[sneak]

iMessage’s practical lack of e2ee isn’t a matter of “perfect security”. It’s simply not e2ee because the keys are escrowed to the middle service. It’s not even a little bit secure. The encryption has been fully backdoored by sharing the endpoint keys off of the device.

Apple turns over customer data on over 70,000 customers per year without a warrant under FISA/702 (prism) and NSLs. The number gets bigger every year. This isn’t a theoretical threat. The number is even bigger if you include all the search warrants, too.

EDIT: Even if you enable their optional e2ee for backups (which nobody does), iMessage the platform is still vulnerable because the conversations you have with others are insecure because the other end of the conversation is escrowing their keys to Apple via non-e2ee backups. If you enable ADP iMessage only becomes secure for the case where you are only iMessaging yourself.

It’s simply not private or secure. You can’t be “slightly encrypted” or “mostly private”.

[gjsman-1000]

Unless you enable Advanced Data Protection, which escrows the keys solely on your device. This is hardly a secret or a scandal.

[etchalon]

As far as I know, iMessage keys are not escrowed to any middle service. What are you basing that belief on?

[sneak]

Apple’s own HT202303. It is quite clear on the matter, even going so far as to point out that the keys are rotated when you turn off iCloud Backup.

Read the parts about Messages in iCloud, the service used to sync messages between devices. Those keys are included in the non-e2ee iCloud Backup. Both are enabled by default.

[etchalon]

HT202303 refers to storing the keys for the Messages in iCloud feature.