skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
These Beeper folk sound a bit entitled. As was repeatedly mentioned in the other thread [1], building production applications on top of an undocumented and unsupported (in terms of backwards compatability, etc) API is a nightmare that should be avoided. Apple has every right to change their API, if they do Beeper will go down, and Beeper will blame Apple. I understand Apple's incentives to not want to be in this situation.

I don't buy their "Beeper unequivocally makes things secure story" either. For one, I do not want to have my Apple ID login routed through a third party. I trust an established, trillion dollar company far more with that sensitive info than I do a fast-moving, eager-to-break-things startup. And the list goes on.

It's an impressive engineering effort, but I really don't believe they're entitled to parasite off the undocumented iMessage API.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38574888
Is that really an unknown that anyone required proof of?
> Android and iPhone customers desperately want to be able to chat together with high quality images/video, encryption, emojis, typing status, read receipts, and all modern chat features.

There are numerous chat apps with those features, so I can’t see why people were “desperate” about it at all. Better yet, those existing chat apps aren’t likely to stop working tomorrow.
They don't implement it exactly due to their competitive tactics...

(It was exposed in a recent courtroom hearing that Apple has seriously considered making it available on Android, but they decided that having it Apple-only is a serious benefit for them)
I like that this is happening, because Apple will want to prevent it from being possible, and they'll dig their own regulatory grave doing it.
this is what i was expecting

i am disappointed
By what metric? Arguably, users are less secure since "fixing" Messages (i.e. breaking Beeper) means Apple and Android users lose a secure communication channel.

Beeper isn't "hacking" Messages... they've implemented the protocol.
Hasn't it been disproven now though? My employer at the time during lockdown saw productivity and collaboration increase, and they are a mostly agile approach organisation.

And there are many companies large and small with mostly or fully remote teams delivering complex projects every day as we speak.

Whilst I'm sure there are edge cases where that face to face actually is essential, the idea that for teams to be agile, innovative and collaborative they must physically sit near each other has been shown to be unnecessary...?
Mistral: Guardrailing
It did not require lightning reflexes or up-to-the-second training. The first LA crash came after the crew dealt with it for 11 minutes, and restored trim 25 times. The EA crew restored normal trim a couple times, and crashed after 3 minutes if I recall correctly.

As for training, turning off the stab trim system to stop runaway trim is a "memory item", which means the pilots must know it without needing to consult a checklist. Additionally, after the first crash, all MAX crews received an EMERGENCY AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVE with a two-step procedure:

1. restore normal trim with the electric trim switches

2. turn off the trim system

I expect a MAX pilot to read, understand, and remember an EMERGENCY AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVE, especially as it contains instructions on how not to crash like the previous crew. Don't you?

> might have been able to save the aircraft

It's a certainty. Remember the first LA MAX incident, the airplane did not crash because after restoring normal trim a couple times, the crew turned off the trim system, and continued the flight normally. They apparently didn't even think it was a big deal, as the aircraft was handed over to the next crew, who crashed.

> a bit of extra training

They are already required to know all "memory items".

> Coming up with this narrative about how it's the crew's fault because they failed to disable Boeing's quietly introduced little self-destruct system fast enough to save their own lives was a particularly despicable move from their PR department

AFAIK Boeing never did say it was the crew's fault. The "have to respond within 5 seconds" is a fantasy invented by the media. It is not factual.

Both Boeing and the crews share responsibility for the crashes.
I think that's one of the settings in the console's list of defaults. Though I don't think I've seen a game that reads those yet.
> and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem.

Honest question: is there anyone who doesn't already think that? Even at, like, a legislative level?
Minnesota Part 1: Engineering Research Associates
Senior enough, and skilled enough in particular low level arts, that I can set my own terms.

And I do "weird low level crap." Generally if I'm interacting with the kernel, it's from below. Think introspection, emulation, hypervisors, "state analysis of a running kernel," firmware weeds, security analysis, etc.

If you know a bitter mid-to-late-40s sort who's been in the deep weeds and the security weeds long enough to carry a powered off flip phone and genuinely hate what we've done with computers, imagine that, and you're pretty close.
I want to meet the article that isn’t safe to read even if you’re familiar with its content.
This is subtle and much bigger issue than it looks. Marketing people have a real issue with the inability for a single messaging solution, and paying the Apple tax. And unless you did not realize, marketing kind of run/control a lot, far more than it appears.
Why the EU AI act was so hard to agree on
> is a bit tricky since you need to traverse all of the plain text files at a given commit

If my mental model is correct, one would need to do that on first commit (or first push, if someone is populating your repo from an existing local repo), but from that point forward the search indexer is actually notified of changes due to the magic of $(git diff --name-only)
Thats the entire point of the Apple ecosystem. They want to control the entire user experience end to end, and it is why many people like Apple products so much.
Seems strong to say .net is mostly showmanship... when your main contention is another framework has alpha support for a different GC.
That's not really a perk then.

The whole idea is to generate ~95% of value with 80% of the work time, and to split the difference money-wise.
Nobody is locked into Apple products because of iMessage.
I don’t think anyone thinks it’s impossible for apple, or even relatively difficult for them. I also don’t think anyone doesn’t understand that they try to lock people into their ecosystem. Not my favorite choice of theirs, but largely a business choice they’ve decided to make.
Crazy that Apple gets to ship a proprietary messaging app as the default
Disagree.

I've had dogs all my life - many breeds. We currently have a rescue that is a pit/lab mix and although she is sweet as could be to humans, she is a menace at the dog park or day care. Constantly trying to fight.

Folks who say that breeds don't matter are deluding themselves. Pits are just plain aggressive. There's a reason that every time you see a "DOG MAULS CHILD" headline, it's always one of the same few breeds (hint: it's never a golden retriever).
I think one of the underlying issues is that many are now going to be hesitant to even bother with Beeper Mini anymore. I don’t think there is going to be a high tolerance for this game of cat and mouse from the end user perspective

I also don’t think goading apple is going to do much here either. Regardless of the current feelings around apple’s walled garden, they are not going to suddenly keel over and give up on locking out these commercialized attempted to bypass their security
> If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users.

Why would they not just shut it down if Apple asks, wouldn't that just do the same thing (beeper users can't send messages)
Honestly: good.

I also look forward to the efforts to deliberately feed disruptive garbage into the AI training process (I understand some fan fiction communities are already doing that).
> I believe a base knowledge of statistics is so important for everyone in modern society

If we taught statistics the way we teach mathematics, the entire curriculum would consist of deploying Excel functions.
I've asked it a few times. Not knowing the specific word is fine -- but I expect devs touching http requests at all to understand the concept.
> So what's the big idea?

It's now an ongoing PR stunt, since Eric and Brad were rewarded handsomely in attention for the first hack.
I’m curious what their best-case outcome is here. It’s fully transparent at this point that Apple has no appetite for a third party iMessage client on any platform and will take whatever technical steps needed to prevent this from happening.

I’d wager heavily that even if Beeper plays cat-and-mouse to the point where they’ve exhausted Apple’s budget for blocking them and somehow managed to avoid Apple’s legal team putting a stop to things via other channels (very unlikely), Apple’s next move would likely be to release some kind of official iMessage Android client rather than cede control of the space to Beeper.

It’s easy to read this as a pure publicity stunt on Beeper’s behalf, but that’s not what I’m getting from the tone and content of these announcements. And I also don’t think the market for a paid all-in-one chat app is large enough to justify the expenditure that this iMessage for Android project represents, if the endgame is ultimately a PR stunt.

They seem too smart to realistically think that Apple is going to just shrug and let them continue unbothered after a few rounds of back-and-forth, so what are they playing at?
the optics are already less than ideal for apple. beeper mini dismisses the any technical challenge apple may claim a hurdle to android having iMessage.

i don’t doubt this will also get shutdown in the near term, but i’m 70% confident in a surprising acquisition & continued support from apple in the longer term.

it will be hard for apple to continue to claim they are pro-user when they appear to be this hostile toward android users.
Honestly, I just want the ability to add and remove Android users from group chats without having to start an entirely new thread. If RCS fixes this, then I'll be thrilled.
Care to elaborate on the "blatant hypocrisy"?
I've updated my comment with your suggestion. I completely forgot about the face to face is better folks, sorry about that.

Edited to add: I also changed the language a little bit to be more neutral.
It seems clear to me that Beeper is playing a game of chicken with Apple. If Apple continues to cut off Beeper's access, it makes an antitrust argument stronger (a la https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/06/eus-imessage-antitrust-invest...)
Feedback for the Beeper team if they are reading: there is a non-zero amount of us that own Apple devices (like MacBooks or iPads) and not iPhones. For those it applies to, what if you leveraged the legitimate devices we do own as the spoofed devices used by Beeper Mini to register?

Don't know if that would solve the Phone Number registration part, but thought I'd throw this out there
If priorities will change again before you get to ship the new project, you're better off not doing anything and getting ready for the next thing.
In general, I don't think it's "less time in school" - our local school days are a bit on the long side (for my kids, it's about 7AM to 4PM counting the bus ride), and the year extends further into the summer than a typical school year does. It's just fewer days in school any given week.
I think they are rightly calling out that iMessage as part of Apple's moat building is both bad for their customers and people their customers interact with. And while I agree with you, and I won't be using the service, I think from their POV it is the correct messaging.
Why America Still Doesn't Have Fast Trains
> If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users.

Presumably this would only be if Apple agreed to allow the beeper mini users by default? I appreciate Beeper's stance on all of this, and hope they can continue operating.
i could agree with you. my pet peeve is that the name of the phenomenon where repeated executions result in same result (where same even includes unique identifier) shouldn't be idempotency. especially in computing where, in my experience, any attempt to implement it involves some logic which checks to see if we've already observed the desired effect of the action.
props to these guys for intentionally getting into a cat and mouse game with apple over this.

surely there's security implications to all this, if you've got a chat app where there's some internal belief that it can only run on certain platforms, also controlled by your company, there may be some assumptions made about how things work... can't help but imagine beeper itself opens up more vectors for stuff like the recently-in-the-news push notification mass surveillance

i have been wondering if theres other outcomes i'm missing between the two obvious results:
1) a more tightly controlled, locked-down iMessage ecosystem
2) some kind of explicitly supported third-party api
Basswood is about the worst wood you could choose. You can damage it with your hands.
Apple disagrees

https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-confirms-imessage-locks-...
If people were able to choose to work M-Th or Tu-F I will suggest that productivity will skyrocket given that people will have one day they work where some percentage of their co-workers don't. Fewer meetings and more working time will make up for the fact that some questions will have to wait one business day.
What grounds would Apple have for suing?
You gotta love CSS naming, where "relative em" is the version of "em" that is not relative to the parent.
My previous employer (in the UK) where I worked for 11 years happily let me work compressed hours (ie 35 hours in four days) and had every Friday off, with occasionally working a Friday by agreement if it was absolutely necessary, and I'd usually take the following Monday off in lieu.

Only left them due to compulsory redundancy due to cost cutting.
As is their right?
I believe, and I think the data supports, that the US prison population is due to the number of laws we have, and the harshness of our penalties.

A false conviction rate of a few percent does not explain an order of magnitude level differences in incarceration between countries.

I think an interesting question is what portion of the US population would be incarcerated if the totality of our laws were applied to everyone
This is a really great write-up!

On a side note, the Remarkable Tablet is such a cool and hackable device. It surprises me that the company doesn't open source more of their client software to get help from the community, which I bet would do a large chunk of the work for them for free as it's mutually beneficial. Particularly as the market they are in is highly competitive, that could be a great way to get a great featureset, lower costs, while also providing something of immense value to the open source community. They could even offer a third-party app store of some sort and become the de-facto standard platform for e-ink devices! The rest are so locked down that this would be a huge competitive advantage.
> In Marmot every row is uniquely mapped to a JetStream. This guarantees that for any node to publish changes for a row it has to go through same JetStream as everyone else.

and

> This means there is NO serializability guarantee of a transaction spanning multiple tables. This is a design choice, in order to avoid any sort of global locking, and performance.

But since the serialization happens at per row level, does this also mean no serializability guarantee of a transaction within a table too, not only spanning multiple tables?
Beeper is not exploiting any kind of vulnerability. The user is voluntarily providing their Apple ID credentials (or doing the SMS verification process to prove ownership of their number), just like they would on an iPhone.
A functional approach to relational queries
>bit under a token/second

When you say 'token' is this a word? A character? I've never gotten a good definition for it beyond 'a unit of text the llm processes'
Safety in Numbers: Keeping AI Open
The best WebAssembly runtime may be no runtime
The WiFi alliance seems to be singularly focused on corporate/institutional deployments of WiFi while ignoring the needs of most individual consumers. I guess that makes sense because that’s where the money is.

The top priority of individual consumers is getting better range out of single-AP setups, which WiFi hasn’t really addressed at all since its inception. I guess MU-MIMO helps in theory with that, but doesn’t seem to in practice. With the exception of nerds on HN and really rich people with huge mansions, most people plug in one wireless AP placed wherever the cable/fiber/phone line comes into the house and want WiFi to have acceptable video conferencing 3 bedrooms away.
Nice to see moves toward an actual single-market.
Coming from the pre-framework web I do everything by hand and shockingly my site kicks the competition to death in terms of speed and SEO performance. People forgot about web standards and embrace these frameworks instead. And that made sense when internet explorer was still relatively widely used. We needed code compilers because many browsers could still only handle es5 and nto es6. Now all current browsers support all the modern stuff including modules. We can go back to scripting with js.
I'm the Founder/CEO - appreciate the excitement! :) Lot's of work to do still, but a very important step for dogs and for lifespan extension pharmaceuticals.
It does look like Google will be the Yahoo of 2030

Perhaps even sooner, given the pace tech is evolving nowadays comparing to when Google took over Yahoo's place.
This also came up in the Johnny Depp trial, where evidence was challenged and there was a long discussion about whether a video that had been shared over AirDrop was admissible, or whether that should be considered tampering, due to the possibility of it being re-encoded / compressed (which is a theoretically possible concern, as doesn't iPhone record in HEVC but change it to H.264 when shared with people?)
Have we discovered how to prove a negative and I missed it? Or do we still have to look at the balance of evidence?

In other words: in most justice systems, the prosecution must produce evidence of guilt, they hold the burden.

It's also very important to know that (in the US justice system), evidence of innocence is not persuasive to appellate courts; they are looking for abuse of process.

---

Now, cognition is a different matter altogether. When something terrible has happened, the human mind looks for the cause, specifically for the person who caused the terrible event.

Sometimes, there is a person who did a crime - when someone is shot, that is generally treated as a crime.

But sometimes sick people die. Sometimes infants fail to continue breathing. Sometimes wildfires burn a town and kill people. Sometimes viruses jump from (non human) animals to humans.

In other words, in human cognition, satisfaction is more important than truth. Scientific truth is a framework whereby we delay our satisfaction with an answer, using specific tools that are socially accepted in that field of study.
Glad to see Lucia de Berk mentioned, a high profile Dutch case.

Although she was acquited after some years, it wrecked her.
> lock people into the ecosystem.

Other messaging services are available on iOS. In much if the world, iMessage is barely used. This is not lock-in, at all.

If anything, this is lock-out - it's a service that Apple provides to its customers and they don't want 3rd party clients and/or non-customers using the service.
> The reason for its success is clear: Android and iPhone customers desperately want to be able to chat together with high quality images/video, encryption, emojis, typing status, read receipts, and all modern chat features.

As an iPhone customer I have zero interest in your app, mate. I use iMessage with my wife and my parents and some close friends.

I use signal with other friends who don't use iPhones, or group chats where it's mixed use. It's really not difficult.

Trying to insinuate that iPhone users want you to keep playing the role of the mole in messaging whack-a-mole is misleading at best.
Maybe they patched it. But knowing Microsoft, i don't think so. (There are not enough people in China to patch the holes in the MS OS).
What would you do if someone asked that?
When did HN get so anti-consumer, anti-hacker, anti-freedom, pro-proprietary?

Them taking the fight with Apple should be applauded. A walled down proprietary message platform only a few can use is stupid to fight in favor of.
how long will it last this time?
> Apple's moat building is both bad for their customers and people their customers interact with

I bought into the ecosystem exactly because of the quality and functionality of iMessage. There's absolutely no spam, everything works and the ecosystem is tight-knit.
Maybe, maybe not -- but that's not a decision that these companies should make. Consent always matters.
You think an E2E encryption messenger is best served by a proprietary, single vendor implementation, with the added bonus of being able to subvert the client at any moment for individual devices?

There are some very weird takes around security on this to somehow twist it into an "Apple good" scenario. No, like literally every other time in history, closed & controlled does not make it more secure.
Thanks, added for now, I'd like to see the Untested ones in there as well, hopefully it's not too much work.
I'm from Norway, the response here is pretty much:

Left: "Sounds like great idea, we must conduct trials!"

Center: "It sounds interesting, but we need more data blablablah"

Right: "A four-day week will never work, and people must put away that ridiculous idea. We (Norwegians) already work too little compared to the rest of Europe."

We oscillate between center-left and center-right every 4/8 years, so I'm not sure I have high hopes for this becoming a thing anytime soon.

The (political) right here is especially prone to knee-jerk reactions when it comes to anything related to labor and commerce, no mater what research says.
Except what they are doing is specifically legal under the DMCA, and protected under the EU SDA. Under the EU SDA, Apple might even have to assist them.
And it nicely sets us up to move to the Three Day work week!
I don't think the parent is that concerned with Android <-> Apple communications with that statement.

Reverse-engineering a closed protocol and distributing an Apple Binary (IIRC correctly) are a bit more than just "implementing a protocol."
sentencepiece
If we accept that court cases will have a non zero error rate, what rate are we comfortable with? Court cases are irregular, judges, the jury, the experts and the type of prosecution matters. Are we more comfortable with different crimes at different rates?

In the US, you’re presumed innocent (in the eyes of the law) and many in cases the law can tip the balance over a technicality, such as fruit of the poisoned tree and inability to admit some evidence that would be essential in a layman’s eyes. How would a court be robust against problems such as biased experts, juries and judges? Would we be more comfortable with a lower or higher than average conviction rate? Is the problem the prisons?