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Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

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Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#61

Post by jxramos »

MBCook wrote: post #44
jandrewrogers wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who they'd happily supply with details to get rid of the green bubble problem I would be surprised if this eliminates green bubbles. iMessage supports many features unavailable over RCS on Android devices. These would still be disabled and Apple needs a way to indicate a degraded feature set to iMessage users.

Yep. They’re never going away. Blue = iMessage Green = Other It doesn’t matter if both support 100% identical feature sets, it’s gonna stay like that.

it does leave the door open for pointing the finger for who's at fault when text groups with OS blends get all scrambled https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255769788?answerId=2607...

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#62

Post by singpolyma3 »

WorldPeas wrote: post #42
singpolyma3 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get access to send MMS though. RCS there is no one selling access yet, especially for person to person.

It seems people are, but not anyone with a big name: https://jibe.google.com/partners/messaging-partners/ I'm guessing it's provisioned this way. https://developers.google.com/business-communications/rcs-bu... EDIT: https://github.com/android-rcs/rcsjta

Yes the Google Business stuff exists for B2C marketing type use cases, but it is a very limited feature set compared to real RCS and cannot be used for regular communications using phone numbers.

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#63

Post by acdha »

g-b-r wrote: post #40
acdha wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The protocol is open but key exchange is not: even on Android, third-party messengers can’t interoperate with Google Messages. See page 11 of that PDF.

That text seems more a reflection of the fact that only Messages supported it, when the document was written If they seriously wanted random third parties to implement it, anyhow, they'd have published a specification, not an "overview"

Only Messages was allowed to support it. At the time it was written, for example, it was years after the Signal developers had asked for basic RCS support (2015) and given up on Google relenting and allowing it in 2018.

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/4837

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#64

Post by theshackleford »

kelnos wrote: post #47
alwayslikethis wrote: post #36

Unfortunately, RCS on Android requires google apps, so this isn't really a solution to anyone who doesn't want to be tracked by Google everywhere they go. I'm still a little confused as to what problem RCS is supposed to solve. It is just as centralized as any other chat app, and is a bit more invasive (often requiring device attestation). Is it really worth all this hassle just to not have to install, let's say, Sig…

Defaults matter. While I've gotten some of my friends and family members to install and use Signal, I still have more chats via SMS/MMS (and more recently RCS, since Apple finally started supporting it) than I do on all other messaging apps combined.

This is likely to differ greatly by demographic. I don’t know literally anyone who uses SMS/MMS. The only SMS message I’ve received in years are automated services/spam.

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#65

Post by rockskon »

scarface_74 wrote: post #53
alwayslikethis wrote: post #36

Unfortunately, RCS on Android requires google apps, so this isn't really a solution to anyone who doesn't want to be tracked by Google everywhere they go. I'm still a little confused as to what problem RCS is supposed to solve. It is just as centralized as any other chat app, and is a bit more invasive (often requiring device attestation). Is it really worth all this hassle just to not have to install, let's say, Sig…

Yes. Not everyone is going to install Signal (which isn’t end to end encrypted btw), everyone has a cell phone that can support either iMessage/RCS/MMS/SMS and when you send a message to someone else’s number, you have graceful (sic) degradation.

Could you elaborate on your claim that Signal is not end-to-end encrypted?

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#66

Post by snypher »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #43
jeroenhd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The encryption is based on MLS: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9420.html I don't think Google wanted to gatekeep their E2EE implementation. They have some generic documentation about how it works: https://www.gstatic.com/messages/papers/messages_e2ee.pdf The thing about RCS is that no messengers seem to care at all about implementing RCS themselves. Part of that is probably because depending on the carrier, RCS ma…

> who they'd happily supply with details to get rid of the green bubble problem I would be surprised if this eliminates green bubbles. iMessage supports many features unavailable over RCS on Android devices. These would still be disabled and Apple needs a way to indicate a degraded feature set to iMessage users.

Just please stop sending the text that reads as follows, it totally destroys group chats and the amount of information conveyed in a react doesn't require quoting back the entire message, eg

Liked "I would be surprised if this eliminates green bubbles. iMessage supports many features unavailable over RCS on Android devices. These would still be disabled and Apple needs a way to indicate a degraded feature set to iMessage users."

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#67

Post by diego_sandoval »

kelnos wrote: post #47
alwayslikethis wrote: post #36

Unfortunately, RCS on Android requires google apps, so this isn't really a solution to anyone who doesn't want to be tracked by Google everywhere they go. I'm still a little confused as to what problem RCS is supposed to solve. It is just as centralized as any other chat app, and is a bit more invasive (often requiring device attestation). Is it really worth all this hassle just to not have to install, let's say, Sig…

Defaults matter. While I've gotten some of my friends and family members to install and use Signal, I still have more chats via SMS/MMS (and more recently RCS, since Apple finally started supporting it) than I do on all other messaging apps combined.

Where (and why) is that?

I'm from Chile, and the last time I sent an SMS (or heard of anyone sending an SMS) must have been like 12 years ago.

Ever since then, everyone has used Whatsapp or Telegram instead.

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#68

Post by lxgr »

Does anybody know how the trust model for this looks like? Is it trust on first use together with a notification if a contact's key changes, a centralized key server (if so, who runs it, and is there key transparency), or just opportunistic encryption not protected against active attackers in the middle?

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#69

Post by lxgr »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #36

Unfortunately, RCS on Android requires google apps, so this isn't really a solution to anyone who doesn't want to be tracked by Google everywhere they go. I'm still a little confused as to what problem RCS is supposed to solve. It is just as centralized as any other chat app, and is a bit more invasive (often requiring device attestation). Is it really worth all this hassle just to not have to install, let's say, Sig…

No, it's worse than a standard centralized chat app: It's ostensibly federated, with network operators running the servers.

But practically, only Google actually knows how to do that (the specifications are absurdly complicated!), and so they do it for all operators as a service.

It's a fig leaf of an open protocol and service even for telco industry standards.

Re: Apple will soon support encrypted RCS messaging with Android users

#70

Post by tredre3 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #57
MBCook wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google‘s was something different. This is an actual standard that Apple is committing to implement. I was under the impression Google’s encryption was just their own layer thing they added on top it was not actually standardized. When people asked last year about why Apple wasn’t implementing encrypted RCS I think they even said that they wanted to wait for a standard.

So an important context here is the server side implementation of RCS is Google's at every major carrier. Google bought the carrier-side provider of RCS services, Jibe, and so the entire RCS stack is still basically just Google Chat with an "it's a standard" label on it. https://9to5google.com/2024/02/01/verizon-rcs-google-jibe/ Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all use Google's RCS implementation, the only way to not send…

> Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all use Google's RCS implementation, the only way to not send Google your messages in the US is to own an iPhone and disable RCS.

You can disable RCS on Android too.

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