Apple has accidentally made it impossible to exclude Russia from iMessage

The Russian authorities have blocked FaceTime in the country, and the reason follows a familiar pattern.

The supervisory authority Roskomnadzor refers to the fight against terrorism and writes in a statement

– According to law enforcement authorities, FaceTime is used to organize and carry out terrorist attacks in the country, recruit perpetrators and commit fraud and other crimes against Russian citizens.

According to 9to5Mac.com, no evidence was presented to support the claim.

FaceTime protects conversations with end-to-end encryption, so the government can’t eavesdrop on the content along the way.

The same applies to iMessage when messages are sent between Apple devices. Yet the ban only affected one service.

One obvious explanation has been that iMessage takes up less space in Russia because many people choose other messaging apps.

That explanation may well be valid, but a new clue points to something more practical that could make a ban much more difficult.

Why iMessage can be hard to target

The discussion gained momentum when Apple expert John Gruber of The Talk Show podcast publicly wondered why iMessage wasn’t next.

A user on Mastodon, Magebarf, made a suggestion:

– Isn’t it still the case that iMessage traffic is merged with the same endpoint as the push notifications?

The idea is simple. If a state blocks iMessage in this way, it can simultaneously crack iPhone notifications across the board.

This could affect everything from banking apps to delivery notifications and authentication. And it’s this link that may be the reason why authorities are hesitant.

The explanation is that Apple previously had an interest in preventing mobile operators from blocking iMessage because the service could reduce the use of SMS.

The technical solution may therefore have had a side effect that today also prevents the authorities from blocking, without this necessarily being the plan from the start.

The explanation is not certain

However, there are holes in the theory. FaceTime also uses Apple’s push infrastructure, so it’s unclear whether that link alone can explain the difference.

And a country could try to target iMessage in other ways, for example by blocking access to the Apple services that handle identity and activation.

Still, the idea fits into the odd picture, because a ban on FaceTime came quickly, while iMessage still works.

If iMessage is in fact sitting on the same pipe as important notifications, the price of a ban could be higher than the government wants to pay.