Nothing pulls its Android-to-iOS chat app from Google Play over protection concerns

A hot potato: When Nothing unveiled its chat app ultimate week, it regarded to have cracked the wall separating iMessage customers from anyone who would not personal an iPhone. However, a collection of protection researchers quickly made sharp accusations towards its protection integrity, suggesting the carrier is simply too exact to be true.

Amid serious privacy worries, Nothing has removed the beta for its Android-to-iOS chat app from the Google Play Store. The employer additionally behind schedule the overall launch but hasn't specific for the way lengthy.

The new service, Nothing Chats, allowed Nothing Phone 2 proprietors to send texts to iMessage customers on Apple gadgets with superior functions like cease-to-stop encryption, first-rate media, institution chats, and more. Because iMessage is distinctive to Apple devices and would not presently guide RCS, it converts messages from Android devices to SMS or MMS, which are much less stable and absence cutting-edge functionality.

I simply want to make clear something. Sunbird *lied* to Nothing. They stated messages had been stop-to-give up encrypted. They have been not. Sunbird knew this because they add stuff to Firebase.

Nothing must no longer just "delay the release." They need to cancel the complete mission. Https://t.Co/COjeFwdMm1

– Dylan Roussel (@evowizz) November 18, 2023

Competitors like Google, Meta, and numerous telecom vendors have time and again criticized the Cupertino Giant's messaging regulations, and the growing risk of law from Europe may also have pushed Apple to alternate them. The enterprise plans to put into effect RCS next 12 months as a brand new fallback.

Meanwhile, a collection of security researchers forged doubt on assertions via Nothing and backend company Sunbird that their middleman solution maintained cease-to-cease encryption. A prolonged technical critique alleges that, at positive points, as Sunbird mediates messages among Android and iMessage, content and account data end up unencrypted and vulnerable to assault.

Using Nothing Chats requires users to provide Sunbird their Apple IDs – which itself is unstable – but the researchers published a evidence-of-idea claiming hackers ought to probably get right of entry to that statistics. Furthermore, they state that the data's visibility to Sunbird personnel could make it ripe for insider attacks.

Thread time!

Summary:
- Sunbird has get admission to to every message despatched and received via the app to your device.

- All of the files (pics, films, audios, pdfs, vCards...) despatched via Nothing Chat AND Sunbird are public.

- Nothing Chats isn't quit-to-stop encrypted.

– Dylan Roussel (@evowizz) November 18, 2023

Nothing and Sunbird pulled the Nothing Chats beta from the Google Play Store quickly after the revelations. Nothing attributed the elimination and release delay to insects, which drew harsh complaint from commenters accusing the company of mendacity about its safety functions. The researchers recommend that all and sundry who has used Nothing Chats need to trade their Apple password, revoke account access from the app, and uninstall it.

If Nothing and Sunbird do not address the criticisms, owners of the Nothing Phone 2 and different Android devices will likely have to wait till Apple implements RCS into iMessage in 2024. Although the change will enhance how messages from Android to Apple gadgets appear, they may not contain all iMessage functions.

Google will paintings alongside Apple to supervise the mixing, which should implement examine receipts, stay typing indicators, and high-decision media. RCS on iMessage will use encryption from the GSM Association instead of the gadget Apple makes use of for messages between the agency's devices. Moreover, iMessage will continue to be one-of-a-kind to Apple hardware, and iOS users receiving messages from Android will keep to look green bubbles.