auxio

wonkothesane said:

Politics vs. Common sense, once more. 

What are the odds?

I'd argue that there are three things at odds with each other: profit, politics, and common sense. People who only believe in personal gain often leave the first one out and shift blame to the second one because it aids their cause, even though they're often using the first one to influence the second one and exploiting the fact that there isn't enough of the third one in the world to see through it all.

mike1 said:

avon b7 said:

rob53 said:

The FTC and DOJ need to open their eyes and understand that Beeper is trying to hack Apple software. This has nothing to do with competition and anyone at the DOJ or FTC with any brain should see it for what it is and understand what it isn't. Messages is Apple's product and just like Microsoft and Google software, along with the million other apps, there's no justifiable requirement that they have to work with each other. 

I agree with your first observation. I don't think reverse engineering the Messages protocol is the best way to go. 

However, I definitely think industry should work towards interoperability which has been a decades old problem and source of problems. 

Messaging already is interoperable (word?). I can easily send messages to anyone. Does not mean they must have identical features and functionality. Back in the day, I could make a landline phone call to anyone who had a phone and a number. Some of those phones were cordless, some had built-in answering machines. Didn't matter as the call could still go through. Same here, messages can still go through regardless of device, OS or app being used.

Exactly this. People are missing the central point amidst all the circus performances: text messaging works just fine between all mobile phones today

It's not encrypted, but then neither are regular voice calls. Encryption isn't necessary to communicate. And given that governments/intelligence agencies have previously tried to get tech companies to give them a backdoor to all encrypted communication, it's ironic that they're now suddenly trying to champion the cause. Not to mention the fact that most people post the details of their entire lives on social media, without a care about who has access to it (so encrypted messaging wouldn't be anything they know/care about).

You can't send pictures/video and other media (EDIT: you can, just not at high resolution), but there are plenty of other ways to send them, including the aforementioned social media. Would it be more convenient to send them in an interoperable way using the default messaging app? Sure. And this will happen next year when Apple introduces support for RCS.

You know, back when I was in college learning how technology worked by reverse engineering it, I understood that it was simply for learning purposes and that I'd eventually have to work on creating original products to make money in the industry. Never once did I believe that reverse engineering was a valid way to make money, much less even entertain the idea that I was somehow entitled to do so. Products from other countries like China which were based on reverse engineering/cloning were often banned from being imported/sold in the US. When did the attitude towards this change?

danox said:

auxio said:

Really makes me wonder who's funding them. To generate this kind of media hype and political interest in something so insignificant reeks of well-connected investors.

How about we investigate why tech companies which truly innovate and create new products/services that are of benefit to people can't generate as much interest as a company which reverse engineers and clones an existing product?

Russia, Ukraine, China, and Israel are the usual suspects in state sponsored computer hacking, the USA is a distant number five in comparison.

Every country acts in its own best interest, including the US. But that's irrelevant to this discussion. This isn't about hacking, it's about a company trying to defend a reverse engineered product under the guise of freedom, and somehow generating all sorts of publicity from it. If they really cared about freedom (and not the almighty dollar), they'd work with the government and carriers to create change, not do it with scam technology.

gatorguy said:

auxio said:

Really makes me wonder who's funding them. To generate this kind of media hype and political interest in something so insignificant reeks of well-connected investors.

It could be a grass-roots effort.
https://www.reddit.com/r/beeper/comments/18fx8su/email_your_senator_to_voice_your_concern_about/

If so, then it's a sad statement that grass-roots efforts behind things which truly matter in people's lives like access to affordable housing, healthcare, and education can't generate the same reaction. But there certainly appears to be an extra financial and/or political incentive behind this since, as I said, an easy (but not profitable) solution would be to just have an open, publicly developed secure messaging technology which all phones sold in the US must have built-in. Signal is a registered non-profit, so perhaps working with them on it would make sense.