistreating android benefits them and they don't want to fix this. This is such a clear case I don't understand how anyone can defend this.

notamy• 3 years ago

Serious questions, I haven’t been paying enough attention to all of this to know the answers:

Looking at Beeper’s website, I can see

We currently offer a 7 day free trial, afterwards there is a $1.99 per month subscription.

I can’t imagine any company being okay with another company reverse-engineering their product and then charging for it, without at least paying for the infrastructure they’re using. Why is Apple expected to accept it?

Isn’t the reverse-engineering against Apple ToS anyway? As far as I know, it’s a pretty standard clause in basically every company’s ToS. How is Beeper supposed to "win" here, short of that sort of ToS clause being declared unenforceable?

post-it• 3 years ago

Beeper hasn't necessarily agreed to Apple's ToS.

paulmd• 3 years ago

CFAA would be unenforceable if it required unauthorized users to have agreed to the terms of service of the systems they were abusing. You’re not supposed to be there and that’s sufficient.

tptacek• 3 years ago

All its users have, as Beeper is aware, and Beeper has taken extensive steps, predicated on the existing of that customer agreement (in fact: meaningful only because of that agreement) to help them renege.

overstay89303• 3 years ago

Doesn't matter, plenty of legal precedent for Apple to fall back on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_v._Zehmer

Very cut and dry CFAA case, I'm guessing Beeper saw how well it went for Epic Games when they leveraged the useful idiots to sway public opinion, so they are doing the same for a quick buck and hoping it gets political enough to avoid getting fined.

pxmpxm8• 3 years ago

Ah yes, they should absolutely go with these types of sovereign citizen legal arguments.

bicx• 3 years ago

There is a mentality where if a service becomes ubiquitous enough, it should be treated like a public utility. It’s not a particularly valid way of thinking, but common nonetheless.

tomalbrc2• 3 years ago

So, everything google and any other "big" company does, i can reverse engineer and resell the infrastructure that i'm using, free of charge?

naasking2• 3 years ago

There is a mentality where if a service becomes ubiquitous enough, it should be treated like a public utility. It’s not a particularly valid way of thinking, but common nonetheless.

You mean if a monopoly is created, it should be regulated like a utility. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, not sure what's invalid about this way of thinking.

jncfhnb10• 3 years ago

“Short of that sort of clause being declared unenforceable” is not an insurmountable barrier. Clauses are deemed unenforceable all the time.

Reverse engineering is not a problem.

Shutting down a competitor business draws scrutiny. Beeper’s strategy is not clean, but apple’s behavior in this space could be framed as anti competitive to begin with. They’re probably hoping so for some kind of concession that will force apple to open and provide a way for beeper to operate that is more above the table.

fh93024• 3 years ago

Reverse engineering is not a problem, accessing servers in an unauthorized way and then charging money for it is a problem.

giantrobot7• 3 years ago

but apple’s behavior in this space could be framed as anti competitive to begin with

People are free to pay Beeper for a service and Apple isn't stopping that. Apple is stopping unauthorized access a private network they run.

etchalon3• 3 years ago

Beeper is not a competitor though. Signal, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, etc. are competitors. Beeper is a free-rider.

If you're a grocery store, it's anti-competitive to try and shut down the store down the street.

It's not anti-competitive to arrest the shoplifter who's selling their spoils in your parking lot.

averageRoyalty5• 3 years ago

Shutting down a competitor business draws scrutiny.

Let's say I own a lemon orchid and it's known around the area people are welcome to come pick a few as they want, but we primarily sell wholesale. One day, John down the road (who doesn't own an orchid$ decides he wants to sell lemons wholesale too. He proceeds to recruit pickers and they start combing through my open orchid stripping trees to sell.

As a reaction to this behaviour - which I clearly didn't intend for, but did technically allow - am I being anti-competitive? Would you classify this as "shutting down a competitors business"?

turquoisevar6• 3 years ago

Jurisprudence does not only establish that clauses that prohibit reverse engineering are enforceable, it clearly establishes that those clauses supersede the reverse engineering exception in the DMCA, see Bowers v. Baystate Technologies, 320 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2003)[0]

And both Apple’s OS licenses and Apple’s MediaToS, both of which require agreement before being able to reach the parts that were reverse engineered, explicitly prohibit reverse engineering.

But the civil liability isn’t the most interesting part of this story.

The interesting part is that this referral to the DOJ can blow up in Beeper’s face in a violent way.

While there’s nothing the antitrust division of the DOJ can do here no matter how badly the congressional critters misrepresent the situation in the letter, CCIPS can definitely pursue computer trespass charges as defined in the CFAA due to Beeper’s unauthorized access of Apple’s servers.

0: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/320/320.F3d...

simion3142• 3 years ago

People that are old enough can remember applications like Pidgin, Gaim or similar, I do not remember anyone attempting and wining to sue the developers. The user will create an account so IMO if I have an Apple account (I own an old Apple laptop) then WTF would Apple care I send the bytes from a differrent application.

I am curious what a judge or legislators will decide on this, can a company force you to use their client to connect to their service? Then Google can force us to use Google approved and signed apps to access youtube and google apps, even if they can't block alternatives they can bully the alternatives with the justice system.

It would be also interesting to know if using this app instead of the fallback it is actually using maybe less resources and it would be a benefit for the world for Apple to open the protocol.

dimask2• 3 years ago

I am all against monopolies, I loved pidgin (and just saw that actually it still exists!), but the beeper-mini case was quite weird.

The user will create an account so IMO if I have an Apple account (I own an old Apple laptop) then WTF would Apple care I send the bytes from a differrent application.

Actually, the initial version of beeper mini did not require an apple ID. And actually this was one feature they seemed to advertised a lot. Only the phone number was used: "No Apple ID is required" [1].

I guess the idea was that they could provide an upgrade to the current, unencrypted communication between iMessage and android (that does not require an apple id either). But I guess the issue here, was that people who used it did not necessarily have an apple ID, and thus not consented to apple's ToS, which as I understand makes it different than pidgin etc. And they actually say that this is a problem they are trying to fix: "Phone number registration is not working yet. All users must now sign in with an AppleID. Messages will be sent and received via your email address rather than phone number. We’re currently working on a fix for this." [2]

Unless I misunderstand something, beeper mini stopped working because apple somehow disabled this "feature".

I mean I do not have any invested interest in this, I do not own an iphone and even if I did all people I know use other chatting apps, I do not own apple stocks or anything, I am all for piracy and whatnot, but I would not consider blocking access to their service when there is no ToS agreement "anti-competitive behaviour".

[1] https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works (initial announcement) [2] https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mini-is-back

mr_toad2• 3 years ago

I am curious what a judge or legislators will decide on this, can a company force you to use their client to connect to their service?

Some examples spring to mind: carrier locked cellphones. Game consoles. Reddit.

GeekyBear3• 3 years ago

I can’t imagine any company being okay with another company reverse-engineering their product and then charging for it, without at least paying for the infrastructure they’re using.

How is this not a violation of the same Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that was used to prosecute Aaron Swartz for unauthorized access to a web server?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz

criddell• 3 years ago

I've been wondering the same thing. Could Apple ask the DOJ (or whomever would be appropriate) to go after Beeper with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)? To my uneducated eyes, this looks like a pretty clear case of Beeper accessing Apple computers without authorization.

airstrike• 3 years ago

Worth noting that Swartz was never convicted, so the case doesn't really constitute a precedent, as tragic as the outcome was

RIP Aaron Swartz

_fat_santa• 3 years ago

The problem for Apple is because they are so big, any action they take will be seen as a "David vs Goliath" battle, regardless of the underlying right and wrong.

yreg• 3 years ago

Imagine someone started selling bootleg sim cards running unofficially on Verizon's network.

colanderman6• 3 years ago

Bad analogy. Verizon's network is federated with all other telephony networks. iMessage does not federate.

haswell• 3 years ago

The two legal factors discussed during the first round of reporting were:

- The explicit carve-out of reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability in the DMCA

- The European Digital Markets Act, which will require chat networks to provide interoperability

What's not clear to me is how relevant the DMCA is here, and/or if a ToS can supersede these laws.

I can’t imagine any company being okay with another company reverse-engineering their product and then charging for it

There is a whole ecosystem of products built on this premise. Quicken, for example, relies on a library of reverse engineered banking interfaces to automate interaction and data aggregation of one's accounts.

Search and LLM products are also built on the consumption of other people's data and then charging for it.

I'm not arguing that Apple is ok with this, but that as a model, it's not uncommon.

GeekyBear3• 3 years ago

The European Digital Markets Act, which will require chat networks to provide interoperability

iMessage (and Bing) don't have a large enough user base in the EU to fall under the DMA.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/6/23861030/imessage-bing-eur...

ethanbond• 3 years ago

TOS can and do override DMCA’s general protection for reverse engineering. Look up the Warcraft battle.net case (I think the service was called bnetd?)

st3fan2• 3 years ago

The European Digital Markets Act, which will require chat networks to provide interoperability

I think this would be _fan-tas-tic_. But beeper is not a chat network. It is a company that simply wants to be be the iMessage for Android client, using Apple's network.

Their case would be stronger if they did have their own network and used this reverse engineered iMessage connection to provider interop between the two networks.

turquoisevar6• 3 years ago

The explicit carve-out of reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability in the DMCA

Explicit prohibitions against reverse engineering in ToS and licenses, as is the case here, supersede the DMCA exception as per Bowers v. Baystate Technologies, 320 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2003)[0]

The European Digital Markets Act, which will require chat networks to provide interoperability

Only for ones that are big enough to meet a threshold, which iMessage does not. If it did it would only be enforceable in the EU, so that wouldn’t affect US users.

There is a whole ecosystem of products built on this premise. Quicken, for example, relies on a library of reverse engineered banking interfaces to automate interaction and data aggregation of one's accounts.

The big difference with your example and this case is that in your example it leads to a new product that is sold, whereas in this case it’s the repackaging of someone else’s product, which is then subsequently sold and relies on someone else’s infrastructure.

Note that Apple hasn’t sued Beeper (yet) for reselling/sub-licensing iMessage, instead they’ve tightened access of their infrastructure.

It goes without saying that even if you’d believe that the DMCA reverse engineering exception allows for repackaging and resale of the reverse engineered product (which it doesn’t), it certainly doesn’t come with entitlement to the resources of owner of the reverse engineered product.

Search and LLM products are also built on the consumption of other people's data and then charging for it.

Ignoring the fact that the adjudication on the legality of this has yet to be resolved for a second, this is still not analogous to the situation at hand.

Consumption of other people’s data to produce, generally, new data in new forms and context is not the same as repackaging and reselling. It’d be different if Beeper used their reverse engineering to setup their own competing chat network, although then you get into the territory of clean rooms etc.

0: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/320/320.F3d...

kevingadd• 3 years ago

The people who buy Apple products or subscribe to Apple services already paid for Apple's infrastructure and services.

Beeper (theoretically) exists to allow Android users to communicate with iPhone users, so one of the two users in the conversation already gave Apple hundreds of dollars. They'll survive.

jmye• 3 years ago

Oh come on. Android users can “communicate” just fine over MMS/SMS with iPhone users. Images work. Text works.

Beeper exists solely to make Android users feel better about the color of their bubble and their social standing thereof.

barnabee2• 3 years ago

I can’t imagine any company being okay with another company reverse-engineering their product and then charging for it,

They may not be ok with it but they should be forced to allow and not attempt to thwart "adversarial interoperability", on which the computing and the internet were built!

burkaman2• 3 years ago

How do you feel about Apple reverse-engineering Microsoft Office so they could make iWork compatible with it, and then charging money for it?

evilduck• 3 years ago

Office uses open, if insanely overly complicated, document formats.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_standards...

pxmpxm8• 3 years ago

Better analogy would be iWork 365 where Apple reverse engineers the back end to do the cloud storage and collaboration all using MSFT's azure boxes. And charge money for it.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 3 years ago

Some have suggested courts are less willing to enforce "click-wrap" agreements against consumers than they are against corporations. The later might be more likely to read and thus consent. Did Beeper read the Apple ToS. What do you think.

Perhaps the outcome of challenging Apple's ToS depends on where the case would be filed. For example, 5th Cir would favour Beeper as it follows Vault v Quaid. 1st Cir follows Bowers v Baystate and would favour Apple. 8th Cir has followed Bowers (See Davidson, the Blizzard case).

"[P]rivate parties are free to contractually forego the limited ability to reverse engineer a software product under the exemptions of the Copyright Act[,]" Bowers v. Baystate Techs, Inc., 320 F.3d 1317, 132526 (Fed. Cir. 2003)

But note that in Bowers, Baystate did not actually attempt to plead fair use or copyright misuse. It only focused on preemption. The Bowers case is used to argue against reverse engineering as fair use but Baystate never asserted that defense.

The so-called "tech" companies and their supporters would prefer Bowers to apply everywhere. But it does not apply everywhere.

What is more interesting than the copyright issues, IMHO, is the idea of an antitrust illegality defense to breach of a software license. From 1996,

https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v09/09HarvJLTech23...

Samuelson and Scotchmer mentioned it again in 2002.

"While antitrust and competition law may regulate antireverse engineering clauses in an appropriate case or context, no such claim has as yet been brought, let alone sustained."

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/200_ay258cck.pdf

EMIRELADERO• 3 years ago

I'm surprised that the defendants in the Bowers case didn't raise a public policy argument. Wouldn't the reverse-engineering exceptions both to copyright (made by common law precedent through fair use) and the DMCA (section 1201(f)) be strong evidence of such a public policy position? Were it otherwise, any copyright holder could lock their software behind an EULA or similar agreement that prohibits reverse-engineering and foreclose what would otherwise be fully legal research into the non-copyrightable expression/systems/methods in the software code.

fennecbutt• 3 years ago

Nintendo tried to do this with game boy games and got told by the courts to shove it.

Which is right, it's only good for consumers if Apple just sucks it up and accepts that they need to support stuff like this.

They're happy enough to use wifi/Bluetooth/other comms specs. Vendor lock in special cult club effect I guess. It's just a phone...

Mountain_Skies• 3 years ago

Reminds me of the old battles with AOL Instant Messenger compatible clients like GAIM, that used the TOC protocol. Think that ended up in an extended cat and mouse game of AOL changing things to lock out GAIM and other clients while the developers found new ways around the changes. Not sure if there was much, if any, encryption being used back then for instant messaging system. If not, clear text would have been much easier to hack around.

saghm2• 3 years ago

A friend shared this with me the other day after we were discussing the current drama: https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/

Apparently AOL eventually "beat" MSN trying to reverse engineer their protocol by exploiting a known buffer overflow in their own implementation, and then MSN fumbled by trying to leak the security issue to put pressure on AOL but being too transparent in their manipulations and losing the PR battle that ensued.

fh93024• 3 years ago

So Beeper is charging money to let users access Apple's servers in an unauthorized way by spoofing a serial number, and then they complain to regulators when Apple locks them out?

sigzero• 3 years ago

That about sums it up.

xvector3• 3 years ago

And foolish regulators take Beeper's side. Klobuchar is a clown.

Spivak4• 3 years ago

I think that was their play from the beginning, get something working to prove it's technically possible and eliminate that line of argumentation, wait for the retaliation, and then sue them for anticompetitive practices that now clearly demonstrates consumer harm.

Get the regulators to force Apple to open the front door for them.

zamadatix4• 3 years ago

They were charging for iMessage over a year ago in what is now called Beeper Cloud. I wonder why Beeper Mini created the ruckus, perhaps because it was iMessage only?

layer85• 3 years ago

Do we know Beeper complained to regulators here?

zamadatix4• 3 years ago

The article highlights Beeper's founder/CEO testified to the Senate about the concern before hand. Not sure if they've said anything since but I'm also not sure they really need to, they've already complained they'd get locked out and now they have. Really it's probably a better image for them to not be the ones to mention it again at this point.

howmayiannoyyou• 3 years ago

An obvious solution would be for Apple to offer users an integrated messaging experience of its own across platforms. I understand why on the surface that seems in error, but its badly needed.

tomalbrc2• 3 years ago

There are so many 3rd party communication sevices you can use free of charge.

verwalt• 3 years ago

"But that one chick I met on tinder laughed at my green bubbles, so I want to use iMessage!!!"

aforty• 3 years ago

So Beeper is piggybacking off Apple’s servers that facilitate iMessages and is charging $1.99 per month to users and they thought Apple would be okay with this?

layer85• 3 years ago

You could make a somewhat similar argument about an email provider sending emails to iCloud email addresses, thus “piggybacking” off Apple’s iCloud servers. Granted, Beeper probably doesn’t prevent it being used between two Android users, but the primary function, and why people would pay for it, is to communicate with Apple users.

The primary difference is that in one case it’s a closed proprietary protocol and in the other an open protocol. But who pays for what is not the main concern. Apple would still disagree even if Beeper would be willing to share an appropriate part of their revenue.

alistairSH2• 3 years ago

But the user with the iCloud address is (probably) an Apple customer.

Similarly, with plain SMS, the cellular provider owns (some of) the infrastructure, but the user is a customer.

With Beeper, the customer is paying Beeper, but Beeper is using Apple's infrastructure (without paying for it).

riscy2• 3 years ago

You could make a somewhat similar argument about an email provider sending emails to iCloud email addresses

No. They don't work the same way. Your email provider has to maintain a mail server to send and receive emails on your behalf. Your email client connects to that email server to do all its work. Beeper Mini directly connects to Apple's Push Notifications servers to do all send/receive.

People arguing for an open iMessage system like email are completely forgetting how much spam and bad actors have ruined the openness of email. It use to be the case that you could run your own email server, but due to spam, many major email providers like Gmail will reject emails from untrusted IP addresses, for example.

Spivak4• 3 years ago

That's not really the issue at play here, it's at what point does forbidding 3rd party clients to your service become anticompetitive. Right now the answer is basically "never" but I think the technological landscape would be healthier if the bar was significantly lower.

giantrobot7• 3 years ago

Why won't you let my SSH into your systems and do what I want? Blocking access to them is anti-competitive.

CharlesW2• 3 years ago

The "paid" aspect is seemingly not the problem. Automattic does what Beeper does (without unauthorized access to Apple services) and charges $15/month. https://texts.com/subscription

joshmanders10• 3 years ago

So if Automattic does it without violating Apple's ToS and doing it unauthorized, why exactly can't Beeper?

barnabee2• 3 years ago

Or: Apple's servers are serving APIs on the public internet and which clients a user chooses to connect to them with is no concern of Apple's, and any attempt to block certain clients is clearly anti-consumer and anti-competitive…

JoshuaRogers3• 3 years ago

Your argument encompasses the whole of User-Agent filtering, no?

Edit: grammar.

hnfong• 3 years ago

If I make a commercial app that serves Youtube videos without ads, can I get the DOJ to investigate when Youtube blocks my app?

I mean, it even makes sense, Youtube is more closer to a monopoly than iMessage is.

:-/

colanderman6• 3 years ago

Genuinely surprised at the prevalence of "Apple is right, Beeper is wrong" comments on Hacker News of all places. Beeper is filling a market need via a technologically creative solution. Since when is protectionism of large entrenched actors our cause?

I miss the days of GAIM/Pidgin/Trillium/Adium and hope Beeper prevails here.

joshmanders10• 3 years ago

Probably because while we're hackers at heart, we're also don't think that because a company is large and profitable we're entitled to their resources free of charge to sell to other people violating all of their terms of service.

colanderman6• 3 years ago

I don't think Apple cares about the resource usage here. (Note that's not their argument, they argue that Beeper clients will bypass content protections.) The servers running iMessage, heck even the team supporting it, are probably a drop in the bucket for them.

Apple's goal is for iMessage to remain an exclusive feature of their hardware. That exclusivity is what Beeper -- or an Apple-vended Android client, or RCS interoperability, or federation generally -- threatens.

And -- it's exactly the proposition of, "to use our popular offering in market X, you must also purchase our offering in market Y" which is anticompetitive.

minerva232• 3 years ago

My devil's advocate for Apple is that iMessage is relatively free of spam because of the exclusive architecture tied to hardware.

The issue isn't so much Beeper as it is the open the door to anyone on the Internet. I.e. Apple probably cares little about Beeper itself, and more about the risk of 3rd party software accessing its services/users.

A good number of us have had to combat spam/abuse in our careers, and we're sympathetic to the plight.

colanderman6• 3 years ago

This argument I'm sympathetic to. But I think it would sit a lot better with me if Apple were to produce an Android client. That it's a closed ecosystem doesn't bother me as much as that it's tied to their specific phone hardware.

(I'd still prefer to see 3rd party clients as I appreciate the integration those can bring. But the hardware lock-in is particularly egregious.)

YPPH• 3 years ago

Does that stop you getting spam SMS messages?

wraptile2• 3 years ago

iphones and imessages are incredibly easy to automate for spam. Today's free, grey and dark markets are often powered by real devices as it's easier to maintain than to reverse engineer and replicate. Usually real devices are mixed with automation code for best results (e.g. real devices generate fingerprints and sign stuff while code automates actions).

Creating barrier to entry for spam definitely reduces it but we know for a fact that's not a very effective spam fighting strategy.

I also think modern anti-spam tech is really good. My Samsung phone here is really good at blocking robo calls here in Thailand. In fact I handn't received one since my upgrade to S22. If Samsung can block robo calls and open protocols like federation and email can stop spam through simple tech and volunteer work then multibillion company with some of the best engineers surely can't find this that challenging right? So I find the spam argument for closing off iMessages not very convincing to say the least.

awgneo• 3 years ago

I too thought this was "Hacker" News, where we found ways to break down barriers and expand access to services to the benefit of society. Apple is absolutely abusing their market position and we should all be finding ways to establish healthy, multi-platform communication standands. It is disheartening to see many folks here fighting for the status quo, which clearly isn't working. Beeper devs are the hackers I will always support, the kind that drive a subconscious shift of our morals to something more inclusive.

xvector3• 3 years ago

How is Apple abusing their market position?

latexr3• 3 years ago

This conversation has been had at length at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38576857

The top reply addresses your points:

The hacker spirit is the fun of reverse engineering. The hacker spirit is about personal use.
It's not expecting to be able to turn it into a business, or a popular app, that wouldn't quickly be shut down. That's just common sense.

Beeper’s CEO is acting high and mighty, speaking like he’s some kind of ideological liberator, while charging for a service using another’s infrastructure. Had it been free and open-source from the start¹ you’d see a lot more people on their side. As soon as you start charging, you lose a lot of “hacker” sympathy.

It’s possible to disagree with Apple for not providing iMessage on Android while at the same time disagreeing with Beeper’s approach.

¹ And I do mean the whole app, not the proof-of-concept from the teenager.

ShamelessC• 3 years ago

Yeah honestly normally I’d probably support something like beeper, but they just give me bad vibes. They’re being painted as a scrappy startup but to me they seem like another bunch of get-rich-quick, move fast and break things “disruptor” types. Which, ironically, is what the hacker in hacker news has largely come to symbolize in my opinion. Apple has an established culture and history of not operating that way, to make matters worse. It’s “growth hacking” versus the only company that still understands polish, however monopolistic they may be.

modeless3• 3 years ago

The hacker spirit is about personal use. It's not expecting to be able to turn it into a business

I reject this idea completely. The "hacker spirit" in no way excludes doing business or making money. Hackers creating businesses to bring the benefits of their hacking to the world are the very foundation of YC who created and operate this site.

charging for a service using another’s infrastructure

Beeper doesn't get any benefit from using Apple's infrastructure per se. The resource usage is trivial. If there was a way to go around Apple's infrastructure and communicate with Apple's iMessage users directly Beeper would be all over it and more than happy to replace all that "infrastructure" themselves at no cost to Apple.

Apple has inserted themselves between their users and the world, making it impossible for anyone to send proper group or video messages to their unchangeable default messaging app without going through Apple. Beeper is simply doing the only thing that will work to fix Apple's intentional crippling of communication with Android for their own benefit.

tinus_hn4• 3 years ago

While obviously the true Hacker News opinion is ‘hurr durr Apple bad’.

Beeper is requesting money for illegally distributing Apples copyrighted code which they then use in a questionable way. Cry me a river.

colanderman6• 3 years ago

What "copyrighted code" are you referring to? Are you alleging that Beeper has stolen Apple's IP? I haven't read this anywhere.

yaky• 3 years ago

Especially surprising since consolidating multiple messaging protocols under Matrix is literally Beeper's service, and has been for a few years.

Several other comment mention "piggybacking", but there are plenty of services piggybacking on tech giants: SearX, Nitter, Invidious, Teddit, Libreddit. One can even argue that LineageOS and GrapheneOS are piggybacking on Google's efforts.

xenadu02• 3 years ago

Because most of us didn't think AOL was doing something illegal by blocking third party clients. AOL created the service and ran the servers. AOL was free to make it work however they liked. And we never tried to insist that AOL was legally liable for making any changes to their own protocol without notice or approval to third party clients - what a hellscape of a world that would be for anyone trying to run a service!

Sentiment at the time was that we wished AOL would welcome third party clients but it was not their duty or obligation to do so. Likewise most people believed the third party clients were free to adapt to the changes. Both had the right to play cat/mouse as long as they wished.

Beeper is making a very different argument: that the courts and/or law should force anyone exposing an endpoint to the internet to bend over backwards so third parties can use the endpoint too (for free) because that would be convenient for end users. That Beeper can decide, at its own discretion, what is or is not allowable for something that was never intended to allow third party access.

Every company is almost by definition a monopolist with regard to its own products and services because even mostly equivalent things are still different in some way that could matter to a customer. It is all about where you draw the lines.

magnio• 3 years ago

I don't get the angle from these lawmakers. Beeper could be doing nothing illegal, but Apple has every right to block unwanted access to their server. Just as Reddit has the right to block all third-party clients and YouTube has every right to block ad-block users.

I thought what Beeper did was fun at first, but now I consider their work dangerous, since it rationalizes a push for remote attestation, which is what Apple has been meaning to do for a long time. Now they have a valid reason to fully utilize it, after which Google may try to follow suit and probably face less backlashes.

TheCoelacanth• 3 years ago

Lawmakers make the law. They have to consider not only what is currently illegal but also what should be illegal. Just because Apple is currently allowed to block access from competitors doesn't mean they should be allowed to.

s3p• 3 years ago

since it rationalizes a push for remote attestation

No it doesn't. By this logic, Apple should have gone through with plans to implement CSAM scanning on iCloud. Except customers complained and they abandoned it. Then they debuted e2e encrypted iCloud storage 2 years later; completely antithetical to the school of thought used by CSAM scanning advocates.

turquoisevar6• 3 years ago

As I understand it, the CSAM feature was created because the E2EE was on the horizon. They were trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Then they choked on the cake.

fulafel• 3 years ago

Lawmakers make and change laws, so it seems sensible to find out whether they need changing. "This isn't illegal now therefore it shouldn't be looked into by lawmakers" would be circular reasoning.

saghm2• 3 years ago

One possibility I haven't seen discussed is whether this will end with some sort of "compromise" where Beeper is allowed to continue to operate but users are marked in some way differently than both iMessage (client) users and SMS users. Beeper would claim a victory in being allowed to continue existing and provide iMessage access on Android with encryption, sans-SMS, etc., and Apple would be able to mark the "others" in a chat (and perhaps add features to chats with only iMessage clients that aren't supported in chats with other clients).

latexr3• 3 years ago

Beeper has explicitly suggested that.

If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users.

https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mini-is-back

minerva232• 3 years ago

Tangentially, this has been great for Apple to get metrics on Android demand for iMessage. Sure, one can assume every Android user would want access, but instances like this show people are willing to pay for access as well.

Apple should bundle iMessage access for Android into iCloud's subscription and release an official Android app. Maybe some eyes from the DOJ will get that on Apple's roadmap (I can dream, right?).

amazingman• 3 years ago

I already have to trust that Apple adheres to its promise not to abuse their privileged position to break E2E encryption. Now I have to trust Apple to continually verify that Beeper is not breaking E2E encryption? I don't know what the folks at Beeper are smoking, but it appears that a lot of very smart people are smoking it too.

dimask2• 3 years ago

"Interoperability" was cool and all 20 years ago or so, but I do not understand how nowadays anybody really considers it a good idea tbh. It has pretty much obvious security risks (it need not have in theory, but in practice it certainly does). And it is not that we lack decent multiplatform, secure solutions that people can use independent of platform.

webworker• 3 years ago

It's really disappointing to see how Apple went from championing open standards in the early days of Mac OS X, especially with regard to communication protocols, to this.

I want a premium messaging experience on my iPhone, regardless of what the other party has. I do not want compressed images and videos, and as an end-user, it's bullisht that I have to figure out how to do that using 3rd party apps.

issafram• 3 years ago

I've got an idea. Apple could man up and create an android app instead of all this bullshit. They have been forced into RCS which will be huge, but they have already decided to keep the green bubble garbage. They will do their best to make sure the user experience is as degraded as possible.

kriskrunch• 3 years ago

The irony is Wozniak and Jobs manufactured and sold devices, called Blue Boxes, that hacked the phone system to provide free phone calls.

"If it hadn't been for the Blue Boxes, there would have been no Apple. I'm 100% sure of that." -Steve Jobs

For your Apple collection:

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/24495/lot/109/wozniak-steve-...

graeme• 3 years ago

Sure, but no one was arguing that ought to have been legal or that the phone system would be in the wrong to attempt to patch exploits found by hacking.

Their Blue Box efforts were very cool! So is the coding that let Beeper do this.

But it is mystifying to me that people are arguing it is illegitimate (under our current system) for Apple to try to secure its system.

sahila• 3 years ago

The irony is people are rooting for a company (Apple) which only exists because it did something similar like Beeper early on, but root against Beeper. Apple is its present and history.

badrabbit• 3 years ago

This whole thing is absurd! DOJ investigation against whom? Aren't beeper's author's technically in violation of CFAA for knowingly bypassing security measures and accessing systems (imessage servers) against authorization?

This entire society us upside down! Just because apple is big bad corp doesn't mean any issue against them is right!

Kudos to beeper but don't make this a legal thing against apple.

kotaKat• 3 years ago

It's not a constitutional right to be able to access iMessage.

shortsunblack• 3 years ago

Hostile interoperability is what made Facebook successful.

not_me_ever• 3 years ago

With beeper actively attacking security critical infrastructure it's just a question of time until someone pulls out the patriot act and jails them as terrorists.

Beeper vs. Apple battle intensifies: Lawmakers demand DOJ investigation

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