> In fact, Citizen Lab researchers and others suggest that Apple should simply provide an option to disable iMessage entirely.
There's a checkbox in Settings > Messages that does exactly this? It seems strange they published this.
Not really, there's a ton of government services that require you to have a phone number (depending on where you live). I don't see any real suggestion for an alternative to having a phone number. If nothing else, to receiving notification. You can't really rely on iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal and similar services, you need one system that you're sure will cover 98% for all people. 3. parties can't even integrate into many of these services.
You could use email, but I don't really see how that's any better and many seniors will use SMS, but not email to any great extend.
SMS is still the only unified messaging service you can be sure that all your friends and family will have.
Phone numbers, like emails, are very robust and reliable, interoperable, not centralized to one entity, and the quality of service vs cost ratio is excellent.
Not to mention text messages:
- they work no matter if the person is using whatsapp, telegram, signal or the new hype stuff
- no GAFAM is collecting my text history to sell me ads
- they require no internet connection
There are 3 things that we must absolutely cherish and preserve in this race for tech: cash, emails and phone numbers.
They are a beacon of stability in this sea of ever moving innovation greed.
And I say that while I'm thinking about setting up an IFPS website, compiling python 3.10 beta to test it and buy a secondary e-ink screen for my laptop. I'm not technophobic.
SMS is unencrypted so someone's harvesting your data.
They require a cell tower connection, that's only 1 step away from an internet connection, probably 0 in many cases.
Cash and Phone numbers are trivial to steal.
Most people do not want this feature. 9/10 of my iMessage contacts turn off read receipts; I bet the number would be similar on Facebook/Whatsapp if they allowed it.
For me, ephemerality, one-shot, and unidirectionality are characteristics, not issues.
> SMS is unencrypted so someone's harvesting your data.
There is not a single entity that is getting all of it, which is the most important to me. Encryption is nice, but for most of my communications, that's not the most important feature.
> They require a cell tower connection, that's only 1 step away from an internet connection, probably 0 in many cases.
I'm regularly in situations where the phone works, but not internet. On the move, or in the country side.
> Cash and Phone numbers are trivial to steal.
Sure, and so is a bike. But I don't always want to take the bus.
You've no idea if your SMS ever arrived, or if your email even got into the Inbox of the reader instead of the spambox.
it's less feature rich, so presumably there's less attack surface.
Buy a data-only subscription, and use Google Voice or some sort of PBX powered app to still be able to receive regular phone calls.
Preferably I’d want a really basic voice only, open source PBX powered app for iOS that I could use. Then I could get me a data-only plan and SIM.
Caveat: I still need Norwegian BankID to work with my SIM though. I dunno if any of the data-only plans available in Norway support BankID, or if you need a regular subscription like I have now in order to use that.
The data only plans is is good path to follow, it at least makes it more obvious each time a service clearly wants too much personal data.
This threat demonstrates how difficult it is to keep us safe from hacks. We can keep our bank account and one day have to deal with fraud recovery, or we can ask them to stop, some banks 2fa activation via a voice call.
Until banks cease to dominate and control our finances, we should at least do what we can protect ourselves from their incompetence.
I haven't had too much luck just being able to get a stand-alone data sim from Verizon, AT&T or TMobile...
Same in India, Banking & Payment apps need to verify that the SIM i.e. Phone number is indeed the one associated with the bank account and so they send SMS in the background at random intervals.
I don't do real-time communication and so I had the lowest tier prepaid carrier plan just for this purpose, But the oligopolies decided to remove SMS from the low tier plans suddenly and all my payment apps are now deactivated!
Meanwhile scammers continue to use phone numbers (SIM) bought dime a dozen with fake identity cards[1].
WhatsApp should never be forgiven for making phone number as a flawed identity of a living person, It's disappointing that Signal continued with it.
[1] https://twitter.com/Abishek_Muthian/status/14069649600815718...
Fantastic way to not have people send you messages anymore.
Phone numbers are technically becoming useless. They are practically still the by far dominant choice when someone goes to send you a new message.
We’ve had decades of texting phone numbers to reinforce this.
Instant-Messaging = Worthy target for exploits.
Just like web-browsers get exploited after years of patching.
Wrong. Whatsapp relies on SMS as 2FA OTP.
The point of these apps is that I can get content(picture, message, video etc) to your local device and it get processed.
You can do this already. If you "manage" your iphone with Apple Configurator you have fine-grained control over every little thing it does. You can disable imessage (and many other things like the app store, etc.)