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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

#81

Post by lxgr »

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

I believe GP's objection is to not being able to access RCS from a non-Google-provided app on Android, not access to the RCS network on the backend side.

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

#82

Post by lxgr »

chneu wrote: post #19
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really odd they don’t, I’m incredibly curious why.

GVoice gets forgotten about, I swear. There are years between updates and then suddenly for like 6 months it'll get a slew of updates, most of which aren't user-facing. Then back to update silence. It's really odd. I'm still amazed that google hasn't killed it.

I hope it stays that way. I'm almost certain that the minute management remembers it's there, it will get shut down, at least for non-paid (i.e. GSuite) accounts.

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

#83

Post by lxgr »

I really, really, really hope RCS doesn't make it as a standard.

Now that it's end-to-end encrypted, it's slightly better than SMS, but it's still laughably incapable compared to decades-old protocols that support multiple devices, phone-number-independent identifiers, self-hosting, have open implementations and non-insane specifications etc.

As it is, RCS is just Google Talk (Google runs most of the infrastructure), but tied to a single device (no messaging from your laptop or tablet if your phone battery dies!) and impossible to use without a phone number.

It makes me really sad to see that even technical audiences don't see the long-term plan here: Cementing the use of phone numbers instead of email addresses as the primary identifiers in people's digital lives, and making the closed, carrier and Google operated RCS ecosystem the ultimate replacement for email and other open web standards for B2C and P2P messaging. (Yeah, most people already use Gmail, but the point is that self-hosting email is at least still possible, and there's still relatively free competition of sending service providers; with RCS, there's no chance to play without paying the cartel.)

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

#84

Post by g-b-r »

acdha wrote: post #63
g-b-r wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Did you read that issue? It's Moxie that refused to support it

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

#85

Post by ezfe »

lxgr wrote: post #83

I really, really, really hope RCS doesn't make it as a standard. Now that it's end-to-end encrypted, it's slightly better than SMS, but it's still laughably incapable compared to decades-old protocols that support multiple devices, phone-number-independent identifiers, self-hosting, have open implementations and non-insane specifications etc. As it is, RCS is just Google Talk (Google runs most of the infrastructure),…

It's far more than "slightly better." It supports full resolution content, longer messages, and reactions/interactions. For most people it's indistinguishable from iMessage/etc.

Do you really think that phone numbers aren't already a ubiquitous identifier? That is done. Nothing you're saying is changing because of RCS.

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

#86

Post by dmix »

lxgr wrote: post #83

I really, really, really hope RCS doesn't make it as a standard. Now that it's end-to-end encrypted, it's slightly better than SMS, but it's still laughably incapable compared to decades-old protocols that support multiple devices, phone-number-independent identifiers, self-hosting, have open implementations and non-insane specifications etc. As it is, RCS is just Google Talk (Google runs most of the infrastructure),…

> Cementing the use of phone numbers instead of email addresses as the primary identifiers in people's digital lives

From my experience RCS is just a backup/temporary holdover system to keep SMS usable as is, since people are increasingly using regular chat apps like WhatsApp. Plus as long as spam/identity is a major issue then phone numbers will be a part of verification systems. They will use anything they can get to make it harder to abuse. Whether the root ID is phones or not doesn't really make a difference if a phone number is required at some point to use a service.

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

#87

Post by lxgr »

ezfe wrote: post #85
lxgr wrote: post #83

I really, really, really hope RCS doesn't make it as a standard. Now that it's end-to-end encrypted, it's slightly better than SMS, but it's still laughably incapable compared to decades-old protocols that support multiple devices, phone-number-independent identifiers, self-hosting, have open implementations and non-insane specifications etc. As it is, RCS is just Google Talk (Google runs most of the infrastructure),…

It's far more than "slightly better." It supports full resolution content, longer messages, and reactions/interactions. For most people it's indistinguishable from iMessage/etc. Do you really think that phone numbers aren't already a ubiquitous identifier? That is done. Nothing you're saying is changing because of RCS.

Yes, it's already largely done, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea, so why cheer moving into the same bad direction just because there's now finally a baseline of security?

It's also anything but indistinguishable from iMessage. I can use iMessage on any number of devices without my phone having to be turned on, having the SIM with my number on it inserted, and being connected to the Internet (not always a given when traveling etc.)

The same is true for WhatsApp. Even XMPP could do it 20 years ago! This is not a new niche feature – it's absolutely essential for a modern instant messaging protocol!

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

#88

Post by lxgr »

dmix wrote: post #86
lxgr wrote: post #83

I really, really, really hope RCS doesn't make it as a standard. Now that it's end-to-end encrypted, it's slightly better than SMS, but it's still laughably incapable compared to decades-old protocols that support multiple devices, phone-number-independent identifiers, self-hosting, have open implementations and non-insane specifications etc. As it is, RCS is just Google Talk (Google runs most of the infrastructure),…

> Cementing the use of phone numbers instead of email addresses as the primary identifiers in people's digital lives From my experience RCS is just a backup/temporary holdover system to keep SMS usable as is, since people are increasingly using regular chat apps like WhatsApp. Plus as long as spam/identity is a major issue then phone numbers will be a part of verification systems. They will use anything they can get…

There's a large split here between the US (where people largely use SMS and now RCS) and the rest of the world, which largely uses WhatsApp, WeChat, or very few others.

I'm of course also just as critical of having Meta run the world's communication industry instead of Google, but that's the duopoly (or rather two monopolies split geographically) we're headed towards. Cheering on RCS as a way out of it, instead of directly towards it, is deeply misguided.

That said, at least WhatsApp provides some basic features that XMPP has supported more than 20 years ago (multiple devices being logged in simultaneously, synced message archives etc.) – I'm not holding my breath ever seeing these on RCS. As a pseudo-federated standard, protocol and client development will always be much more complex, and looking at the baseline complexity of the RCS specification powering the few existing features, I'm just not seeing it happen.

Needing my phone to be powered up and connected to the Internet to message people from my computer in 2025 is absurd.

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

#89

Post by [deleted] »

jeroenhd wrote: post #30
oneplane wrote: post #5

So essentially, it's not really an Apple thing, it's more that the universal RCS profile just didn't have encryption, and Google RCS was a non-standard extension that nobody else was allowed to use. The real news is the update to GSMA RCS, because without that, none of this matters. What I'm missing in the article is who's going to own the keys and why this is probably going to default to the telcos as if it's MMS. A…

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…

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by MBCook »

h0l0cube wrote: post #60
MBCook wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least the false pretence would vanish if both support 100%

What false pretense? They dictate two different ways of sending messages with different capabilities.
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