Authoritarian governments don’t like their citizens being able to have private conversations using end-to-end encrypted messaging apps. This is the reason Russia has just banned FaceTime, but it was surprising iMessage had escaped a ban.
A potential reason for this has now been discovered: Apple may have accidentally made it almost impossible for a government to ban its end-to-end encrypted text messaging app …
Russia blocked FaceTime but not iMessage
Russia last week blocked the use of FaceTime within the country, naturally using terrorism as the excuse.
Justifying its decision, the communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, said in an emailed statement: “According to law enforcement agencies, FaceTime is being used to organise and carry out terrorist attacks in the country, recruit perpetrators, and commit fraud and other crimes against Russian citizens.” The watchdog did not cite evidence in support of the allegations.
FaceTime uses end-to-end encryption (E2EE), so audio and video calls cannot be intercepted by the state. However, some were curious why Russia hadn’t done the same with iMessage, which is similarly protected by E2EE.
One potential explanation offered is that iMessage usage within the country is extremely low, with most people preferring other messaging apps. Now, however, another possible explanation has surfaced.
Blocking iMessage blocks all iOS push notifications
When Apple commenter John Gruber wondered aloud about this, Mastodon user Magebarf had an idea.
Isn’t it still that the iMessage traffic is merged on the same endpoint as the push notifications? So, if taking out iMessage all remote push notifications to iPhone would immediately cease to work.
They suggested this was a deliberate decision by Apple, but the aim was to ensure carriers, rather than repressive governments, couldn’t block iMessage. Carriers might otherwise have been tempted to do so as the service reduced demand for SMS, which attracted per-message charges at the time.
This is how they shoehorned in iMessage under the nose of all phone operators, who already had been using the push notifications as one of the the major reasons for their customers to get a iPhone, and now they couldn’t block the iMessage traffic.
As evidence for this, they noted that choosing the messaging-only tier on in-flight Wi-Fi services means you continue to get push notifications for other apps you can’t actually access.
9to5Mac’s Take
Since FaceTime also relies on the Apple Push Notification service (APNs), it’s not 100% clear whether this is indeed the explanation. There are also other methods a government could use to block iMessage, such as blocking access to Identity Services, though this may be tougher to implement across an entire country.
However, it does seem to be at least plausible and if accurate would explain an otherwise surprising decision.
Of course, assuming it was an accidental side benefit of a policy targeting carriers is also speculation. It may well be that Apple had in mind also protecting against repressive governments, although in that case you might have expected it to similarly protect FaceTime.
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Benjamin Mayo contributed to this report
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