Honestly, if their solution is a ****-ton of Mac desktops all logged in with iMessage user accounts, then Apple may not be able to do much. Now, whether that setup in any way makes sense?
Their website claims that the messages are end to end encrypted, so that would imply no Macs in the middle.
Why is that implied? I am logged into iMessage in my Mac and my messages are end-to-end encrypted. If I’m logged into a Mac halfway around the world with my Apple ID, they’d still be end-to-end encrypted.
Because the Android device running Sunbird is an endpoint, not the Mac. You can't truthfully say something is end to end encrypted if it is decrypted somewhere between the endpoints. FWIW, the Sunbird website specifically says that outgoing messages are encrypted on your device.
I think you confused public and private keys at times in that description, but otherwise I think it is the best guess as to what they are doing. Presumably, they use your Apple ID to access your keychain (!!!) to obtain your private key and any other required authentication files and copy them to your Android device. Then they've reverse engineered iMessage APIs to hack into the iMessage servers to obtain the public key of the user that you want to communicate with, encrypt the message locally, and then send the message through Apple's servers.
Quite possible! As an aging software developer who mostly lives in the back end of a legacy multi-tier enterprise application suite, my thoughts of public/private keys tends to be colored by TLS handshakes and other 'basic' client/server scenarios. Which may not always be directly applicable to this new-world "cloudy" future.
I’m not so sure about deception vs the complete blind trust given by users to just freely give up their Apple ID and password.
I understand iMessage usage is primarily in the US but the scale of users vs. BBM isn’t comparable. BBM died with Blackberry hardware usage. iMessage isn’t going anywhere as long as the iPhone is predominant smartphone in the US.
9to5google.com
Wow, that's absolutely horrible. I just received my Pixel 8 Pro and am using Beeper, works flawlessly and seems fairly trustworthy. Glad I decided to not try Sunbird.This service doesn’t seem to age well:
Nothing Chats, the Sunbird-based iMessage app, is a privacy nightmare with unencrypted messages and images
The Nothing Chats app, powered by Sunbird, promises encrypted iMessage for Android, but it's literally a privacy nightmare.
Looking at my history I paid the early access fee of $100 back in early 2022. Probably wasn't worth it but I got really excited about it. Prior to now the last time I used it was May of this year I think. It's come a long way. Typing indicators work, even Android Auto works which is a game changer.
Tons of free codes out there, look on there reddit page. Or I can send you one later.
My understanding, Beeper and Sunbird are using the same methods to interact with your iMessage account. You have to login with your iCloud account on some remote server. No thanks.
Not sure. Haven't heard of any reported issues so far. I don't have the energy to set up Blue bubbles locally on my PC, I'll probably do it over the long weekend. That's preferable obviously.
It’s not a big deal. For most, people just use the right tool for the right job (using social media or other tools if a higher quality video or pic is needed.Psychologically, though, it IS a thing with a specific vocal set of folks (just like glossy screens are a thing for a specific vocal set of folks, or odd numbers are a thing for another specific set of folks) and just because it’s psychological, doesn’t make it any less a THING. Those folks that are bothered by it are truly bothered by it. But, that means a company has the option of doing anything about it. For example, Apple’s volume controls include “odd” increments, but they don’t display an actual number. But, most folks really just aren’t bothered.