Dear Apple: Please set iMessage free

http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2012/08/dear-apple-please-set-imessage-free.html

by stalled • 14 years ago

160 79 14 years ago

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

epistasis• 14 years ago

Yes, please. And if the protocol doesn't turn out to be too horrid to work with, this will allow interoperable implementations. The last thing we need is another messaging protocol that only works with one vendor's products.

However, FaceTime was supposed to be submitted to be made into a standard, but I haven't heard much about that, and with the percentage of time that FaceTime breaks for me, I'm guessing that it's a pretty nasty protocol and they're too embarrassed to follow through. Hopefully iMessage is better.

CrazedGeek• 14 years ago

There's a rumor that FaceTime wasn't supposed to be a standard -- when Jobs announced on-stage that it was going to be, it (supposedly) surprised the FaceTime developers. http://zachholman.com/posts/steve-jobs-sometimes-lies/

pmjordan• 14 years ago

This reminds me of the Mountain Lion/Gatekeeper announcement. We heard it second hand from John Gruber [1] so it's possible the facts got mixed up on the way, but developer IDs for Gatekeeper were supposed to be free. As it turns out, they require you to pay for the Mac developer programme to be able to sign your apps, just as you do for the App Store.

I can't help but get the feeling they deliberately make these false announcements to generate goodwill. The gatekeeper misinformation in particular seems to be extremely pervasive and it causes users to believe Apple is acting in everyone's interest: it improves security and is free for developers, right?

Of course, it could just be accidental. Which would strike me as odd for a company that so closely guards what it communicates.

[1] http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion

Zash2• 14 years ago

Or just use XMPP.

LaGrange3• 14 years ago

iMessage is based around APNS, which, while proprietary, doesn't require a background process on the client. This is way better than XMPP, and also doesn't try to do things that are pointless on mobile, like maintaining "presence".

This doesn't really preclude things like federation, but it's a fundamentally different approach from XMPP (though bridges are possible -- see, for example, Verbs app, also see how buggy it is, and What's App, which apparently is pulling it off quite well). But bare XMPP doesn't really work that well.

onli• 14 years ago

Also a push-notification needs something on the client to react to it, be that a running normal or a background-process. Pull needs maybe an additional background-process and generally wastes more energy, but APNS can't be that much magic.

Zash2• 14 years ago

Isn't APNS based on XMPP? But regardless of how APNS works, isn't it just acting like a multiplexer?

nightpool• 14 years ago

How is maintaining presence useless on mobile? I like Google Talk on android ten times better then just plain sms for this very reason. Being able to know whether your friends have service, and then being able to know whether they are actively paying attention to their phones (online/away), is crazy useful when trying to communicate.

howardr2• 14 years ago

Protocol aside is there anything significantly different in the way blackberry handles BBM messages and Apple handles iMessage messages?

JCB_K• 14 years ago

from the article:

It's built into the normal iPhone texting application and turned on by default. When my Mom texts another Apple user, iMessage will automatically route her message over the Internet. She doesn't have to approve this, and honestly, probably won't even know the difference.

howardr2• 14 years ago

I see.

Do you know if messages are encrypted from device-to-device on BBM or if they are just encrypted to the hub like I message seems to be

dave1010uk• 14 years ago

How does your phone know that another phone has iMessage? Is it set up manually by the user or do phones lookup the phone number on Apple's servers? If the latter then would it be possible to reverse engineer this to test if any number was an iOS device?

Nerdfest• 14 years ago

As someone else has pointed out, it's an irrelevant protocol until it's made an open protocol. This will join the pile with FaceTime, iBooks, etc, that exist merely to lock people into Apples 'garden'. People should want to use your platform, not be forced to remain there cause they have to. Provide an open protocol, and make people want to use your products because you have the best implementation of it.

Shenglong• 14 years ago

I understand the technical issues at hand, and I don't want to dismiss them as being unimportant--because they are important. However, the majority (who are non-technical end users) simply don't care.

Security is great, and everyone wants to know that their text messages are as secure as possible. When it comes to iMessage, however, I've yet to meet a single regular user who counts improved security as a reason to use iMessage. Heck, none of them even think iMessage is more secure than a regular text message.

What do they use iMessage for? It tells you when someone read your text. It tells you when someone is responding. It sends faster than regular text messages and confirms that it's actually been sent. Even more importantly, it allows us to send international text messages for free. As a Canadian being charged $.35 per text to the US (even though US and Canadian numbers formats are identical), this means I don't need to reroute a Google Voice number through 3 numbers just to keep in touch with my US friends.

The selling point of iMessage has never been technical; it's been functional.

mikeash2• 14 years ago

A lot of the people out there using iMessage don't even know it. Because it hooks in so transparently with text messaging, people who used to SMS between iPhones now iMessage between them and many don't even realize that anything has changed.

Among those who do know the difference, my experience is that by far the most common reason to use it is to avoid paying for text messages. (I'm in the US here, so it's common.) A secondary reason, but really secondary compared to that, is the fact that it works on other iDevices, not just iPhones.

Until I read these comments, it didn't even occur to me that security might be an advantage of iMessage. I think the number of people who use iMessage because of that is roughly zero.

Wilya• 14 years ago

Not really. iMessage can be used in a transparent way with non-compatible devices (it can just fallback to sms), and it merely loses its advantages. People won't care too much that it's closed, and will still use it. And it won't lock them. If their next phone isn't an iDevice, they will just go back to sms.

FaceTime doesn't fail merely because it's a closed protocol. It fails because it's a closed protocol and the application has no way to fallback to other networks in order to communicate with non-Apple people.

jsz04• 14 years ago

that exist merely to lock people into Apples 'garden'

You don't think providing good features to users or creating a competitive advantage has anything to do with it at all? I agree lock-in is part of the equation in large part because Apple doesn't care about other platforms but there are definitely many other reasons these things exist. When/If it's in their best interest to support other platforms they will. (iTunes for Windows, for example)

tptacek7• 14 years ago

Bear in mind that your telco can absolutely read your SMS messages, and does not need to play games with a CA to do so.

matthewdgreen• 14 years ago

And this isn't good. But two points: 1. Your Telco doesn't advertise secure end-to-end encryption. 2. Cellular protocols are (relatively) hard to intercept /and/ interception is prevented by a whole bunch of FCC regulations. iMessage will happily use an insecure Wi-Fi access point.

sillysaurus3• 14 years ago

Worrying about evesdropping is derailing your otherwise fine train of arguments.

Security against evesdropping comes down to one and only one factor: The evesdropper cannot distinguish the bytes transmitted by iMessage from a stream of random bytes.

This is a solved problem, and getting it right in practice comes down to the simple rule, "Don't try to implement a crypto scheme. Use an existing library."

That's so easy to do nowadays that Apple would have to be breathtakingly incompetent to get that aspect of the security equation wrong.

tptacek7• 14 years ago

Yep. Just trying to head off the inevitable HN conspiracy theories about Apple becoming part of the national surveillance state.

mike-cardwell• 14 years ago

Bear in mind, that not only does he say this in the article, but every single person who read your comment, already knows this.

tptacek7• 14 years ago

I disagree with the second part of your comment, but didn't intend to criticize Matthew Green.

chmike• 14 years ago

I'm interrested to develop a new messaging system that truly provides end to end encryption and is as secure as possible. All that with an open source protocol. I would be glad to share the work with people sharing the same interest.

biafra8• 14 years ago

The protocol and several implementations (at least in C and in Java) are already there. It's called OTR (Off The Record) http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/ Not to confuse with a GTalk feature that has the same name.

aw3c2• 14 years ago

Maybe porting TextSecure would be an alternative? https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure

stickystone22• 14 years ago

There is a simply way to answer one part of this problem (Can Apple read iMessages?): court records.

If Apple can read these things, then so can divorce attorneys and criminal lawyers via subpoena. There would be records of that.

Anyone have knowledge of iMessage subpoena results?

awakeasleep• 14 years ago

I've always wondered if there are multiple levels of this.

We know of at least two: one reaches public court records. The other level we know about, for sure, is NSA level stuff, which remains secret forever as a matter of national security. Do others exist? For example it's possible an agency could use the information to gather internal investigation evidence, and keep that evidence dark only using it for further gathering of more traditional evidence. That way their techniques would remain secret.

Anyway, the technique of discovering government agency abilities through court records seems to be a vital part of our civilian rights that I don't see enough information about. If anyone knows anything about it and reads this, please share some info!

whalesalad4• 14 years ago

I want to direct this towards the folks commenting here who might be in the anti-Apple camp. Yes, a walled garden is no fun for anyone once it reaches a critical mass. We're sort of starting to see this with Twitter, with their recent API adjustments. Decentralized and open platforms are also really tough, just look at OpenID. The adoption is not there.

Apple saw that the current SMS implementation was flawed in many ways and sought out to improve/replace it. For example, all of the carriers (at least in the US, with the exception of the underdog Sprint) charge an exorbitant amount of money just to send/receive text messages. I pay $20 per month for that ability. SMS also has a limit of 160 characters. It also only works via cellular, whereas iMessage works via data connection. This is awesome for me, as I live in the boonies where I don't always have a cell connection (but do have excellent wifi). Being able to reply from multiple devices is also nice. Let's not forget all of the little 'nice-to-haves' like knowing when a message has been delivered and/or read, knowing when the other party is replying, etc...

Alas, they did this because the carriers wouldn't. Prior to Apple releasing the iPhone, you couldn't buy a phone that didn't have some one-off UI, preloaded with garbage apps, etc... Apple forced the hand of the mobile industry with their iPhone (this is obvious to many, but concrete evidence exists inside of the Samsung vs. Apple court documents recently released)

Apple is now doing this again with iMessage. They took something that really needed revolutionizing, and did it. It began as something great for members of the Apple ecosystem. They used their users and platform to prove it, and it's been successful. I can communicate via my Mac, iPhone, and iPad in a (mostly) unified experience. So, I do agree and hope that this expands to a wider audience. That being said, it will be tough. An open consortium leads to all sorts of issues (ahem, Android) and sometimes having one chef in the kitchen yields the best overall experience for everyone (Apple).

angryasian5• 14 years ago

for people that are pro apple - apple didn't revolutionize anything, there were plenty of third party apps and companies prior to imessage that were providing the same service along with being cross platform. Apple is actually cannibalizing those services that were providing a valuable service to their customers and now are cutting them out. This is nothing more than further attempt to lock in users into their ecosystem.

whalesalad4• 14 years ago

This is completely false. When i'm out at a bar and I meet a cool girl, she gives me her number. I type it into my phone and begin sending her a text. Instantly my [Send] button shifts from green to blue to indicate that she is an iMessage user. It's seamless. It falls back on SMS automatically if iMessage fails. Otherwise, it just works.

Having multiple platforms for messaging is silly. Absolutely silly. If I have an iPhone and so does my sister/mom/random-stranger what am I guaranteed that we both have in common? One single messaging app. I don't want to ask a random stranger if they've used X Y Z free messaging app, that doesn't fly.

biafra8• 14 years ago

How is iMessage better than GTalk on Android (except for the end to end encryption)? GTalk BTW. is a slighlty modified XMPP. It is not even incompatible with regular XMPP clients. It seems to have some additional features to save power by not sending presence updates when its not necessary.

AFAICT Apple did not revolutionize Instant Messaging with iMessage.

whalesalad4• 14 years ago

It's a seamless experience. Apple doesn't typically innovate on the actual technical software implementation. iMessage at a basic level is very simple. It's the integration in the platform. It's the fact that I do not need to know someone's email address to talk to them on gtalk. Also, what if you don't have a gmail address? Many people do not.

I type a phone number in, begin sending a message, and that seamless/transparent handshake occurs in the background where the device I am about to message tells me it's an iOS device supporting iMessage. I don't need to change the way I use my device.

Cookingboy• 14 years ago

I am not super familiar with this, but I don't think you can use GTalk to send SMS to a regular phone number can you? With iMessage it's the same app as regular SMS on the iPhone, and it uses iMessage instead of SMS if both sides have it, otherwise it falls back to regular SMS, it's a seamless integration that many people aren't even aware of.

HorizonXP2• 14 years ago

Your argument that Apple revolutionized text messaging is kind of flawed. Even if you ignore IM/XMPP clients (they're not the same), fact is, RIM did it first with BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).

With BBM, you get end-to-end messaging between BlackBerry phones, with no limitations on the lengths of messages. You get a typing notice, delivery notice, as well as a read notice. You can transfer files, pictures, and video between devices.

BBM is also very tightly integrated into the OS, more so than any other platform. It requires no set up on the part of the user, all they need to do is exchange PIN numbers with their friends. No signup, nothing, it just works. Moreover, it allows developers to incorporate into their own apps, so they can provide in-app chat capability, as well as app-to-app communication ability (e.g. a multiplayer game initiated with you and a BBM friend). What's even better is that if that friend doesn't have the particular app/game installed, you can invite them to download it. When you go to invite a friend to use the app with you, it will only show you BBM contacts with that app installed (i.e. BBM knows what apps your contacts have). It's a pretty powerful setup, especially when combined with push notifications. It is leagues ahead of what XMPP can provide. Just ask WhatsApp or Kik.

RIM misstep (amongst MANY) is that they didn't translate this to other devices. They have delayed BBM on the PlayBook while they updated their infrastructure to allow 1 user to use BBM on multiple devices with multiple PINs. They're fixed this a while ago, and will release it for BlackBerry 10. They also don't have a desktop client available for public use.

So while iMessage is definitely an improvement over SMS (pretty much anything is), it still has a lot of catching up to do to BBM. Old school BlackBerry OS is a pretty shitty system, but they did get BBM right. Apparently, it's going to be very improved for BlackBerry 10. Here's hoping it is.

Edit: Reading some other comments here, I realize that iMessage's "innovation" is that when you send a text message to a phone number, it checks to see if they use iMessage too, and sends it that way instead. While that's cool, it's by no means revolutionary. Furthermore, you're still shackled by the limitations of SMS messages. That can be good, can be bad. Finally, I'm unclear of what happens when you're on your Mac or iPad: do you iMessage someone using their phone number still? Is that the unique ID?

spullara• 14 years ago

Reply to your Edit: You can have a phone number and multiple email addresses associated with your iMessage account. It really is quite a great thing at scale that would be almost pointless as a startup.

orta• 14 years ago

The main UUID for an iMessage account is your Apple ID email address, but each account on iMessage can be hooked up to multiple email addresses also. For example if your contact for someone has a phone number and email addresses it will check for the phone number, then check for the associated email addresses. On my mac I receive all my iMessages because I set my reply to address to be one of those email addresses on the phone/pad. And yes, you can iMessage someone to their phone number form your computer / iPad.

iMessage supports all of the end-to-end messaging features above, but doesn't support letting devs use the messaging function other than being able to send one-off messages with attached photos / movies in iOS. Apple has something more like Xbox Live for doing in-app voice chat / messages (GameKit).

jsilence• 14 years ago

They could have simply chosen XMPP with OTR.

biafra8• 14 years ago

iMessage fails on the security front. I have received more than one message (via wifi) after I removed the SIM card from an iPhone. This would not have happened with SMS.

Someone2• 14 years ago

With iMessage, your account isn't (solely) linked to your SIM card. It cannot be, because iMessage also works on devices without SIM cards (iPod Touch, Mac).

I do not think you can claim it fails because it still works after removing the SIM card. You cannot claim that SMS fails on the security front because you can receive SMSes without logging in to iCloud, either.

biafra8• 14 years ago

I did not login into his iCloud account. How would I? I did not have his apple id credentials.

taligent• 14 years ago

How is the fact that it works over WiFi a security issue ?

biafra8• 14 years ago

Because I received messages that were not meant for me. I got this iPhone from someone who removed his SIM card from it. And then I received messages for him that should have been delivered to his phone (the phone he put his SIM-card in).

absolute-ly• 14 years ago

1. It's just a guess but I don't think many users care about iMessage's encryption. Cryptographers are the exception.

2. XMPP is not true peer-to-peer. If you are a fan of XMPP as a p2p "solution", and you're not the XMPP provider trying to make a buck offering this "service", then I would say you don't know enough about p2p.

3. If you really care about end-to-end cryptography the solutions exist. Working with the nacl library is not rocket science. It's a lot simpler than SSL/TLS. And I don't see any cryptographers cracking nacl anytime soon.

4. Decentralised and open platforms are not really tough if you keep things simple. But for most (but not all) designers of these systems that seems just about impossible. If it's not complex it's not worth their time.

The biggest challenge I see with good, easy cryptography and a decent, simple peer-to-peer platform for the general public is that you will have a huge PR problem from day 1. Because the only folks who will want to use the system will be troublemakers who attract the wrong kind of attention, and a handful of smart people, like cryptographers, who no one pays attention to.

josteink• 14 years ago

Rather, consider this post as a plea for help. iMessage is important. People use it.

If you have a problem with a closed service working only within a walled garden, maybe you should look at an actual open standard instead, like XMPP.

It may not have "end to end" encryption, but at least you get to know how it works and how secure it really is.

Nobody is forcing you to use Imessage. Apple may encourage you, by permissive defaults, yes. But nobody is forcing you to use it. It can be disabled. You can even buy a phone not made by Apple and avoid the problem all together.

Dear Apple: Please set iMessage free

Related Stories