5 ms·

Yeah... I just started getting back into building sms/mms/rcs apps on Android and oh boy. It's much more of a mess than I expected, and much more "oh so it's b

by Groxx 11mo ago

Yeah... I just started getting back into building sms/mms/rcs apps on Android and oh boy. It's much more of a mess than I expected, and much more "oh so it's basically just Google now, and they seem to be trying to lock it down further" than I expected (or hoped). And you can't even implement it yourself because it requires special permissions on Android, which you can only get if you're a carrier/oem-blessed app. And the early "you'll be able to build other apps, there will be an API like this: https://github.com/android-rcs/rcsjta https://github.com/android-rcs/rcsjta" promises (which would put it on par with sms/mms) never materialized, despite a reference implementation that did exactly that over a decade ago. At this point I'm just totally against RCS and I'm intentionally turning it off. Why hand all of your messaging communications over to Google, when they've got such a consistent history of being hostile? We're much better off going back to telling people not to use sms (or mms or rcs) at all because it's insecure.

ljlolel 11mo ago
Then in practice it’s just Whatsapp owned by Meta
- mfru 11mo ago
  Signal exists. Whoever knows how to download WhatsApp, knows how to download Signal.
  - atoav 11mo ago
    Our IT department has found a way. Want to get some credentials sent to you (usually just for new accounts)? They send it only via Signal as a out of band method. This turned Signal into the defacto default in our org.
  - gsa 11mo ago
    Signal does some things well, but lacks far behind other apps in UX. It doesn't do cloud backups either, which keeps me from recommending it to less technical folks.
    - andrepd 11mo ago
      > It doesn't do cloud backups either, Yes it does.
    - abraham 11mo ago
      Signal recently introduced cloud backups. https://signal.org/blog/introducing-secure-backups/ https://signal.org/blog/introducing-secure-backups/
      - gsa 11mo ago
        Looks like the needle has moved, but reading the blog it's a recent development and only available in the beta version of the Android app.
        abraham 11mo ago
        They've probably expanded support since the initial announcement
      - Nextgrid 11mo ago
        Only in the Beta Android app for now... Signal is around for what, a decade now? And they still can't (or rather, refuse to) do the basic "copy the SQLite DB file to a folder". Edit: and even this beta feature is some bullshit proprietary thing with their own cloud and subscription rather than simply "let me export the DB file and stick it in a cloud provider of my choice". Last time I had to reinstall my phone I ended up finding an implementation of their phone-to-phone transfer protocol to emulate a "new" device I'm transferring to just to get a dump of the data (I'd share, but don't want them to close this option, since clearly the lack of export option is very much intentional). Then I deleted Signal and begrudgingly moved to WhatsApp (in addition to iMessage which I've already been using).
        abraham 11mo ago
        Signal has had a backup to a file you can do any you want to for years.
  - abenga 11mo ago
    In some countries, Whatsapp is pretty much the de facto town square. Friend groups, family groups, event planning, customer support for businesses (though now it's just talking to shitty AI bots), all on WhatsApp. You can't beat the network effects any more. One understands why Meta paid 19b for it.
jeroenhd 11mo ago
> And you can't even implement it yourself because it requires special permissions on Android That depends on your carrier, which is even worse. There are several ways to activate RCS for a phone number, as this standard is meant for carriers rather than app developers, and the carrier gets to choose which one they want. I think the reference implementation died around the time carriers shut down their RCS servers because nobody was using them. https://github.com/Hirohumi/rust-rcs-client https://github.com/Hirohumi/rust-rcs-client seems to be the most reason open RCS client at the moment (with an Android demo app). The real need and opportunity for an RCS messenger is on the LineageOS/custom ROM scene, where these permissions are available (you can sign the ROM yourself, after all). As for the Google stuff, RCS being routed through Google is an anomaly that will hopefully be fixed as carriers add support to it so native Android <-> iOS messaging isn't completely terrible. Progress has been slow outside of countries that still use SMS (like the USA) but eventually we'll be back to normal carrier-based carrier message exchange once things calm down a bit. On the Android side of things, I don't expect things to change soon, as most of the restricted fields were at one point available to developers and were mostly used to stalk users across installs without their knowledge for tracking and "telemetry" purposes. A country where people actually use SMS/RCS will have to crack down on Google's lack of an RCS API.
- Groxx 11mo ago
  The problem with all these problems is that it makes RCS noticeably worse in both normal use and for your privacy than a regular web chat via some other system. And I do not see a path for it that escapes that. I'm very happy that they're essentially using MLS, that's a real benefit[1]. But other chat apps can (and some do) do that too, without actively driving every single carrier globally to give Google all of your messaging activity. We're better off having diversity. This all could reverse course and become acceptable, but I don't see how it would happen in practice. It seems much more likely that everyone will just give up and say "yeah that didn't work". 1: Though without alternate impls they can just silently MITM it and how would you know? RCS users: have you ever verified your messaging keys out of band? Do you know how? I can't find it in Messages. The "Universal Profile https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/networks/rcs/universal-profile/ https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/netwo..." for RCS that describes a ton of things compliant apps have to do (many of which Google Messages does not seem to do, as far as I can tell) has no instructions at all to show users their keys or provide a common way to verify them (as far as I can tell). Client diversity provides a way to detect some attacks here, but there is currently almost no client diversity, and instead it seems to be shrinking towards just Google Messages, using Google's servers.
dangus 11mo ago
My novice read of it is that Google made the mistake of trying to hand off the management burden to carriers, since they felt that the way to make something universal like SMS/MMS is to include carrier support. But that obviously didn’t work because there are hundreds (thousands?) of cellular carriers around the world and they are the wrong people to manage such a thing. So they basically are steering it back to “Google’s shitty iMessage.” The universal thing isn’t the carrier anymore, the universal thing is the Internet that runs on top of it, which is perhaps why just about everyone outside the US tends to use messaging apps like WhatsApp/Signal/WeChat/etc.
- projektfu 11mo ago
  Every time I have gotten a SIM card in a country south of the US-Mexico border, the carrier spams the text messaging. But nobody else uses it. In the US we don't reliably use WhatsApp, iMessage is locked down, and Signal, etc., are just for tech bros or political hacks. Yet, everyone wants to text instead of call, so we are in this world where we need to make RCS work, and they are just not putting in the effort.
  - dangus 11mo ago
    You might be surprised at how many “normies” are getting on board with Signal. The user base pales in comparison to WhatsApp but it did double in the last couple of years.
    - Spooky23 11mo ago
      If you’re not a nerd, signal is like a batlight for people doing stupid shit.
    - projektfu 11mo ago
      https://xkcd.com/1102/ https://xkcd.com/1102/ What I mean is that in Mexico, Brazil, and many other countries, WhatsApp is the de facto messaging standard. Businesses expect you to have it, restaurant ordering is integrated with it, etc. In the US, we don't have anything except SMS/RCS.
binkHN 11mo ago
Yeah. I'm as frustrated as you are. I had an app in the app store even with all the restrictions around SMS, but there's simply no way to integrate with RCS, so this is basically Google's iMessage.
aki237 11mo ago
+1. I was a strong proponent of RCS earlier. Don't care about Green/Blue bubble nonsense. But Google (an Ad company) started abusing RCS to send garbage ads my way. And there is no way to block that as well except for disabling RCS. I feel this is a loophole Google can abuse where local regulations ban vendors for sending promotional messages. Whatever it is, Google of all org should not be at the Helm of this. And the amount of moral policing they did to apple. Disgusting assholes. I hate Apple for a lot of reasons. iMessage is definitely not one of them.
- fidotron 11mo ago
  The only Google product that people will not ultimately regret adopting is golang, and even that is debatable.
  - joecool1029 11mo ago
    I know this is a niche complaint but I hate packaging golang things. On Gentoo contributors are stuck hosting giant dependency tarballs since you need the modules to build a package and we sandbox networking while building.
  - kenhwang 11mo ago
    I definitely think people will regret adopting Golang in time. It's this generation's Java, except without an smooth off-ramp in Kotlin/Scala and even less of the benefits.
decimalenough 11mo ago
> Why hand all of your messaging communications over to Google, when they've got such a consistent history of being hostile? The alternative is to hand all your communications to carriers, who have a consistent history of being incompetent, extortionate and bending over to authorities to disclose everything you've ever said at the drop of a hat. Exhibit A is SMS, which is totally unencrypted, plagued by bad actors, and a cesspool of spam and fraud. In an ideal world you could choose who does your RCS, in the same way that you can pick your email provider, but the way it's baked into the telco ecosystem makes this basically impossible.

by Groxx 11mo ago

ljlolel 11mo ago

Then in practice it’s just Whatsapp owned by Meta

mfru 11mo ago
Signal exists. Whoever knows how to download WhatsApp, knows how to download Signal.
- atoav 11mo ago
  Our IT department has found a way. Want to get some credentials sent to you (usually just for new accounts)? They send it only via Signal as a out of band method. This turned Signal into the defacto default in our org.
- gsa 11mo ago
  Signal does some things well, but lacks far behind other apps in UX. It doesn't do cloud backups either, which keeps me from recommending it to less technical folks.
  - andrepd 11mo ago
    > It doesn't do cloud backups either, Yes it does.
  - abraham 11mo ago
    Signal recently introduced cloud backups. https://signal.org/blog/introducing-secure-backups/ https://signal.org/blog/introducing-secure-backups/
    - gsa 11mo ago
      Looks like the needle has moved, but reading the blog it's a recent development and only available in the beta version of the Android app.
      - abraham 11mo ago
        They've probably expanded support since the initial announcement
    - Nextgrid 11mo ago
      Only in the Beta Android app for now... Signal is around for what, a decade now? And they still can't (or rather, refuse to) do the basic "copy the SQLite DB file to a folder". Edit: and even this beta feature is some bullshit proprietary thing with their own cloud and subscription rather than simply "let me export the DB file and stick it in a cloud provider of my choice". Last time I had to reinstall my phone I ended up finding an implementation of their phone-to-phone transfer protocol to emulate a "new" device I'm transferring to just to get a dump of the data (I'd share, but don't want them to close this option, since clearly the lack of export option is very much intentional). Then I deleted Signal and begrudgingly moved to WhatsApp (in addition to iMessage which I've already been using).
      - abraham 11mo ago
        Signal has had a backup to a file you can do any you want to for years.
- abenga 11mo ago
  In some countries, Whatsapp is pretty much the de facto town square. Friend groups, family groups, event planning, customer support for businesses (though now it's just talking to shitty AI bots), all on WhatsApp. You can't beat the network effects any more. One understands why Meta paid 19b for it.

jeroenhd 11mo ago

> And you can't even implement it yourself because it requires special permissions on Android That depends on your carrier, which is even worse. There are several ways to activate RCS for a phone number, as this standard is meant for carriers rather than app developers, and the carrier gets to choose which one they want. I think the reference implementation died around the time carriers shut down their RCS servers because nobody was using them. https://github.com/Hirohumi/rust-rcs-client https://github.com/Hirohumi/rust-rcs-client seems to be the most reason open RCS client at the moment (with an Android demo app). The real need and opportunity for an RCS messenger is on the LineageOS/custom ROM scene, where these permissions are available (you can sign the ROM yourself, after all). As for the Google stuff, RCS being routed through Google is an anomaly that will hopefully be fixed as carriers add support to it so native Android <-> iOS messaging isn't completely terrible. Progress has been slow outside of countries that still use SMS (like the USA) but eventually we'll be back to normal carrier-based carrier message exchange once things calm down a bit. On the Android side of things, I don't expect things to change soon, as most of the restricted fields were at one point available to developers and were mostly used to stalk users across installs without their knowledge for tracking and "telemetry" purposes. A country where people actually use SMS/RCS will have to crack down on Google's lack of an RCS API.

Groxx 11mo ago
The problem with all these problems is that it makes RCS noticeably worse in both normal use and for your privacy than a regular web chat via some other system. And I do not see a path for it that escapes that. I'm very happy that they're essentially using MLS, that's a real benefit[1]. But other chat apps can (and some do) do that too, without actively driving every single carrier globally to give Google all of your messaging activity. We're better off having diversity. This all could reverse course and become acceptable, but I don't see how it would happen in practice. It seems much more likely that everyone will just give up and say "yeah that didn't work". 1: Though without alternate impls they can just silently MITM it and how would you know? RCS users: have you ever verified your messaging keys out of band? Do you know how? I can't find it in Messages. The "Universal Profile https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/networks/rcs/universal-profile/ https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/netwo..." for RCS that describes a ton of things compliant apps have to do (many of which Google Messages does not seem to do, as far as I can tell) has no instructions at all to show users their keys or provide a common way to verify them (as far as I can tell). Client diversity provides a way to detect some attacks here, but there is currently almost no client diversity, and instead it seems to be shrinking towards just Google Messages, using Google's servers.

dangus 11mo ago

My novice read of it is that Google made the mistake of trying to hand off the management burden to carriers, since they felt that the way to make something universal like SMS/MMS is to include carrier support. But that obviously didn’t work because there are hundreds (thousands?) of cellular carriers around the world and they are the wrong people to manage such a thing. So they basically are steering it back to “Google’s shitty iMessage.” The universal thing isn’t the carrier anymore, the universal thing is the Internet that runs on top of it, which is perhaps why just about everyone outside the US tends to use messaging apps like WhatsApp/Signal/WeChat/etc.

projektfu 11mo ago
Every time I have gotten a SIM card in a country south of the US-Mexico border, the carrier spams the text messaging. But nobody else uses it. In the US we don't reliably use WhatsApp, iMessage is locked down, and Signal, etc., are just for tech bros or political hacks. Yet, everyone wants to text instead of call, so we are in this world where we need to make RCS work, and they are just not putting in the effort.
- dangus 11mo ago
  You might be surprised at how many “normies” are getting on board with Signal. The user base pales in comparison to WhatsApp but it did double in the last couple of years.
  - Spooky23 11mo ago
    If you’re not a nerd, signal is like a batlight for people doing stupid shit.
  - projektfu 11mo ago
    https://xkcd.com/1102/ https://xkcd.com/1102/ What I mean is that in Mexico, Brazil, and many other countries, WhatsApp is the de facto messaging standard. Businesses expect you to have it, restaurant ordering is integrated with it, etc. In the US, we don't have anything except SMS/RCS.

binkHN 11mo ago

Yeah. I'm as frustrated as you are. I had an app in the app store even with all the restrictions around SMS, but there's simply no way to integrate with RCS, so this is basically Google's iMessage.

aki237 11mo ago

+1. I was a strong proponent of RCS earlier. Don't care about Green/Blue bubble nonsense. But Google (an Ad company) started abusing RCS to send garbage ads my way. And there is no way to block that as well except for disabling RCS. I feel this is a loophole Google can abuse where local regulations ban vendors for sending promotional messages. Whatever it is, Google of all org should not be at the Helm of this. And the amount of moral policing they did to apple. Disgusting assholes. I hate Apple for a lot of reasons. iMessage is definitely not one of them.

fidotron 11mo ago
The only Google product that people will not ultimately regret adopting is golang, and even that is debatable.
- joecool1029 11mo ago
  I know this is a niche complaint but I hate packaging golang things. On Gentoo contributors are stuck hosting giant dependency tarballs since you need the modules to build a package and we sandbox networking while building.
- kenhwang 11mo ago
  I definitely think people will regret adopting Golang in time. It's this generation's Java, except without an smooth off-ramp in Kotlin/Scala and even less of the benefits.

decimalenough 11mo ago

> Why hand all of your messaging communications over to Google, when they've got such a consistent history of being hostile? The alternative is to hand all your communications to carriers, who have a consistent history of being incompetent, extortionate and bending over to authorities to disclose everything you've ever said at the drop of a hat. Exhibit A is SMS, which is totally unencrypted, plagued by bad actors, and a cesspool of spam and fraud. In an ideal world you could choose who does your RCS, in the same way that you can pick your email provider, but the way it's baked into the telco ecosystem makes this basically impossible.