In the latest chapter in the blue and green bubble, Apple has blocked access to iMessage for Apple’s impersonated credentials to protect its customers, the company told CNET on Saturday evening. This comes after companies like Beeper and Nothing released Android apps that offer an alternative solution.
The iPhone maker said it could not verify whether messages sent through unauthorized means were valid Apple credentials. Messages sent via iMessage have end-to-end encryption to ensure that no one but the sender and recipient can access them. Apple said it blocked these “fake certificates” to protect its customers.
The move comes less than a week after Beeper began reverse engineering iMessage, allowing Android or Windows users to use the service and send iMessages from non-Apple devices. Messages sent to an iPhone owner that would normally appear as green bubbles from an Android user via SMS will appear blue if they’re sent from the Beeper Mini Android app or Beeper Cloud, the original version of iMessage, a Mac-forwarding service.
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“At Apple, we build our products and services with industry-leading privacy and security technologies designed to give users control over their data and protect personal information,” Apple said in a statement to CNET. “We have taken steps to protect our users by blocking technologies that use fake credentials to access iMessage.”
To maintain end-to-end encryption, Apple cannot review these messages sent by apps that claim to contain valid credentials.
“These technologies pose significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata disclosure and the potential for spam, spam and phishing attacks,” Apple said. “We will continue to update to protect our users.”
Beeper’s tweet in response to Apple
Beeper Mini users take to Reddit Friday said they were unable to send or receive messages using the app.
“It’s surprising to read that Beeper Mini makes these communications less secure and less private in some ways, because that’s the opposite of what’s happening,” Beeper co-founder Eric Migikoski told CNET Saturday evening. “We have encrypted these conversations It is shocking to see a statement that is almost the opposite of what happened.”
Messages sent via SMS between Android and iPhone users are not encrypted. But last week, the Beeper Mini app gave Android and iPhone owners three days of secure communications with end-to-end encryption. Migikoski said Apple has not contacted him or his company directly. He said Friday’s outage began at 11:30 a.m. and took Beeper Mini and Beeper Cloud out of service, but his team was able to get Beeper Cloud back up and running within 23 hours.
“We ran Beeper Cloud. Whatever Apple says, it’s not entirely true. Or what they mean by it is not true,” Mizykowski said. “To date, it’s working great.”
Sunday: Senator Elizabeth Warren Published in X He urged Apple to ensure more interoperability between Android users and iMessage, saying: “Chat between different platforms should be easy and secure.” It’s a sign that the issue is more than just a green bubble vs. blue bubble debate, and it adds another to a growing list of concerns in Congress about platforms owned by tech giants now being scrutinized by politicians.
What then? After Apple announced last month that it would introduce the RCS SMS standard in 2024, Beeper was not considered.
“If anyone has any doubts about the security and privacy of our app, we will be happy to provide the source code to a mutually agreed upon third party and allow them to act as an arbiter in the matter,” Migikoski said. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
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