So here’s a simple request to Apple. Apple iMessage needs to enable “disappearing messages.” And they need to do it soon. https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2025/03/01/dear-apple-add-disappearing-messages-to-imessage-right-now/
@matthew_d_green given that it falls back to SMS when a message fails to send via iMessage, that could be tricky to set up reliably... but then again, I'm not a computer toucher ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@matthew_d_green given the disposition of the company to Trump, and the recent cooperation with the UK. I'm wondering if they're going to go the other way.
@matthew_d_green
They’ll spend three years failing to get it to sync on all your still registered legacy devices and they’ll then decide it’s not worth doing. ;)
@matthew_d_green I suspect Apple has not done this because they can't make a reliable guarantee to users that those messages will disappear on other ends because the logic would be only integrated into the latest versions of iOS. They already mention this limitation with edited messages. It's a fundamental flaw of Apple's distribution model for its own apps and services: plenty of downgrade attack surface when you insist on backwards compatibility for everything in fear of upsetting those users.
@matthew_d_green Signal fairly elegantly avoids this issue by expiring app versions after 90 days so they can make these ecosystem shifts while providing users with reasonable assurances of compatibility/functionality/good UX while not having to swear over supporting multiple protocol versions and downgrade attacks.
Users also not aware of when PQ iMessage encryption is used either AFAIK. It's more for show until all endpoints in a conversation support it.
All a problem of Apple's own making.
@matthew_d_green Not to mention giving us a way to easily archive all our messages out of iMessage. I have gigabytes of messages taking up space on my iPhone and iPad that I would like to bulk archive. This is just bad design.
@matthew_d_green but they already added confetti and balloons and shit