Some of the messaging community believes that software that is open source is more secure. It is our view that it is not. The more visibility there is into the infrastructure and code, the easier it is to penetrate it. By design, open source software is distributed in nature. There is no central authority to ensure quality and maintenance and by putting that responsibility on Sunbird, development would not be feasible. Open source vulnerabilities typically stem from poorly written code that leave gaps, which attackers can use to carryout malicious activities.
To help satisfy our own ambitious goals of providing total privacy and security, we are currently undergoing a third party audit that will validate our security, encryption and data policies and plan on receiving ISO 27001 certification after launch.
I wonder how long they’ve been working on this integration and i bet they didn’t see this coming: Apple says iPhones will support RCS in 2024 . I mean it’s technically not the same product. RCS will replace sms/mms and “Nothing Chats” is an iMessage back door (?).
Given how aggressive Apple is in protecting their walled garden, I don’t expect this to survive the litigation. Apple tends to ignore individual hackers (look at hackintoshes) but businesses making money off unauthorized use of their APIs don’t last very long before the tidal wave of lawyers come.
Maybe, but seeing the recent scrutiny they have had for not allowing sideloading of apps, killing this might actually push legislation against it. As an android user, I wouldn’t use this app even if I had access to it because it’s not secure and because I don’t give a shit about blue bubbles.
The company behind the feature Nothing is advertising, Sunbird, claims that their solution preserves iMessage’s end-to-end encryption. They also claim they have figured out how to handle thousands of accounts on a single Mac. Both problems Beeper hasn’t been able to solve.
Unfortunately they have failed to provide any details about how they accomplish these things, which has Ars Technica feeling pretty skeptical about the whole endeavor.
You are logging with your apple ID into a Mac mini in a server farm somewhere in the world, and it acts as a relay to send you your imessages over their closed source app, that does not mean secure to me at all, even MKBHD was a little iffy about the security of this service.
Maybe in the EU, but I would have little hope for the US market. The US has been astonishingly slow to take adverse action against companies within their own borders for the past 25 years. Believe me, I hope Apple and Google get what is coming to them, but I won’t hold my breath.
But also, 99% of the population is not technical enough to download such apps and use them. They will only use the default apps that came with their phone, whatever outdated protocol they happen to be utilizing. Why else do you think Facebook, for example, pays manufacturers to preload their crapware on new handsets? And even more to make it as difficult to remove as possible.
WhatsApp does not come pre-installed on most phones (for some reason it often isn’t included even with Facebook’s crapware). It is still the de facto chat app in India, Brazil and dozens of other Asian, South American and European countries.
As far as I know, SMS in India and Brazil is not free. This means that for majority of users switching to a data-based app is not so much as a choice, but a necessity. In the US texting via SMS has been free for several decades, so there’s no reason for people to look for an alternative.
Exactly. It has reached critical mass to a point where if you’re not on it, you’re basically not communicating.
Also, I remember that cross-carrier calling was an issue, which is why most people would need to use dual-SIM phones. Not sure if it’s the same for SMS.
Log in with your existing Apple ID username or create a new account to start sending and receiving blue bubbles.
So I need an apple ID to use this?
Pass.
If you’re a Phone (2) user in one of the select countries where Nothing Chats is available, you can download the messaging app from the Google Play Store.
I recommend getting beeper it’s similar to sunbird although it is paid but they do open source all of their back end infrastructure. Beeper is essentially just a matrix client for a bunch of different chat service bridges.
beeper does look interesting but I am weary of sign up and we will tell you when you can join type apps.
And this rings a few alarm bells for me:
if you send a message from Beeper to a friend on WhatsApp, the message is encrypted on your Beeper client, sent to the Beeper web service, which decrypts and re-encrypts the message with WhatsApp's proprietary encryption protocol.
I would love for this to work but that alone has a host of issues around third party trust.
New European legislation is coming into effect in 2024 and will force iMessage and WhatsApp to expose an interoperable end-to-end-encrypted API. Our servers are located in Europe, and we will switch to this open interface as soon as it is ready.
Sadly, not being in the EU means I will likely pass on this but is sounds great for EU residents when the above is implemented.
Fair enough. Although if you are interested all of their messaging bridges are available on their GitHub if you would like to self host them with your own matrix server. That way you don’t have to worry about them decrypting and reencrypting your messages.
The EU is currently evaluating if iMessage is considered a “gatekeeper”. Killing these services now solidifies they are gatekeepers and introduces EU regulation.
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