this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
663 points (97.7% liked)

Technology

62078 readers
4947 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s
enu
technopagan
L4s
663
Nothing pulls its iMessage app from the Play Store following privacy disaster (www.androidpolice.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology
100 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
  • Nothing Chats, a rival to apps like Beeper and AirMessage, advertised itself as a secure platform for sending messages to iMessage users.
  • However, less than 24 hours after its launch, investigations into the app revealed that Nothing Chats logged every message in plain text and stored unencrypted data, including text messages, images, videos, and more, making it a significant privacy and security risk.
  • The company removed the app from the Play Store following these complaints, citing "several bugs" that need fixing.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Ghostalmedia 259 points 1 year ago (32 children)

Giving your iCloud credentials to a third party is already sketchy. It gives them the ability to read your messages, documents, health records, etc.

Nothing / Sunbird basically said “trust me bro, we’re super secure.” Then they did this right out of the gate.

What a bunch of morons.

[–] daqqad 4 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I think very few Android users are actively part of Apple ecosystem. These are just blank accounts they create to show up in a different color on ios messages. I can give you my apple password. I created it when I was briefly issued a Mac at work 10 years ago and never used it since.

[–] Ghostalmedia 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My guess is this feature isn’t targeting Android users. It’s targeting iOS users in the US that are due for a phone upgrade.

“Blue bubbles” is one of the reasons people stick with the platform in the states. And saying your Android phone supports that could allow you to tap into a much larger market in the US. Apple controls more than half of the smartphone market in the states, and default messaging apps also dominate on in the states.

[–] daqqad 3 points 1 year ago

I'd love to find out which group they actually tried to target, but if you're right - I completely agree. No way I'm handing credentials to my Google account over. That's why normal companies have APIs.

RCS might not be perfect, but at least it's open.

I really hope EU will continue the trend of forcing Apple to become less of a piece of shit company.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (29 replies)