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RCS for Business

developers.google.com

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Re: RCS for Business

#41

Post by jjtech »

dfajgljsldkjag wrote: post #7

It's unfortunate that RCS is basically a de-facto Google walled garden in most countries. On android you can only use RCS in the Google Messages app and trying to build your own is explicitly blocked. [1] And of course the bonus that rooted devices are banned from RCS. All the propaganda Google spread to get Apple onboard (only with Google's blessing of course, Google could kick apple off if they wanted) was such a b…

Unfortunately, I think what a lot of people don't know is that RCS actually has "client authenticity verification"[1]... the RCS server has to actively approve any attempts for a client to connect, if it's Android/iOS/etc.

There are no standards for how this should be implemented, Google uses Play Integrity and Apple uses App Attest at the current moment, with explicit proprietary support by the Jibe servers.

It's basically impossible for any solution that Google doesn't approve to function, because it's never going to be able to get App Attest/Play Integrity verification without relying on a jailbreak/vulnerability.

1. https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/netwo...

Re: RCS for Business

#44

Post by jjtech »

jjtech wrote: post #41
dfajgljsldkjag wrote: post #7

It's unfortunate that RCS is basically a de-facto Google walled garden in most countries. On android you can only use RCS in the Google Messages app and trying to build your own is explicitly blocked. [1] And of course the bonus that rooted devices are banned from RCS. All the propaganda Google spread to get Apple onboard (only with Google's blessing of course, Google could kick apple off if they wanted) was such a b…

Unfortunately, I think what a lot of people don't know is that RCS actually has "client authenticity verification"[1]... the RCS server has to actively approve any attempts for a client to connect, if it's Android/iOS/etc. There are no standards for how this should be implemented, Google uses Play Integrity and Apple uses App Attest at the current moment, with explicit proprietary support by the Jibe servers. It's ba…

As an aside, the IMS stack used to implement SMS/MMS/RCS on Android is super cursed. A lot of the heavy lifting is handed off to the OEM, for example, Pixel devices hand it off to the Qualcomm modem. (Meaning Android the OS doesn't even have any control over how the raw SIP messages are sent: they're inside an IPSec tunnel set up by the modem that it can't see inside)

iirc Samsung devices do it differently and they implement it in userspace using StrongSwan?

That's why it's super annoying to handle SMS/MMS using the standard/legacy APIs, because depending on what device the user has, the implementation may behave radically differently with regards to PDU parsing and such.

RCS makes the whole situation worse because it sets up an entire secondary IMS stack inside the Google Messages app, and then uses weird APIs to try to tie it back into the main stack, even though obviously the modem implementation doesn't understand RCS... it's a mess.

Re: RCS for Business

#45

Post by akersten »

Perfect I can't wait for the deluge of spam texts with real clickable buttons to trick me instead of just a 320x320 picture of one.

Let's see, RCS:

* needlessly complicated protocol, such that only a behemoth such as Google could administrate it

* Intensely leans on device attestation to even let you on to the network

* Tenfold the multimedia touchpoints as MMS, correspondingly it will have 10x the zero days

* Certainly wiretapped at law enforcement's whim

* Took 15 years to roll out

* And you still get green bubbles on iPhone

I wish we'd all switch to signal and the telcos would get back to being dumb pipes. But no, we need to support Read indicators and ad carousels in our baseband

Re: RCS for Business

#46

Post by the_arun »

akersten wrote: post #45

Perfect I can't wait for the deluge of spam texts with real clickable buttons to trick me instead of just a 320x320 picture of one. Let's see, RCS: * needlessly complicated protocol, such that only a behemoth such as Google could administrate it * Intensely leans on device attestation to even let you on to the network * Tenfold the multimedia touchpoints as MMS, correspondingly it will have 10x the zero days * Certai…

What is the difference between RCS & Whatsapp messages? Aren't they similar?

Re: RCS for Business

#48

Post by joecool1029 »

jjtech wrote: post #44
jjtech wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, I think what a lot of people don't know is that RCS actually has "client authenticity verification"[1]... the RCS server has to actively approve any attempts for a client to connect, if it's Android/iOS/etc. There are no standards for how this should be implemented, Google uses Play Integrity and Apple uses App Attest at the current moment, with explicit proprietary support by the Jibe servers. It's ba…

As an aside, the IMS stack used to implement SMS/MMS/RCS on Android is super cursed. A lot of the heavy lifting is handed off to the OEM, for example, Pixel devices hand it off to the Qualcomm modem. (Meaning Android the OS doesn't even have any control over how the raw SIP messages are sent: they're inside an IPSec tunnel set up by the modem that it can't see inside) iirc Samsung devices do it differently and they i…

> Pixel devices hand it off to the Qualcomm modem.

Older ones maybe, newer ones use Samsung Shannon modems.

> iirc Samsung devices do it differently and they implement it in userspace using StrongSwan?

Just to be cursed the entire IMS stack for Samsung on both qcom and exynos is custom. It’s why no custom roms have support for voLTE on their devices. They also had their own RCS that they sunset in favor of Google Messages.

Apple’s implementation is cursed too and not only did they use an older specification but they didn’t fully implement required responses to registration issues, I wrote about it here: https://wt.gd/working-rcs-messaging

Re: RCS for Business

#49

Post by joecool1029 »

dfajgljsldkjag wrote: post #34
jeroenhd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trying to build your own is explicitly blocked Google doesn't offer an RCS API, but making your own API is not blocked, especially not on phones running MicroG. For standard ROMs, RCS apps are not feasible because carriers expect interaction with the SIM module, and only privileged apps can do that. Google Messages blocks root access (probably because the RCS spec says they have to if they ever implement the money…

> They may not be able to register with Google, but they can make an RCS app nonetheless. They can make a "standards compliant" RCS which will be able to connect to literally zero carriers or servers on the planet. In fact Google Messages "RCS" doesn't even implement the RCS standard. They use a proprietary protobuf api exclusive to Google. Google messages can't connect to any "RCS" servers except Google's. > Twilio…

> Bandwidth

Still find it endlessly amusing that they run Google Voice for Google and it still doesn’t support RCS.

Re: RCS for Business

#50

Post by joecool1029 »

browningstreet wrote: post #28

I had my family iPhones revert to RCS. We had to delete chats and reset settings and reboot phones to get iMessage connected between these contacts again. And it’s weird how bad sms messaging on Google Voice is, still. RCS would be welcome.

> And it’s weird how bad sms messaging on Google Voice is, still.

Messages get filtered more often by the carriers. Shows up to them as voip local numbers which is highest risk of spam. In any case it was bolted on almost as an afterthought.

I really think they only bump Google Voice client releases to revert the ‘use carrier only setting’ to ‘prefer data and wifi’, so Google saves a few pennies.

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