Nothing has pulled the Nothing Chats beta from the Google Play store, saying it is “delaying the launch until further notice” while it fixes “several bugs.” The app promised to let Nothing Phone 2 users text with iMessage, but it required allowing Sunbird, who provides the platform, log into users’ iCloud accounts on its own Mac Mini servers, which… isn’t great?
Nothing Chats has already been pulled from Google Play over privacy issues
The removal came after users widely shared a blog from Texts.com showing that messages sent with Sunbird’s system aren’t actually end-to-end encrypted — and that it’s not hard to compromise it. The app launched in beta yesterday after being announced earlier this week.
9to5Google pointed to a thread from site author Dylan Roussel, who found that part of Sunbird’s solution involves decrypting and transmitting messages using HTTP to a Firebase cloud-syncing server and storing them there in unencrypted plain text. Roussel posted that the company itself has access to messages because it logs them as errors using Sentry, a debugging service.
Sunbird claimed yesterday that HTTP is “only used as part of the one-off initial request from the app notifying back-end of the upcoming iMessage connection.”
That was in response to someone pointing to Texts.com’s blog examining the vulnerability. Texts.com wrote that “an attacker subscribed to the Firebase realtime database will always be able to access the messages before or at the moment they are read by the user.” The blog also points out that the company could look at messages in its Sentry dashboard, directly contradicting the claim from Nothing’s FAQ that nobody at Sunbird can access messages that are sent or received.
We’ve reached out to Nothing for further comment, but the company did not respond by press time.
Nothing has pulled the Nothing Chats beta from the Google Play store, saying it is “delaying the launch until further notice” while it fixes “several bugs.” The app promised to let Nothing Phone 2 users text with iMessage, but it required allowing Sunbird, who provides the platform, log into users’…
Recent Posts
- Which Amazon Fire Stick do I need? A simple guide to the key differences
- Stellar Blade’s slick-looking sequel is officially called Blood Rain
- How much data does your favorite messaging app collect? New study shows 90% of messaging apps now include AI that puts privacy at risk
- More than a decade later, the team behind N++ is back with a multiplayer sequel
- If Vampire Survivors and Spelunky had a baby, it’d be Messhof’s Blood Dungeon
Archives
- June 2026
- May 2026
- April 2026
- March 2026
- February 2026
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023