You want to separate iMessage and iCloud and say that it doesn't matter that iCloud is less secure than iMessage by default because it's separate. You'll still call iMessage end-to-end encrypted separately from iCloud Backup by defining the "end" as before iCloud Backup runs, and blame users for making insecure choices when they enable iCloud Backup.
This argument makes no sense for two reasons. First, iMessage and iCloud Backup are not simply apps that you can replace with other services as you choose. "For your own protection" against malware or whatever, Apple restrictions prohibit anyone from offering an SMS-integrated messaging app or a cloud backup app in competition with iMessage or iCloud Backup. iMessage and iCloud Backup are not separate; they are part and parcel of the larger piece of software called iOS. Apple can't play dumb and blame users for making insecure choices when Apple is the one limiting them to insecure options.
Second, even if they were separate apps and replaceable, they are made by the same company. The service provider the end-to-end encryption is supposed to protect against is the same one making the non-E2EE backup. If Facebook started making a phone backup app that was "separate" from WhatsApp but made non-E2EE backups of WhatsApp messages to Facebook servers, and it was used by a large fraction of WhatsApp users, and the FBI was sending subpoenas for WhatsApp messages to Facebook and routinely getting decrypted messages back, would you really be defending Facebook for marketing WhatsApp as end-to-end encrypted? If so, I guarantee you would be in an extreme minority.
>You want to separate iMessage and iCloud and say that yes iCloud breaks end-to-end encryption
No, iCloud simply has nothing to do with iMessage E2EE, nor with Signal nor Nextcloud nor anything else.
>but that doesn't matter because it's separate from iMessage
It is indeed.
>so you can still call iMessage end-to-end encrypted separately from iCloud Backup by defining the "end" as before iCloud Backup runs.
Yes, because that is correct, and you are wrong. The "end" is when an authorized end user possessing the keys access the data. That's how it works. What they do with that data afterwards in completely orthogonal. They can print it out, make it into paper airplanes, and throw it off a skyscraper in the middle of a city and it still will have been E2EE. By your argument, there is literally no E2EE in existence on any common hardware in the world, since it's easy to use a PC to backup unencrypted (and indeed at least until relatively recently that was the rule not the exception, and even FDE only rose to general usage within the last decade or so.
>First, iMessage and iCloud Backup are not simply apps that you can replace with other services as you choose
Irrelevant even if you were right, which you are not.
>"For your own protection" against malware or whatever, Apple policies prohibit anyone from offering an SMS app or backup app in competition with iMessage or iCloud Backup.
You seem awfully confused if you think "SMS" has even the slightest security anywhere on anything. As far as messaging apps, Whatsapp utterly dominates iMessage worldwide. Signal is also very popular. There are Matrix apps, etc etc. What an absolutely ludicrous statement. Internet backups not being open to 3rd parties is indeed bad as I've said, but you can backup to a computer same as was always the option well before iCloud Backups even existed. That's what I do. Or simply not backup of course, such as if someone was using a phone in a high security situation and would rather lose history if they phone had to be wiped then have any risk of disclosure.
>iMessage and iCloud Backup are not separate; they are part and parcel of the larger piece of software called iOS. There is no firewall between them.
Wrong. If you want to allege that Apple is secretly backdooring stuff at a much lower level, well why not go straight down to the silicon? And you're going to need quite the evidence for that.
>Second, even if they were separate apps and replaceable, they are made by the same company. The service provider the end-to-end encryption is supposed to protect against is the same one making the non-E2EE backup blah blah
Also all irrelevant.
You've come up with a make believe fantasy head canon version of what "end to end encryption" means that has nothing to do with what it actually means. People like you love to throw around criminal allegations like "fraud" very lightly.
He has several good points attacking strawmen of his own creation, which he willfully confuses with my actual arguments, to which he has no substantive response. It's an easy method to make yourself look good in online arguments and a total waste of time to engage with.
This argument makes no sense for two reasons. First, iMessage and iCloud Backup are not simply apps that you can replace with other services as you choose. "For your own protection" against malware or whatever, Apple restrictions prohibit anyone from offering an SMS-integrated messaging app or a cloud backup app in competition with iMessage or iCloud Backup. iMessage and iCloud Backup are not separate; they are part and parcel of the larger piece of software called iOS. Apple can't play dumb and blame users for making insecure choices when Apple is the one limiting them to insecure options.
Second, even if they were separate apps and replaceable, they are made by the same company. The service provider the end-to-end encryption is supposed to protect against is the same one making the non-E2EE backup. If Facebook started making a phone backup app that was "separate" from WhatsApp but made non-E2EE backups of WhatsApp messages to Facebook servers, and it was used by a large fraction of WhatsApp users, and the FBI was sending subpoenas for WhatsApp messages to Facebook and routinely getting decrypted messages back, would you really be defending Facebook for marketing WhatsApp as end-to-end encrypted? If so, I guarantee you would be in an extreme minority.