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Excellent. The next step is for Google to release a free and open source way for Android developers to build apps that send RCS messages. Currently, the only me

Excellent. The next step is for Google to release a free and open source way for Android developers to build apps that send RCS messages. Currently, the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google, which is closed source and requires Google Play Services to activate RCS features. Also, end-to-end encryption is not part of the RCS specification, but is a proprietary extension to RCS that Google has made exclusive to Messages by Google.[1] This feature should be made open and added to the actual RCS specification so that Apple and other vendors can make use of it. (Notes: There is a proprietary RCS API which Google only allows Samsung apps to use to communicate with Messages by Google.[2] Verizon has an app called Verizon Messages or Message+ that uses RCS to some extent, but this is an incomplete implementation that only works on Samsung devices on the Verizon network with no cross-carrier compatibility.[3]) [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-enables-end-to-end-encryption-for-androids-default-sms-rcs-app/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-enables-end-t... [2] https://www.xda-developers.com/google-messages-rcs-api-third-party-apps/ https://www.xda-developers.com/google-messages-rcs-api-third... [3] https://www.verizon.com/support/knowledge-base-222792/ https://www.verizon.com/support/knowledge-base-222792/

jabart 3y ago
Don't use the Verizon Messages app. The privacy policy was terrible three years ago.
hbn 3y ago
This is why I don't buy Google's bad faith shaming of Apple for not adopting RCS. The current version of it that people are using on Android isn't even a "standard" by any normal usage of the term, it's just another Google messaging service. No one can make their own app, and there's barely any carrier adoption, so Google is basically running the whole network. Does this mean that now if you send a message to someone from an iPhone that doesn't go through iMessage, it will instead go through Google's servers? Sure the service will hopefully be better than SMS but at the cost of giving Google the keys to pretending they're a "standard."
- lxgr 3y ago
  > This is why I don't buy Google's bad faith shaming of Apple for not adopting RCS. Google is literally operating an RCS SaaS company for marketers and telcos, so I'd take any of their statements in support for RCS with a grain of salt: https://jibe.google.com/ https://jibe.google.com/
  - hbn 3y ago
    Yup. The shaming campaigns are just a way to play the moral high ground in their effort to replace an actual messaging standard with their own proprietary service. SMS is certainly long overdue to be replaced, but I don't want it replaced with a Google service. Hopefully the iPhone adoption will be some incentive for carriers to implement RCS properly.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      I'm afraid that the only incentive for carriers to invest anything into RCS would be being able to charge for it or use it as a way to lock in their customers. As antiquated as SMS is, at least all carriers support it, and people largely don't need to worry about their existing conversation threads being interrupted when they switch carriers. I believe that that's not true for RCS at least for group conversations.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      I don't really care if the shaming was done in good or bad faith. At the end of the day, I'm an Android user in a sea of iPhone users, and I'm tired of the fact that our default communication mode has to be SMS or MMS. If this fixes that problem, I don't quite care how we got here.
      - izacus 3y ago
        It's kind of bizarre that people here would rather have shitty experience talking to their friends just to defend the honor megacorporations. Apple and Google ARE NOT PEOPLE. They do NOT HAVE FEELINGS you need to defend. Jesus. Being able to send a rich message from iPhone to Android and back (including location, pictures, videos) is really not something that will cause you pain and Apple won't lash out and punish you for it.
JohnFen 3y ago
> the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google Plus, unless they fixed it, if you enable RCS and then regret it and disable it again, anybody who texted with you via RCS will no longer be able to text you at all. Things won't revert to SMS. This bit me pretty hard, but I finally fixed it by changing my phone number.
- xethos 3y ago
  I'm sure the next person that gets your number's gonna just laugh and laugh when they figure out why someone can't text them but everyone else can. Frankly, I expect Google to fix their mistake before the telecom support people figure it out. It'll be a nightmarish headache for all involved.
- cesarb 3y ago
  > Plus, unless they fixed it, if you enable RCS and then regret it and disable it again, anybody who texted with you via RCS will no longer be able to text you at all. On a relative's phone, the messages app simply enabled RCS automatically without asking (and displayed a screen proudly saying it did so). Does that means that this phone will never receive SMS again from RCS users, even though we have carefully always answered "no" when it asked whether it should enable RCS (and quickly disabled it again once it enabled automatically)?
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    For me, it only affected phone numbers that I had exchanged texts with that also had RCS enabled. Phones that didn't have it enabled, or numbers I had not exchanged texts with, were unaffected. This was quite a while ago. They may very well have fixed the issue since then. And yes, I noticed they enable RCS by default. Since then, the first thing I have done with new phones is to disable RCS. If you do that before sending/receiving any texts, then there is no issue.
- commoner 3y ago
  You can deregister your phone number from Messages by Google here: https://messages.google.com/disable-chat https://messages.google.com/disable-chat This is similar to Apple's iMessage deregistration page.[1] Google has been funneling RCS messages through its own servers to bypass wireless carriers, which were slow or unwilling to directly support RCS.[2] Unfortunately, this has centralized RCS communications through Google and allowed Google to make end-to-end encryption available to RCS users as a proprietary extension that Google never contributed back to the RCS Universal Profile specification.[3] For RCS on Android to be decentralized again, your wireless carrier would need to support RCS on the network level and Android would also need to implement RCS in a way that does not require interaction with Google servers. This would make deregistration unnecessary. [1] https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ [2] https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/302020-google-will-bypass-carriers-deploy-own-rcs-chat-system https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/302020-google-will-bypass... [3] https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/11/16/apples-flavor-of-rcs-wont-support-googles-end-to-end-encryption-extension https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/11/16/apples-flavor-of-...
ender7 3y ago
I have no insider knowledge here, but Google tried to go the high route of working with carriers for years before giving up on their intransigence. I suspect that Google's RCS is proprietary as a blunt instrument to prevent carriers from trying to either (a) undermine e2ee in some weasely way or (b) have the ability to pick and choose the pieces of the implementation they want to support. You either get the whole thing, with e2ee that you don't control, or nothing. Sadly the lesson from Google, Apple, and Whatsapp here appears to be "cooperating with telecom carriers is a fool's errand".
- hedora 3y ago
  A corollary to that lesson is to not support RCS. I'd have much rather iMessage only open up interoperability with E2EE platforms like signal or even Whatsapp (because Facebook is somehow the lesser evil in this corner of the privacy world).
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    In theory, E2EE is good until someone you are messaging turns on iCloud backup of messages you sent and now law enforcement can force Apple to give them your iCloud backup - with iMessage
    - idle_zealot 3y ago
      Also solvable: encrypt messages (and everything else) in iCloud backups (by default and not as a hidden special mode with scary warnings).
      - dwaite 3y ago
        They are encrypted, but (by default) the key is escrowed for recovery by Apple support, which LE can request just as well as the account owner (or other parties with judge decree, such as surviving relatives)
        3y ago
madeofpalk 3y ago
So. What exactly is the "RCS" that Apple is supposedly going to support? RSC for Android? RCS for Pixel? RCS for Samsung? RCS for Verion? What's the point of a standard that has 5 different ways it's fragmented on the same base platform?
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  RCS for iOS. 6 different ways it’s fragmented. :p Or maybe Apple will just implement it exactly as the spec says with no frills.
  - neilalexander 3y ago
    That is exactly what Apple will do: implement it by the spec. Then they can turn around to regulators and say they have done what they needed to do to be interoperable and, if compatibility problems arise, can point the finger right back at their competitors.
    - surajrmal 3y ago
      Why so cynical? Does Apple have previous experience doing such a thing? Typically everything they do they try to do well, and therefore I would expect them to make sure interoperability is good. The problem with Apple is that they only do what they want.
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  From the article: "Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association."
  - kelnos 3y ago
    So in other words, RCS without E2EE.
- kcb 3y ago
  The point is that they interoperate.
616c 3y ago
I wish RCS could somehow be merged with IETF MLS specs but I know that is apples and oranges and not so possible. The RCS proprietary encryption bit is very sad. Oh well.
- FactolSarin 3y ago
  Google's RCS encryption scheme isn't really proprietary, it's the Signal e2ee scheme. Granted, it's bolted into RCS and not part of the standard, but it's not 100% closed either. It's like a standard added to another standard in a nonstandard way.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    The key management is proprietary, for some reason. Can't build an interoperable impl without that.
- jvolkman 3y ago
  Google already announced that Messages will support MLS. One can only hope that Apple does as well with whatever this announcement brings, and that MLS becomes the defacto E2EE standard for RCS.
flashback2199 3y ago
> the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google Why would you want to use another messaging app? Your data is more safe with some randos than Google?
- stonogo 3y ago
  Yes, generally. Especially if those randos are, for instance, me. RCS needs server coordination, and I don't want to use it if I can't bring that on-prem.
- wtallis 3y ago
  Ironically but unsurprisingly, Google Voice doesn't even support RCS.
  - joecool1029 3y ago
    Been a user since 2009ish, Google Voice also still exists because Google doesn't really fully run it (Bandwidth.com does). I really do think it was living on life support for years and around 2014[1] or so it really seemed like any day it would get shut down or merged into one of their halfassed messaging apps but they couldn't do it since the underlying infra was outside their own. It seemed like at some point around 2018 a manager woke up and decided they'd have the interface rewritten 80% and the legacy interface stuck around like the old Windows 'add font' menu until earlier this year. [1] https://9to5google.com/2014/03/18/google-plans-kill-google-voice-in-months-integrate-features-into-hangouts/ https://9to5google.com/2014/03/18/google-plans-kill-google-v...
alberth 3y ago
Spam The reason why 3rd party native SMS/RCS don’t exist is mobile platform wanting to prevent spam. Imagine a rogue 3rd party SMS app blasting all your friends unauthorized texts, from your device.
- commoner 3y ago
  Third-party SMS and MMS messaging apps already exist on Android, such as the free and open source QKSMS[1] and Simple SMS Messenger.[2] Signal also used to support SMS and MMS on Android until last year.[3] There isn't a shred of evidence that these non-default SMS/MMS apps increase spam to any measurable extent compared to SMS/MMS apps that are preinstalled on Android phones. [1] QKSMS: https://github.com/moezbhatti/qksms https://github.com/moezbhatti/qksms [2] Simple SMS Messenger: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-SMS-Messenger https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-SMS-Messenger [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33179047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33179047
hankchinaski 3y ago
I personally trust more Google and apple than a spider web of random developers and potential malwares that might cause just security issues in the long run and reduce the overall security of the platform and ecosystem
- commoner 3y ago
  Nothing is stopping you from using Messages by Google or Apple's Messages app if you prefer. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt over unnamed "security issues" is not a good reason to prevent other developers from creating clients for RCS, which is intended to be an open protocol to replace SMS and MMS, and not a closed "ecosystem" consisting of 2 apps from 2 of the largest tech companies.
nicce 3y ago
>Also, end-to-end encryption is not part of the RCS specification, but is a proprietary extension to RCS that Google has made exclusive to Messages by Google.[1] This feature should be made open and added to the actual RCS specification so that Apple and other vendors can make use of it. I thought it is based on Signal protocol? Maybe some commercial wrapper around it.
- acdha 3y ago
  It’s based on Signal but the key management is completely proprietary. If you read their white paper it directly says that both parties have to be using Google Messages to use E2EE RCS.
OJFord 3y ago
> Currently, the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google, which is closed source and requires Google Play Services to activate RCS features. And which prompts you every bloody time you open it to enable RCS, ignoring the last thousand times you clicked the tiny 'skip for now' font.
- netmare 3y ago
  I also skipped that, but we won't have to worry about it anymore. They started enabling it by default. Recently got a toast notification that I barely got to read. Soon they'll probably make it mandatory. :o)
factormeta 3y ago
IMHO RCS should have not being adopted unless it has encryption built in, or else it is just Google's iMessenger. At this point, anything messaging platform or financial transaction platform that doesn't implement post-quantum encryption + classic computer encryption ECC (such as superdilithium) should NOT be consider as a standard for messaging for the public. All that ought to be part of the messaging protocol, so we don't end up with GSM 64 bit encryption mess.

jabart 3y ago

Don't use the Verizon Messages app. The privacy policy was terrible three years ago.

hbn 3y ago

This is why I don't buy Google's bad faith shaming of Apple for not adopting RCS. The current version of it that people are using on Android isn't even a "standard" by any normal usage of the term, it's just another Google messaging service. No one can make their own app, and there's barely any carrier adoption, so Google is basically running the whole network. Does this mean that now if you send a message to someone from an iPhone that doesn't go through iMessage, it will instead go through Google's servers? Sure the service will hopefully be better than SMS but at the cost of giving Google the keys to pretending they're a "standard."

lxgr 3y ago
> This is why I don't buy Google's bad faith shaming of Apple for not adopting RCS. Google is literally operating an RCS SaaS company for marketers and telcos, so I'd take any of their statements in support for RCS with a grain of salt: https://jibe.google.com/ https://jibe.google.com/
- hbn 3y ago
  Yup. The shaming campaigns are just a way to play the moral high ground in their effort to replace an actual messaging standard with their own proprietary service. SMS is certainly long overdue to be replaced, but I don't want it replaced with a Google service. Hopefully the iPhone adoption will be some incentive for carriers to implement RCS properly.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    I'm afraid that the only incentive for carriers to invest anything into RCS would be being able to charge for it or use it as a way to lock in their customers. As antiquated as SMS is, at least all carriers support it, and people largely don't need to worry about their existing conversation threads being interrupted when they switch carriers. I believe that that's not true for RCS at least for group conversations.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    I don't really care if the shaming was done in good or bad faith. At the end of the day, I'm an Android user in a sea of iPhone users, and I'm tired of the fact that our default communication mode has to be SMS or MMS. If this fixes that problem, I don't quite care how we got here.
    - izacus 3y ago
      It's kind of bizarre that people here would rather have shitty experience talking to their friends just to defend the honor megacorporations. Apple and Google ARE NOT PEOPLE. They do NOT HAVE FEELINGS you need to defend. Jesus. Being able to send a rich message from iPhone to Android and back (including location, pictures, videos) is really not something that will cause you pain and Apple won't lash out and punish you for it.

JohnFen 3y ago

> the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google Plus, unless they fixed it, if you enable RCS and then regret it and disable it again, anybody who texted with you via RCS will no longer be able to text you at all. Things won't revert to SMS. This bit me pretty hard, but I finally fixed it by changing my phone number.

xethos 3y ago
I'm sure the next person that gets your number's gonna just laugh and laugh when they figure out why someone can't text them but everyone else can. Frankly, I expect Google to fix their mistake before the telecom support people figure it out. It'll be a nightmarish headache for all involved.
cesarb 3y ago
> Plus, unless they fixed it, if you enable RCS and then regret it and disable it again, anybody who texted with you via RCS will no longer be able to text you at all. On a relative's phone, the messages app simply enabled RCS automatically without asking (and displayed a screen proudly saying it did so). Does that means that this phone will never receive SMS again from RCS users, even though we have carefully always answered "no" when it asked whether it should enable RCS (and quickly disabled it again once it enabled automatically)?
- JohnFen 3y ago
  For me, it only affected phone numbers that I had exchanged texts with that also had RCS enabled. Phones that didn't have it enabled, or numbers I had not exchanged texts with, were unaffected. This was quite a while ago. They may very well have fixed the issue since then. And yes, I noticed they enable RCS by default. Since then, the first thing I have done with new phones is to disable RCS. If you do that before sending/receiving any texts, then there is no issue.
commoner 3y ago
You can deregister your phone number from Messages by Google here: https://messages.google.com/disable-chat https://messages.google.com/disable-chat This is similar to Apple's iMessage deregistration page.[1] Google has been funneling RCS messages through its own servers to bypass wireless carriers, which were slow or unwilling to directly support RCS.[2] Unfortunately, this has centralized RCS communications through Google and allowed Google to make end-to-end encryption available to RCS users as a proprietary extension that Google never contributed back to the RCS Universal Profile specification.[3] For RCS on Android to be decentralized again, your wireless carrier would need to support RCS on the network level and Android would also need to implement RCS in a way that does not require interaction with Google servers. This would make deregistration unnecessary. [1] https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ [2] https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/302020-google-will-bypass-carriers-deploy-own-rcs-chat-system https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/302020-google-will-bypass... [3] https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/11/16/apples-flavor-of-rcs-wont-support-googles-end-to-end-encryption-extension https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/11/16/apples-flavor-of-...

ender7 3y ago

I have no insider knowledge here, but Google tried to go the high route of working with carriers for years before giving up on their intransigence. I suspect that Google's RCS is proprietary as a blunt instrument to prevent carriers from trying to either (a) undermine e2ee in some weasely way or (b) have the ability to pick and choose the pieces of the implementation they want to support. You either get the whole thing, with e2ee that you don't control, or nothing. Sadly the lesson from Google, Apple, and Whatsapp here appears to be "cooperating with telecom carriers is a fool's errand".

hedora 3y ago
A corollary to that lesson is to not support RCS. I'd have much rather iMessage only open up interoperability with E2EE platforms like signal or even Whatsapp (because Facebook is somehow the lesser evil in this corner of the privacy world).
- scarface_74 3y ago
  In theory, E2EE is good until someone you are messaging turns on iCloud backup of messages you sent and now law enforcement can force Apple to give them your iCloud backup - with iMessage
  - idle_zealot 3y ago
    Also solvable: encrypt messages (and everything else) in iCloud backups (by default and not as a hidden special mode with scary warnings).
    - dwaite 3y ago
      They are encrypted, but (by default) the key is escrowed for recovery by Apple support, which LE can request just as well as the account owner (or other parties with judge decree, such as surviving relatives)
      - 3y ago

madeofpalk 3y ago

So. What exactly is the "RCS" that Apple is supposedly going to support? RSC for Android? RCS for Pixel? RCS for Samsung? RCS for Verion? What's the point of a standard that has 5 different ways it's fragmented on the same base platform?

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
RCS for iOS. 6 different ways it’s fragmented. :p Or maybe Apple will just implement it exactly as the spec says with no frills.
- neilalexander 3y ago
  That is exactly what Apple will do: implement it by the spec. Then they can turn around to regulators and say they have done what they needed to do to be interoperable and, if compatibility problems arise, can point the finger right back at their competitors.
  - surajrmal 3y ago
    Why so cynical? Does Apple have previous experience doing such a thing? Typically everything they do they try to do well, and therefore I would expect them to make sure interoperability is good. The problem with Apple is that they only do what they want.
lern_too_spel 3y ago
From the article: "Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association."
- kelnos 3y ago
  So in other words, RCS without E2EE.
kcb 3y ago
The point is that they interoperate.

616c 3y ago

I wish RCS could somehow be merged with IETF MLS specs but I know that is apples and oranges and not so possible. The RCS proprietary encryption bit is very sad. Oh well.

FactolSarin 3y ago
Google's RCS encryption scheme isn't really proprietary, it's the Signal e2ee scheme. Granted, it's bolted into RCS and not part of the standard, but it's not 100% closed either. It's like a standard added to another standard in a nonstandard way.
- kelnos 3y ago
  The key management is proprietary, for some reason. Can't build an interoperable impl without that.
jvolkman 3y ago
Google already announced that Messages will support MLS. One can only hope that Apple does as well with whatever this announcement brings, and that MLS becomes the defacto E2EE standard for RCS.

flashback2199 3y ago

> the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google Why would you want to use another messaging app? Your data is more safe with some randos than Google?

stonogo 3y ago
Yes, generally. Especially if those randos are, for instance, me. RCS needs server coordination, and I don't want to use it if I can't bring that on-prem.
wtallis 3y ago
Ironically but unsurprisingly, Google Voice doesn't even support RCS.
- joecool1029 3y ago
  Been a user since 2009ish, Google Voice also still exists because Google doesn't really fully run it (Bandwidth.com does). I really do think it was living on life support for years and around 2014[1] or so it really seemed like any day it would get shut down or merged into one of their halfassed messaging apps but they couldn't do it since the underlying infra was outside their own. It seemed like at some point around 2018 a manager woke up and decided they'd have the interface rewritten 80% and the legacy interface stuck around like the old Windows 'add font' menu until earlier this year. [1] https://9to5google.com/2014/03/18/google-plans-kill-google-voice-in-months-integrate-features-into-hangouts/ https://9to5google.com/2014/03/18/google-plans-kill-google-v...

alberth 3y ago

Spam The reason why 3rd party native SMS/RCS don’t exist is mobile platform wanting to prevent spam. Imagine a rogue 3rd party SMS app blasting all your friends unauthorized texts, from your device.

commoner 3y ago
Third-party SMS and MMS messaging apps already exist on Android, such as the free and open source QKSMS[1] and Simple SMS Messenger.[2] Signal also used to support SMS and MMS on Android until last year.[3] There isn't a shred of evidence that these non-default SMS/MMS apps increase spam to any measurable extent compared to SMS/MMS apps that are preinstalled on Android phones. [1] QKSMS: https://github.com/moezbhatti/qksms https://github.com/moezbhatti/qksms [2] Simple SMS Messenger: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-SMS-Messenger https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-SMS-Messenger [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33179047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33179047

hankchinaski 3y ago

I personally trust more Google and apple than a spider web of random developers and potential malwares that might cause just security issues in the long run and reduce the overall security of the platform and ecosystem

commoner 3y ago
Nothing is stopping you from using Messages by Google or Apple's Messages app if you prefer. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt over unnamed "security issues" is not a good reason to prevent other developers from creating clients for RCS, which is intended to be an open protocol to replace SMS and MMS, and not a closed "ecosystem" consisting of 2 apps from 2 of the largest tech companies.

nicce 3y ago

>Also, end-to-end encryption is not part of the RCS specification, but is a proprietary extension to RCS that Google has made exclusive to Messages by Google.[1] This feature should be made open and added to the actual RCS specification so that Apple and other vendors can make use of it. I thought it is based on Signal protocol? Maybe some commercial wrapper around it.

acdha 3y ago
It’s based on Signal but the key management is completely proprietary. If you read their white paper it directly says that both parties have to be using Google Messages to use E2EE RCS.

OJFord 3y ago

> Currently, the only messaging app on Android that fully supports RCS is Messages by Google, which is closed source and requires Google Play Services to activate RCS features. And which prompts you every bloody time you open it to enable RCS, ignoring the last thousand times you clicked the tiny 'skip for now' font.

netmare 3y ago
I also skipped that, but we won't have to worry about it anymore. They started enabling it by default. Recently got a toast notification that I barely got to read. Soon they'll probably make it mandatory. :o)

factormeta 3y ago

IMHO RCS should have not being adopted unless it has encryption built in, or else it is just Google's iMessenger. At this point, anything messaging platform or financial transaction platform that doesn't implement post-quantum encryption + classic computer encryption ECC (such as superdilithium) should NOT be consider as a standard for messaging for the public. All that ought to be part of the messaging protocol, so we don't end up with GSM 64 bit encryption mess.