derekmorr

Just use Signal. It’s free, open source, independently audited, cross-platform, and has better security and privacy than iMessage.

This article from Dr. Matthew Green, a cryptographer at Johns Hopkins, has a good overview of the problem. He's the researcher that was able to break iMessage encryption back in 2016. See his discussion of "key substitution attacks."

On the one hand, it addresses a long-standing design flaw in iMessage -- it was impossible to verify the identify of the other party. You just had to blindly trust the Apple provided the right encryption key to you, and you weren't subject to a man-in-the-middle attack. This is opposed to Signal and WhatsApp which support verification. Basically, these systems create a "fingerprint" of the encryption keys used in your conversation -- both parties can verify this fingerprint to ensure they both see the same keys.

Historically, iMessage did not have this -- so you could not know if you were really talking directly to someone or if your conversation was being relayed through an eavesdropper, or if Apple had secretly added an eavesdropper to your conversation. Now, this will be possible.

Edit: WhatsApp is actually innovating here. Most users do not manually verify safety numbers, so WhatsApp is rolling out an automatic key verification system which has a public log of all public keys in the system. See this announcement for a high-level overview. There is also an extended deep-dive discussion on the Security Cryptography Whatever podcast.

JP234 said:

derekmorr said:

JP234 said:

It begins. Prepare for malware on your iOS devices.

As opposed to the scams we have now?https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-app-store-scams-fraud/ ;

Not "as opposed." "In addition" would be a more accurate comparison. And your link is a "not found" dead end, BTW.

Remove the semicolon from the end. 

Madbum said:

derekmorr said:

Madbum said:

Epic doesn’t have to sell in Apples App Store. The store did t exist before Apple spent billions over last 15 years developing it.

But Apple won't let competing app stores on iOS. That is what Epic claims is illegal. 

So if you sell your salted peanuts at Safeway, on the shelves.  and now you decided you want to go against Safeway rules and build a store in aisle 7 with you own cashier  and not pay Safeway  

do you think Safeway goes for that?

but if you go outside of Safeway and lease you own space and build yiu store and pull your stuff out of Safeway, I am pretty sure Safeway would not have an issue

again Sweeney is an agent of communist China, that is just as bad as Putin, so there is no need to even discuss them as actual human beings 

This is the last time I'm going to waste my evening responsing to your racist garbage.

My iOS devices are my property. I cannot choose to install apps outside of the App Store. I do not have choice. Apple actively prohibits third party payment mechanisms or app distribution channels. So in your analogy that's like Safeway prohibiting me from opening up my own store elsewhere in town. Apple's behavior is illegal and must be stopped.

davidw said:

On the other hand, Sweeney have no problem paying the 30% commission on Microsoft Xbox because Microsoft claim that they make very little profit selling Xbox hardware. So he thinks Microsoft is entitled to charge a 30% commission of Xbox game apps, in order to support and profit from their Xbox platform. Even though Microsoft have the same "monopoly" with their Xbox platform, as Apple have with iOS.

Dude, literally 30 seconds of Internet searching found that Sweeney has been critical of Xbox in the past: https://www.onmsft.com/news/epic-games-tim-sweeney-still-concerned-xbox-game-distribution-monopoly. There are lots of of anti-competitive behavior from tech giants.