4 ms·

But it would be a step up for people who use SMS on iPhone, which is everybody who texts a non-iPhone user, which is everybody. It would also be a step up for e

But it would be a step up for people who use SMS on iPhone, which is everybody who texts a non-iPhone user, which is everybody. It would also be a step up for every Android user who texts an iPhone user that doesn't support rich texting. Apple is wrong not to support an interoperable rich text protocol, and Google is also wrong not to support it in Google Voice.

olliej 5y ago
It would still need green bubble treatment as the security guarantees are weaker than iMessage or any of the myriad google chat systems. At its base level it is meant to be e2e encrypted but that fails frequently enough that google has to have special UI to indicate the failure, even though they endeavor to minimize how visible that indication is. For group chats (the ones that seem to pop up in examples) RCS does nothing: it isn’t e2e. Group e2e is challenging, which is why it’s still rare even though it has been the behaviour of messages’ group chats since day 1. That said it is mind blowing to me that the carriers specified RCS’s group protocols as anything other than fully e2e. If you’re going to make it a standard you don’t get to half ass it. :-/ Then as others have said, in RCS your keys and account are tied to your phone number. This is not as much of a problem in the US, but in many countries changing carrier means changing number.
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  The security guarantees for RCS E2EE are higher than the security guarantees for iMessage. iMessage relies on a public key server controlled by Apple (or China if you're messaging someone in China). Whoever controls that server can MITM the protocol, and the client has no way to verify. iMessage also doesn't have forward secrecy. RCS E2EE, on the other hand, is a straightforward implementation of the Signal protocol, which does implement forward secrecy and which provides a way for the user to verify they aren't being eavesdropped.

olliej 5y ago

It would still need green bubble treatment as the security guarantees are weaker than iMessage or any of the myriad google chat systems. At its base level it is meant to be e2e encrypted but that fails frequently enough that google has to have special UI to indicate the failure, even though they endeavor to minimize how visible that indication is. For group chats (the ones that seem to pop up in examples) RCS does nothing: it isn’t e2e. Group e2e is challenging, which is why it’s still rare even though it has been the behaviour of messages’ group chats since day 1. That said it is mind blowing to me that the carriers specified RCS’s group protocols as anything other than fully e2e. If you’re going to make it a standard you don’t get to half ass it. :-/ Then as others have said, in RCS your keys and account are tied to your phone number. This is not as much of a problem in the US, but in many countries changing carrier means changing number.

lern_too_spel 5y ago
The security guarantees for RCS E2EE are higher than the security guarantees for iMessage. iMessage relies on a public key server controlled by Apple (or China if you're messaging someone in China). Whoever controls that server can MITM the protocol, and the client has no way to verify. iMessage also doesn't have forward secrecy. RCS E2EE, on the other hand, is a straightforward implementation of the Signal protocol, which does implement forward secrecy and which provides a way for the user to verify they aren't being eavesdropped.