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> 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 seve

> 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 1y 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.
- Groxx 1y ago
  As a follow-up, since I can't edit any more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980788 ^ They are correct, the MLS / E2EE part of RCS is quite new and not yet implemented ~anywhere. So it gets no points until widespread, and this is now a decade after RCS's introduction. I think we can expect it to take a long time yet, if at all.
WhyNotHugo 1y ago
> eventually we'll be back to normal carrier-based carrier message Why would you want to go into this closed model, where you’ll likely be charged per-account? How is this any better than XMPP, email, or any other IM protocol out there?
- Nextgrid 1y ago
  Because it's a universal lowest-common-denominator and generally included in the plan you pay anyway for data access. Should you use it for day-to-day messaging? No. But having it for emergencies is nice - if anything, just to bootstrap an alternative, secure channel.
  - Telaneo 1y ago
    Then why not use SMS?
    - decimalenough 1y ago
      Because SMS is horribly limited. 140 chars per message* (less if chars are not plain vanilla ASCII), no support for attachments, group messages, reliable delivery receipts, emoji reactions, etc etc. * There's a terrible hack called concatenated SMS that strings together multiple messages to build one longer message under the hood, but if any of those parts go missing along the way, the whole thing gets dropped on the floor.
      - Telaneo 1y ago
        For the proposed use case, you don't need those things, except maybe the 140 character thing, but I've never found that limiting, since phones stitch them together nowadays (and have for the past 15 years?). Sure, RCS has those functions, but half of them are broken 60% of the time, and you don't need those anyway for bootstraping into wherever you actually want to talk, and for short messaging. RCS brings nothing to the table if all you need is to tell mum she needs to come pick you up. On the contrary, it might fail you because it tried and failed to send that message over a 4G connection you barely have, rather than sending it as an SMS and then actually arriving. And you're never going to use it for group messages, attachments or with emojis unless its an actual service you intend to use for serious purposes, which is exactly what the comment I was responding to said you weren't going to use RCS for anyway. I disabled RCS (and iMessage back when I had an iPhone) for exactly these reasons, but still use SMS as a fallback with people I don't actually know and never intend to talk to again, and see no reason to upgrade to RCS even if it wasn't broken, since for my use cases, the extra feature set isn't needed. If I need more fancy features, its for use with people I actually know, and thus people I can get in touch with on not-SMS.

Groxx 1y 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.

Groxx 1y ago
As a follow-up, since I can't edit any more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980788 ^ They are correct, the MLS / E2EE part of RCS is quite new and not yet implemented ~anywhere. So it gets no points until widespread, and this is now a decade after RCS's introduction. I think we can expect it to take a long time yet, if at all.

WhyNotHugo 1y ago

> eventually we'll be back to normal carrier-based carrier message Why would you want to go into this closed model, where you’ll likely be charged per-account? How is this any better than XMPP, email, or any other IM protocol out there?

Nextgrid 1y ago
Because it's a universal lowest-common-denominator and generally included in the plan you pay anyway for data access. Should you use it for day-to-day messaging? No. But having it for emergencies is nice - if anything, just to bootstrap an alternative, secure channel.
- Telaneo 1y ago
  Then why not use SMS?
  - decimalenough 1y ago
    Because SMS is horribly limited. 140 chars per message* (less if chars are not plain vanilla ASCII), no support for attachments, group messages, reliable delivery receipts, emoji reactions, etc etc. * There's a terrible hack called concatenated SMS that strings together multiple messages to build one longer message under the hood, but if any of those parts go missing along the way, the whole thing gets dropped on the floor.
    - Telaneo 1y ago
      For the proposed use case, you don't need those things, except maybe the 140 character thing, but I've never found that limiting, since phones stitch them together nowadays (and have for the past 15 years?). Sure, RCS has those functions, but half of them are broken 60% of the time, and you don't need those anyway for bootstraping into wherever you actually want to talk, and for short messaging. RCS brings nothing to the table if all you need is to tell mum she needs to come pick you up. On the contrary, it might fail you because it tried and failed to send that message over a 4G connection you barely have, rather than sending it as an SMS and then actually arriving. And you're never going to use it for group messages, attachments or with emojis unless its an actual service you intend to use for serious purposes, which is exactly what the comment I was responding to said you weren't going to use RCS for anyway. I disabled RCS (and iMessage back when I had an iPhone) for exactly these reasons, but still use SMS as a fallback with people I don't actually know and never intend to talk to again, and see no reason to upgrade to RCS even if it wasn't broken, since for my use cases, the extra feature set isn't needed. If I need more fancy features, its for use with people I actually know, and thus people I can get in touch with on not-SMS.