[crest]

> It’s untenable that there’s unsanctioned client software for a messaging platform for which privacy and security are a primary feature.

What a stupid take on the situation. At most it's untenable to Apples short term financial interests. A well designed protocol and implementation would be even better at protecting user privacy and security especially from a privileged attacker like the service provider and anyone able to put covert pressure on them.

The only way in which vendor lock-in helps the the existing users is that spammers and scammers have to invest additional money to acquire Apple devices to create new accounts instead of just phone numbers and a labor to create accounts.

[windexh8er]

On the money, but unsurprising. Gruber is an Apple fan-boy through and through and it doesn't take much of a guess to posit the exact "prediction" he made. It was clear Apple was never going to put up with this, but it was likely accelerated by all of the media attention.

Apple is, however, nothing for "privacy and security" beyond what they need to do to be marginally better, and that's a stretch these days. If Gruber really believes what he wrote he's full-on living in Apple's orchard behind the walled garden that Tim Cook splendidly gatekeeps. But because Apple puts marketing dollars behind ads that say "privacy" and "security" it must be so!

This is why it's always funny to me when the trope of the hour is the mass privacy failures of Signal through use of phone numbers. And then the author turns around and types out an iMessage to a blue-bubble friend. I really hope we can move beyond the Apple reality distortion machine and move to truly user focused platforms that aren't designed to steal user data or make the board richer.

Apple has become rotten.

[paulmd]

this sounds like proof of stake to me

yes, you can indeed build a secure system on the basis of increasing the economic cost of attack beyond reasonable levels and by forcing attackers to repeatedly slash their stake to perform an attack