gnuloki

Z-Wave items + Z-Way on RazberryPi + Homebridge. Best way to go. No monthly fees. Takes a small bit of setup.

rob53 said:

I want to know where a message is coming from. If it’s blue I know it’s coming from an iPhone and is using a secure connection. That means a lot. Faking a secure connection by using a blue bubble I see as fraud. It’s not a minor issue it’s major. It’s like faking a VPN connection or handshake protocol. We need to be able to trust our communications protocols, otherwise nothing is secure. 

If you look at how they did it the connection is secure. They completely reverse engineered the iMessage protocol. When sending the app queries the iMessage servers for the recipients' public encryption keys. Encrypts the message and sends it. For receipt they do have a cloud server that will receive message arrival notifications from Apple and relay them via the Android's notification system. But it doesn't have the message encryption keys so it can only receive notifications of new content. The app on the Android phone then launches and contacts Apple's servers to retrieve and decrypt the incoming message. Currently Apple allows enrollment just with an SMS challenge for phone numbers. I wouldn't be surprised to see them start to add a requirement for a digital signature from an Apple device in order to complete enrollment.

Name and frequent flying number should be good as additional contact info. The airline will be able to track you but any rando who grabs your bags won't have much luck. I'm not sure how often they actually open the bags. I had one lost for 3 months that was returned unopened. Having something visually distinct on the outside of it is probably your best bet.