Should New Tech Rules Apply To Microsoft's Bing, Apple's iMessage, EU Asks (reuters.com) 38
EU antitrust regulators are asking Microsoft's users and rivals whether Bing should comply with new tough tech rules and also whether that should be the case for Apple's iMessage, Reuters reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The European Commission in September opened investigations to assess whether Microsoft's Bing, Edge and Microsoft Advertising as well as Apple's iMessage should be subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The probes came after the companies contested the EU competition regulator labelling these services as core platform services under the DMA.
The DMA requires Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and ByteDance to allow for third-party apps or app stores on their platforms and to make it easier for users to switch from default apps to rivals, among other obligations. The Commission sent out questionnaires earlier this month, asking rivals and users to rate the importance of Microsoft's three services and Apple's iMessage versus competing services.
The DMA requires Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and ByteDance to allow for third-party apps or app stores on their platforms and to make it easier for users to switch from default apps to rivals, among other obligations. The Commission sent out questionnaires earlier this month, asking rivals and users to rate the importance of Microsoft's three services and Apple's iMessage versus competing services.
Be careful what you wish for.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Opening up iMessage to third party apps will require either:
1) Doing away with end-to-end encryption.
2) Reducing the security of the private key used for iMessage end-to-end encryption by making it available to third party apps.
3) The creation of an API to allow a third party app to relay messages through the Secure Enclave.
#3 is probably the best, but would not make iMessage available on non-Apple devices, which I believe is part of what the EU wants to see happen. It would also reduce the security of received messages that are now stored in plaintext within a third party app with a different privacy policy and security approach.
Re: Be careful what you wish for.... (Score:4, Insightful)
And what is lost by not having imessage open? There are hundreds of text based chat options each with millions if not billions of users. This isnâ(TM)t stifling any competition.
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I don't get it either. If the EU is angry you can't change the default SMS app on IOS they might have a point. Apple could fix that via #3 above. If they're angry iMessage isn't open I don't understand that at all. Is there a huge demand for people not on Apple products to use iMessage instead of Signal, WhatsApp, etc.? iMessage is my preference when talking to other Apple people but I got other messaging apps on my iPhone for other use cases. As a side note, I'm reasonably sure Android has the same r
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I use SMS/iMessage as a vehicle to share with people how to reach me on signal.
Personal = signal
Work = slack
Gaming = (Sadly) discord.
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I'm not training my Mom in installing/using Signal when iMessage and FaceTime have the same end-to-end encryption, lol
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Luckily I no longer need to talk to your mom.
Re: Be careful what you wish for.... (Score:2)
Shoulda wrapped your willy, silly.
reduced to simple terms: (Score:2)
Pro opening iMessage elsewhere: iMessage emotes work everywhere, Android people stop feeling second class when someone 'loves' their message
Anti opening iMessage elsewhere: Cost for entry to the iMessage space is removed, so more scam and spam, which is why those other message platforms in the xkcd are not universally used.
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And what is lost by not having imessage open? There are hundreds of text based chat options each with millions if not billions of users. This isnâ(TM)t stifling any competition.
Precisely!
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And what is lost by not having imessage open? There are hundreds of text based chat options each with millions if not billions of users. This isnâ(TM)t stifling any competition.
What will be lost?
The blessed peace of being free from iUsers.
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Apple's design stores private encryption keys (not just for iMessage) in the keychain [apple.com], which is only accessible via the secure enclave [apple.com]. Any app can store a private key within the keychain but the design of the keychain is such that apps in user space cannot access keys created/stored by other apps. So WhatsApp can't access your iMessage key and vice versa.
Changing this design undermines a pretty foundational part of iOS/macOS/etc. and would be resisted by the security industry as strongly as it will be r
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The WhatsApp application has to have access to the iMessage private key in order to decrypt messages encrypted using the iMessage public key.
Re: Be careful what you wish for.... (Score:2)
1. Whatsapp sends its public key for the imessage user to use
2. Whatsapp does the same thing imessage does, it requests permission from the OS/User to be able to use the imessage key that's on the secure crypto processor to do things. The private keys are never transferred from the chip, but they can work with any app. The chip only handles the public key encryption/decryption/signing/verifying.
On an android phone it could simply use the secure crypto processor on Android to do the exact same thing.
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Android has the same secure enclave system. Apple didn't invent it, it's actually part of the ARM spec for secure processors. The Android OS has full support for it.
There are already lots of apps that do secure E2E encrypted messaging and are also multi-platform. You mentioned WhatsApp, which uses the Signal protocol. There is Signal itself. A slew of open source ones. Even Telegram can do it, if configured right.
This is just FUD from Apple. Their phones get hacked all the time, you can buy devices that unl
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#4 Adopt RCS. It's a protocol that already exists, fully supports end to end encryption, and is full interoperable between devices already. Cheap to implement. iMessage could be depreciated or reserved for native iOS to iOS communication only, and failover to secure messaging RCS rather than 30 year old SMS when it's not a iOS device. So long as the app works with other message services, like RCS, it should bit the bill.
DMA already had them adopt USB-C finally. Embrace what works.
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Nobody other than techies and Google gives a shit about RCS.
If the cellular carriers had implemented it in a sane way Apple might have hopped on but I don't see them going in on a platform controlled by Google. And that's how RCS is currently implemented, you can either rely on your carrier's half-baked implementation, that comes with long list of asterisks (and no E2E), or you can hop on Google's implementation. I can't see Apple doing that under any circumstance.
RCS offers me very little. More reliab
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#4 Adopt RCS. It's a protocol that already exists, fully supports end to end encryption, and is full interoperable between devices already. Cheap to implement. iMessage could be depreciated or reserved for native iOS to iOS communication only, and failover to secure messaging RCS rather than 30 year old SMS when it's not a iOS device. So long as the app works with other message services, like RCS, it should bit the bill.
DMA already had them adopt USB-C finally. Embrace what works.
Found the Google Shill.
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Found the tech hating apple worshiping moron.
Found the plain Moron.
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Found the Apple shill.
Adding RCS support wouldn't compromise iOS in any way, if Apple is half way competent. The only reason they refuse to do it is so that iMessage can stay an exclusive club, and anyone not in it gets a green bubble.
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Found the Apple shill.
Adding RCS support wouldn't compromise iOS in any way, if Apple is half way competent. The only reason they refuse to do it is so that iMessage can stay an exclusive club, and anyone not in it gets a green bubble.
Yes it would add vulnerabilities, at least potentially.
https://www.androidauthority.c... [androidauthority.com]
https://cyware.com/news/rcs-te... [cyware.com]
https://betanews.com/2019/11/3... [betanews.com]
As I said: Found the Google Shill.
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#4 Adopt RCS. It's a protocol that already exists, fully supports end to end encryption, and is full interoperable between devices already. Cheap to implement.
1. RCS is not end-to-end encrypted. Google Messages is E2EE because Google built E2EE on top of RCS. Their implementation is proprietary and didn't even support group chats until earlier this year. Google manages public keys. Google distributes keys. Anyone wanting to talk to Google's users via an E2EE chat would need to go through Google and follow Google's lead.
2. RCS is not "full interoperable [sic] between devices already", at least not how you mean. Google has achieved "interoperability" by making deal
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There's no reason Option 3 couldn't enable iMessage interoperability with non-Apple devices. REST APIs work from any platform.
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This is FUD. There is nothing about opening up iMessage that would require the removal of E2E encryption. Keys can be stored in the Android secure storage system that keeps bank details and other E2E keys safe.
On iOS each app will generate its own keys, not recycle the iMessage ones. If Apple didn't completely botch the implementation of iMessage, that should be possible with an E2E system. If they require the use of the one true key, iMessage's security is badly broken.
Encryption (Score:1, Insightful)
The DMA requires Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and ByteDance to allow for third-party apps or app stores on their platforms and to make it easier for users to switch from default apps to rivals, among other obligations.
So long as those "other obligations" require legally mandated backdoors and the full removal of end to end encryption, then no, absolutely not.
Fix your laws EU!
Everything else in the DMA related to competition is perfectly reasonable. Outlawing encryption is not.
This one detail is why the entire law has to be rejected until fixed.
There's Always Two Sets Of Rules (Score:2)
Why stop now?
EU should be banned from the Internet (Score:2)
Yes, please! (Score:1)
It's about time some authority started cracking down on these walled gardens.
The easy answer is YES (Score:1)