7 ms·

This is something I never thought I'd see. I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers.

This is something I never thought I'd see. I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. That would go a long way in making a huge improvement over SMS/MMS. This is a win for RCS, ultimately. Maybe this will kick carriers into high gear to up their messaging standard support game and have standard interop. I don't think this will lead to a decline in iMessage usage, nor do I think it will be catalyst enough to get people to move to Android, because there are still things RCS won't be able to support[0] but its a big step forward for a more pleasant experience between iOS and Android. [0]: Memojis, reactions (tapbacks I think their called) and I'm curious about threaded messages. Also, at this time the actual RCS standard does not specificy that messages must be end to end encrypted. iMessage on the other hand has robust E2EE encryption (and you can get even more robust encryption by enabling Advanced Data Protection)

hedora 3y ago
The only reason they'd move to E2EE would be if Apple forced them. Looking at / selling message contents is a large potential revenue source for all the other major players.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Lets hope they will. Apple is a bit of a forcing function in the cellular industry, especially in the US.
- greentea23 3y ago
  I am fairly certain that it's illegal to sell the content of SMS messages in the United States at least. The metadata like who is messaging who and timestamps and best guess locations maybe is sold though. But the contents can be obtained by law enforcement. However, I think the contents are purged after some expiration time.
  - xattt 3y ago
    > … fairly certain that it's illegal to sell the content of SMS messages in the United States at least There will be some ridiculous loophole like leasing will be allowed of all vowels on Mondays, and all consonants on Tuesdays.
  - hedora 3y ago
    Well, here's Verizon's privacy policy: https://www.verizon.com/about/privacy/full-privacy-policy https://www.verizon.com/about/privacy/full-privacy-policy They definitely sell things like your real-time location (you can opt out by turning your phone off, or if they're legally obligated to let you), who you contact, what websites you visit, what DNS entries your phone looks up, your subscriber information (assuming they can link it to an advertising ID that other apps are using), and what TV shows you watch, joined with all the stuff you use your broadband and phone for. As for communications content, it's fuzzy. My reading of it says that they can aggregate that all together in a way that is only personally identifiable to their internal marketing team and their partners (i.e., anyone that pays them and also signs a contract), so I guess it's not "for sale"? So, for instance, they could take all the RCS messages in the US, cluster them, and sell the cluster to, say, meta. Then, meta could use it for ad targeting of third party ads, but they wouldn't be able to resell the raw data unless they first de-anonymized it. I could be wrong though. The privacy policy is very long and incredibly vague. Maybe they don't share the contents of your private communications with their "trusted partners" or internal advertising division yet. The only way this sort of crap will get better is if the US passes a right to privacy constitutional amendment. (Of course, congress is more likely to pass laws that somehow make it worse.)
  - acdha 3y ago
    They don’t need to sell the content: imagine if they ran a classifier on everything and added it to the information they send to advertisers? They’d be able to say they sold the actual messages, just the profile they’d built of your interests.
throw0101a 3y ago
> I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. That would go a long way in making a huge improvement over SMS/MMS. Can telcos actually offer E2EE given the various lawful intercept statutes that they are usually subject to?
- Andrex 3y ago
  I mean, they're doing it right now. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-messages-now-uses-end-to-end-encryption-by-default/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-messa...
  - matthewdgreen 3y ago
    The telcos don’t actually provide E2EE. That layer is offered by Google itself, and RCS carries encrypted data, last I checked. Not sure if Apple is going to interoperate with it.
    - tg180 3y ago
      > That layer is offered by Google itself > Not sure if Apple is going to interoperate with it. Only if both users in a 1:1 chat are using Google Messages. E2EE is not possible even with Samsung Messages, so I highly doubt it.
      - olliej 3y ago
        Wait so google doesn’t support e2ee for more than two devices in a chat?
        tg180 3y ago
        The last time I checked was in 2021 when they launched the feature, and it was only for 1:1 chats. Google might have extended e2ee to group chats (I would hope so). Pretty sure everyone would still have to use Google Messages.
zitterbewegung 3y ago
Can’t they support RCS but still have iPhone users blue ?
- kccqzy 3y ago
  Yup. That's exactly what I predict Apple will do. RCS messaging will still have green bubbles. And it will continue to have the same psychological effect as SMS green bubbles do today. I think that's also why GP said there won't be a decline in iMessage usage.
  - danielbln 3y ago
    So weird reading this from the transatlantic sidelines, where noone cares one little bit what device a message was sent from.
    - Spooky23 3y ago
      Nobody does, it’s a bitchy trope. Green bubbles matter in group chats. You can’t easily change participants and stuff like reactions generate junk messages.
      - ghodith 3y ago
        Very much not a trope. I personally know multiple people who refuse to text green bubbles, to the point of refusing dates from people who have Android.
        spike021 3y ago
        That sounds like a people problem, not a tech problem.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        It sort of becomes a people problem as people use messaging to communicate and organize events and exclude you because you'll break group chats. Probably not a big issue if you already have a solid social circle of old tight friends who don't care about you breaking chats as they can also call you, but it can be huge issue when you move to a new city and trying to make new friend, as any extra friction you add to groups lessens your chances of being accepted and invited further. Yeah, people can be quite lazy and petty even about such trivial things, when they don't know you and don't have any attachment to you yet, and you breaking group chats won't improve your first impressions and chances of being accepted. Hence the ever increasing loneliness crisis we're facing. Thank fuck I live in Europe where nobody uses iMessage for group chats. Honestly fuck Apple for creating that unnecessary friction, it's not like they couldn't have accommodated blue bubbles to not break group chats but it's more profitable to emotionally extort people to buy your iJunk by making them feel outsiders.
hocuspocus 3y ago
> I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. This is pretty moot now. Google has effectively turned RCS into a proprietary protocol, they fully control the only relevant server implementation, carriers that want to interconnect have no choice but to deploy Jibe or use Jibe as a service.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  This could possibly open an avenue for another party to show up around this. Google de facto having reign on this is because they're the only company in this space that cared enough about it to get it moving. Apple supporting RCS could create enough interest that it breaks their de facto control of the standard
  - hocuspocus 3y ago
    Yes maybe. While I understand Google's frustration, the number of carriers that implemented Universal Profile independently was not zero though, and in the end it was for nothing. I know from a friend that Facebook was looking into integrating RCS to Messenger (not Whatsapp somehow) and willing to be part of the Google federated RCS network, that also fell through, but I don't why.
    - rezonant 3y ago
      What would that look like? Do you mean having Messenger be the default SMS app for your phone, and having it able to receive RCS? If so, these restrictions in Android would stop it: https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/ims-single-registration#security https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/ims-single-regi... I've been trying to gain some insight on why Google is not making it easy (possible?) to implement a third-party RCS app for Android and was reading about these APIs (clearly intended for OEMs). > This means that third party apps aren't allowed to access RCS single registration APIs as they require carrier certification on the device. Could just be Google passing the buck here, but this does sound like something the carriers would do, if given the chance.
- 3y ago
bsimpson 3y ago
Reactions aren't in RCS? I thought that was one of the main motivators for it.
- tomashubelbauer 3y ago
  I thought the primary motivation for RCS was E2EE and secondary motivations were niceties like read receipts, reactions and HQ media. So far this thread has been very illuminating and shocking to me. Especially E2EE being an extension to a standard not a core part of it in 2023.
qingcharles 3y ago
Hopefully vendors start putting better fallback into their messaging clients when RCS isn't available. It's been terrible for all the poor people I know who rarely have working data on their phones, but RCS enabled by default. They can't figure out why they're not sending or receiving any messages and I have to keep disabling it for them.
- tredre3 3y ago
  If you turn off RCS, Google Messages shows you a full screen prompt once a week to turn it back on. Indefinitely. And of course the prompt has a large blue button to enable, and a very small text underneath to dismiss, making it easy to accidentally enable it. It happened to me a few times already. It also tells you nothing about the downsides (that you need a data connection, mainly) that would make RCS unusable to certain people... So they trick users into subscribing then users begin experiencing difficulties receiving or sending texts and they don't understand why. Thank you, Google.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > If you turn off RCS, Google Messages shows you a full screen prompt once a week to turn it back on. Indefinitely. It doesn't do this on my phones.
    - doctor_radium 3y ago
      Indeed. Currently using an Android 13 Motorola until my Sony is fixed. It's not labeled RCS, but one of the first things I did was disable Messages Settings -> Chat Features -> Enable chat features - Use WiFi or data for messaging when available ...which disabled a bunch of other things. While I don't recall what appeared originally, the Send button for messages is labeled either SMS or MMS, so I suppose that did the trick. No nagging. I did just find and disable the RCS Config Service, too, and testing that everything still works.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    The problem with developers is that we are often isolated from whole sections of the world. The people on the Android team, probably working in SF, have perhaps never been into the hood. Out here there are guys on every street corner stood next to the drug dealers (often it's the same guy) trying to get you to take a free smartphone or a tablet. They get paid some sort of kickback if they can get you to take it -- it comes from this free federal plan: https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-consumers https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-cons... The problem is that the phones generally only come with 15GB of data a month, and an average web page can easily run to 200MB now, so usually by the third day of the month they are all out of data. There is a better federal plan for poor people called ACP which allows you to get your own phone and plan, but it isn't as well-known.

hedora 3y ago

The only reason they'd move to E2EE would be if Apple forced them. Looking at / selling message contents is a large potential revenue source for all the other major players.

no_wizard 3y ago
Lets hope they will. Apple is a bit of a forcing function in the cellular industry, especially in the US.
greentea23 3y ago
I am fairly certain that it's illegal to sell the content of SMS messages in the United States at least. The metadata like who is messaging who and timestamps and best guess locations maybe is sold though. But the contents can be obtained by law enforcement. However, I think the contents are purged after some expiration time.
- xattt 3y ago
  > … fairly certain that it's illegal to sell the content of SMS messages in the United States at least There will be some ridiculous loophole like leasing will be allowed of all vowels on Mondays, and all consonants on Tuesdays.
- hedora 3y ago
  Well, here's Verizon's privacy policy: https://www.verizon.com/about/privacy/full-privacy-policy https://www.verizon.com/about/privacy/full-privacy-policy They definitely sell things like your real-time location (you can opt out by turning your phone off, or if they're legally obligated to let you), who you contact, what websites you visit, what DNS entries your phone looks up, your subscriber information (assuming they can link it to an advertising ID that other apps are using), and what TV shows you watch, joined with all the stuff you use your broadband and phone for. As for communications content, it's fuzzy. My reading of it says that they can aggregate that all together in a way that is only personally identifiable to their internal marketing team and their partners (i.e., anyone that pays them and also signs a contract), so I guess it's not "for sale"? So, for instance, they could take all the RCS messages in the US, cluster them, and sell the cluster to, say, meta. Then, meta could use it for ad targeting of third party ads, but they wouldn't be able to resell the raw data unless they first de-anonymized it. I could be wrong though. The privacy policy is very long and incredibly vague. Maybe they don't share the contents of your private communications with their "trusted partners" or internal advertising division yet. The only way this sort of crap will get better is if the US passes a right to privacy constitutional amendment. (Of course, congress is more likely to pass laws that somehow make it worse.)
- acdha 3y ago
  They don’t need to sell the content: imagine if they ran a classifier on everything and added it to the information they send to advertisers? They’d be able to say they sold the actual messages, just the profile they’d built of your interests.

throw0101a 3y ago

> I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. That would go a long way in making a huge improvement over SMS/MMS. Can telcos actually offer E2EE given the various lawful intercept statutes that they are usually subject to?

Andrex 3y ago
I mean, they're doing it right now. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-messages-now-uses-end-to-end-encryption-by-default/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/google-messa...
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  The telcos don’t actually provide E2EE. That layer is offered by Google itself, and RCS carries encrypted data, last I checked. Not sure if Apple is going to interoperate with it.
  - tg180 3y ago
    > That layer is offered by Google itself > Not sure if Apple is going to interoperate with it. Only if both users in a 1:1 chat are using Google Messages. E2EE is not possible even with Samsung Messages, so I highly doubt it.
    - olliej 3y ago
      Wait so google doesn’t support e2ee for more than two devices in a chat?
      - tg180 3y ago
        The last time I checked was in 2021 when they launched the feature, and it was only for 1:1 chats. Google might have extended e2ee to group chats (I would hope so). Pretty sure everyone would still have to use Google Messages.

zitterbewegung 3y ago

Can’t they support RCS but still have iPhone users blue ?

kccqzy 3y ago
Yup. That's exactly what I predict Apple will do. RCS messaging will still have green bubbles. And it will continue to have the same psychological effect as SMS green bubbles do today. I think that's also why GP said there won't be a decline in iMessage usage.
- danielbln 3y ago
  So weird reading this from the transatlantic sidelines, where noone cares one little bit what device a message was sent from.
  - Spooky23 3y ago
    Nobody does, it’s a bitchy trope. Green bubbles matter in group chats. You can’t easily change participants and stuff like reactions generate junk messages.
    - ghodith 3y ago
      Very much not a trope. I personally know multiple people who refuse to text green bubbles, to the point of refusing dates from people who have Android.
      - spike021 3y ago
        That sounds like a people problem, not a tech problem.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        It sort of becomes a people problem as people use messaging to communicate and organize events and exclude you because you'll break group chats. Probably not a big issue if you already have a solid social circle of old tight friends who don't care about you breaking chats as they can also call you, but it can be huge issue when you move to a new city and trying to make new friend, as any extra friction you add to groups lessens your chances of being accepted and invited further. Yeah, people can be quite lazy and petty even about such trivial things, when they don't know you and don't have any attachment to you yet, and you breaking group chats won't improve your first impressions and chances of being accepted. Hence the ever increasing loneliness crisis we're facing. Thank fuck I live in Europe where nobody uses iMessage for group chats. Honestly fuck Apple for creating that unnecessary friction, it's not like they couldn't have accommodated blue bubbles to not break group chats but it's more profitable to emotionally extort people to buy your iJunk by making them feel outsiders.

hocuspocus 3y ago

> I hope the GSM association moves fast to make robust E2EE a standard required for proper implementation for carriers. This is pretty moot now. Google has effectively turned RCS into a proprietary protocol, they fully control the only relevant server implementation, carriers that want to interconnect have no choice but to deploy Jibe or use Jibe as a service.

no_wizard 3y ago
This could possibly open an avenue for another party to show up around this. Google de facto having reign on this is because they're the only company in this space that cared enough about it to get it moving. Apple supporting RCS could create enough interest that it breaks their de facto control of the standard
- hocuspocus 3y ago
  Yes maybe. While I understand Google's frustration, the number of carriers that implemented Universal Profile independently was not zero though, and in the end it was for nothing. I know from a friend that Facebook was looking into integrating RCS to Messenger (not Whatsapp somehow) and willing to be part of the Google federated RCS network, that also fell through, but I don't why.
  - rezonant 3y ago
    What would that look like? Do you mean having Messenger be the default SMS app for your phone, and having it able to receive RCS? If so, these restrictions in Android would stop it: https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/ims-single-registration#security https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/ims-single-regi... I've been trying to gain some insight on why Google is not making it easy (possible?) to implement a third-party RCS app for Android and was reading about these APIs (clearly intended for OEMs). > This means that third party apps aren't allowed to access RCS single registration APIs as they require carrier certification on the device. Could just be Google passing the buck here, but this does sound like something the carriers would do, if given the chance.
3y ago

bsimpson 3y ago

Reactions aren't in RCS? I thought that was one of the main motivators for it.

tomashubelbauer 3y ago
I thought the primary motivation for RCS was E2EE and secondary motivations were niceties like read receipts, reactions and HQ media. So far this thread has been very illuminating and shocking to me. Especially E2EE being an extension to a standard not a core part of it in 2023.

qingcharles 3y ago

Hopefully vendors start putting better fallback into their messaging clients when RCS isn't available. It's been terrible for all the poor people I know who rarely have working data on their phones, but RCS enabled by default. They can't figure out why they're not sending or receiving any messages and I have to keep disabling it for them.

tredre3 3y ago
If you turn off RCS, Google Messages shows you a full screen prompt once a week to turn it back on. Indefinitely. And of course the prompt has a large blue button to enable, and a very small text underneath to dismiss, making it easy to accidentally enable it. It happened to me a few times already. It also tells you nothing about the downsides (that you need a data connection, mainly) that would make RCS unusable to certain people... So they trick users into subscribing then users begin experiencing difficulties receiving or sending texts and they don't understand why. Thank you, Google.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > If you turn off RCS, Google Messages shows you a full screen prompt once a week to turn it back on. Indefinitely. It doesn't do this on my phones.
  - doctor_radium 3y ago
    Indeed. Currently using an Android 13 Motorola until my Sony is fixed. It's not labeled RCS, but one of the first things I did was disable Messages Settings -> Chat Features -> Enable chat features - Use WiFi or data for messaging when available ...which disabled a bunch of other things. While I don't recall what appeared originally, the Send button for messages is labeled either SMS or MMS, so I suppose that did the trick. No nagging. I did just find and disable the RCS Config Service, too, and testing that everything still works.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  The problem with developers is that we are often isolated from whole sections of the world. The people on the Android team, probably working in SF, have perhaps never been into the hood. Out here there are guys on every street corner stood next to the drug dealers (often it's the same guy) trying to get you to take a free smartphone or a tablet. They get paid some sort of kickback if they can get you to take it -- it comes from this free federal plan: https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-consumers https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-cons... The problem is that the phones generally only come with 15GB of data a month, and an average web page can easily run to 200MB now, so usually by the third day of the month they are all out of data. There is a better federal plan for poor people called ACP which allows you to get your own phone and plan, but it isn't as well-known.