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Comment by cdchn | Hacker News Reader

The unfortunately fatalist question to ask is... how long until Apple shuts it down?

Seems like the local implementation may be durable, but the system for backend polling (BPN) they built appears to ping Apple servers server side. I imagine that creates a block of homogeneous traffic for Apple to spot.

I give it a week, tops. The next iOS update at the latest.

They’re gonna break iMessage for the ~50% of population not on the latest version of iOS next week?

...They obviously would do it in a way that doesn't do that? Do you think this company can outsmart them in the long-run?

This is a replay of the Messenger Wars. Yahoo IM, AIM, ICQ, etc played a game of cat and mouse with clients that wanted to get all of the messengers in one spot.

Right. What is stopping Apple from requiring a valid unique device key with every request now?

Old hardware that doesn't have it. Are they gonna ban my iMac from 2009 that was before iMessage was a thing?

Yes, they are. You already don't get OS updates.

No they aren't. My iMessage still works, and so will other devices that had iMessage.

just because it works now doesn't mean it will tomorrow. You're on officially unsupported hardware / os version.

Ask someone with 32-bit Mac apps about Apple’s willingness to leave parts of their userbase behind.

They still work. Apple doesn't stop services from working or programs from functioning.

That's what I'm curious about too.

If it does manage to do a good job imitating what an actual iPhone would do though - is there any way Apple even could shut it down without breaking iMessage on old iPhones or forcing people to update?

Besides being allegedly hard to shut down without breaking iPhones, there's also this statement given to Ars Technica:

> Migicovsky had a few different answers. The broadest one, regarding the tech behind the app, is that reverse-engineering for interoperability is legal—a fair use exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's restrictions against circumventing encryption or other protections. The app also goes out of its way to avoid trademarks like iMessage, referring instead to "blue bubbles" and the like, and the rest might be considered nominative fair use.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/beeper-mini-on-andro...

It's legal. But it doesn't mean that Apple has to quietly allow it.

What is maybe more relevant is the EU talking about forcing federation. If Apple lets this live it may give them more bargaining power in those discussions. If they shut it down thatay throw jet fuel on the fire.

Or it may lose them bargaining power. This is a very real technical proof of concept, and deprives Apple of one fewer claim that opening up is a technical challenge.

Apple can easily argue that this implementation violates their security controls and doesn't count as a PoC. As soon as the last iphone without a secure enclave loses support, they can flip the switch and kill Beeper('s iMessage service) instantly

I’m curious to know if this tech requires spoofing an iPhone or otherwise falsely representing to Apple’s servers that the Android device is an iPhone. If so, I would be looking at the CFAA more than the DMCA.

Van Buren protects it from CFAA.

The only avenue that is untested is based on Terms of Service.

I did a OSS WhatsApp reverse engineering project and got a C&D from 800 billion dollar Meta's lawyers all based on violation of their Terms of Service.

As far as I'm aware, there's no precedent for interop against ToS.

Way outside my area of experience, but Van Buren itself doesn’t appear to address this issue. I was thinking more in terms of Apple framing a claim based on access through an act of fraud.

I've been told by a C-level exec at a similar company (but relating to banking) that citing Van Buren against CFAA claims gets the claimant's lawyers to back all the way off.

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