cross-posted from: https://kbin.projectsegfau.lt/m/tech@kbin.social/t/26889
Google just announced that all RCS conversations in Messages are now fully end-to-end encrypted, even in group chats. RCS stands for Rich Communication Services and is replacing traditional text and picture messaging, providing you with more dynamic and secure features. With RCS enabled, you can share high-res photos and videos, see typing indicators for your…
Reminds me how much I hate Apple.
Thanks Google for making Android.
Now please turn the evil knob down a notch and go back being the awesome company you once were.
Edit: typo
The fuck does this have to do with Apple?
Apple purposely will not integrate this to keep a walled garden around their ecosystem and make messaging between apole/Android a shit experience.
In a perfect world everyone would just adopt rcs, it’s better for consumers but Apple only gives a shit about branding/$$$.
The one thing that feels off to me about Google’s implementation is that it’s not vendor agnostic and all comms would need to go through Google’s servers to work. The E2EE bit is an entirely Google specific extension to RCS, for example. The last thing we need is another chromium situation in a different area.
If it wasn’t a Google specific extension, phone networks around the world would need to pick up the pace and adopt RCS, but also they’d need to keep up to date with the latest version of the standard to ensure the functionality is supported. Now, looking at phone networks’ previous track record, they’re really not going to implement it unless they’re forced to and they’ll do so at a real snails pace.
At this point I’d agree that Apple not adopting RCS is really not helpful here.
I feel the EU’s Digital Market Act that’s forcing messenger applications to be interoperable with each other is going to be a much more viable option towards that perfect world scenario. The IETF is even fleshing out a common protocol for it, MIMI with MLS.
But Signal has been available on Android and iOS this whole time.
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Wait…a texting app killed texting?
they sunsetted the sms functionality in their app “to focus on the signal protocol and make it less confusing for people” if i remember correctly. not a big deal to me, the few sms i send i can use a different app for
i keep telling my iphone friends to dl signal, it’s great.
Aside from the fact that Google finally implementing E2EE in RCS not having anything at all to do with Apple, I’m confused.
Apple developed a fully encrypted messaging system 16 years ago, 4 years later RCS was developed but wasn’t even adopted by all three major US carriers until 2 years ago (much more complicated than just this as they refused to work together on Universal Profile standards and Google has so ‘valiantly’ stepped in to do it without them), and Apple is the bad guy for not switching to a competitors standard that was (until now) less secure, uses googles back end services, is arguably less capable, has an extremely poor desktop access experience, is less intuitive to enable, and takes away a competitive advantage? All while other E2EE messaging apps have been available on both iOS and Android for years.
Why not push for google to adopt iMessage as a standard instead? Maybe google has been holding iMessage back for 16 years. Maybe Apple isn’t holding rcs back but carriers are. Or maybe it’s the GSMA. Or maybe it’s a larger systemic issue with capitalism. Or maybe it’s one of any number of other issues that makes it disadvantageous for Apple and Google to work together on this.
This article, cancerous as the site is on mobile, does a good job breaking down the issue and how it’s not as clear cut as folks here are trying to make it: https://www.androidpolice.com/google-rcs-messaging-feud-apple-imessage/
At the end of the day, y’all being angry at Apple about RCS sounds just a bit like simping for google and falling prey to their marketing campaign to try and win the messaging war. Im not really interested in experiencing another chromium situation but with messaging. Particularly when WhatsApp is king in the messaging space globally.
Why not push for google to adopt iMessage as a standard instead?
Because that would ruin Apple’s business model of ‘your friend doesn’t use iMessage because they have an android and thats on them’
They wouldn’t make money off of iMessage being on androids, which they’ve shown with other things to be the only thing they really care aboyt.
Because Apple wouldn’t fucking let anybody else use iMessage.
Whereas RCS is out there for anyone to use.
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Doesn’t really explain what google enabling E2E on RCA has to do with Apple
He’s talking about RCS in general. Apple won’t implement it as it’s a huge threat to iMessage which is a service that keeps a lot of the US users buying their phones.
Sorry. Wrong article. Fixed now.
Ok so here’s my take: Apple implemented a secure messaging system in 2007 with iMessage. Then, in 2011 Google started to implement RCS, which then took several years for it to begin rolling out and being adopted.
Why doesn’t google push to adopt iMessage instead? It was implemented first and has been being constantly developed for 16 years and is certainly more well rounded than RCS.
Now, everyone is angry that Apple won’t switch to a standard that’s not fully supported by all android devices or carriers, that is potentially less secure, AND takes away a competitive advantage and calls that ‘holding back RCS? I’ve been hearing about RCS for some 10 god damn years, back before I switched to iOS and it’s still not fully adopted across domestic carriers.
Not to mention, I and many others are working to de-google our lives and I frankly don’t want my messaging going through google backends, even if they do assure me that it’s encrypted. If there’s one thing I know about Apple, it’s that they don’t share my data because it’s a competitive advantage not to. Google on the other hand seems to be happy to give it to anyone that wants it.
Though I do think it’s funny how your article talks about all the problems with RCS adoption lying with everyone (carriers namely) centering around Google’s implementation of it and then lands on ‘Apple is making it lucrative for 3rd party apps like WhatsApp’ as it’s summary for how Apple is holding back RCS. The article and the headline don’t match.
I’ll leave this here, not as a counter to yours, but as a more complete picture: https://www.androidpolice.com/google-rcs-messaging-feud-apple-imessage/
Ultimately, Google is as much at fault as Apple for RCS’ low penetration. However, Apple’s reluctance to support RCS for iMessage and using the latter as an ecosystem lock-in is bad for consumers.
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Google tracks you everywhere you go all over the internet. Like 90% of websites have a script that calls home to Google to let them know you visited. That’s their business model.
Fun fact, a group I knew in uni made an end to end encryption program that sent messages through Google more than a decade ago and Google got really, really mad at them threatening to shut down all Google accounts associated with all IP addresses they used.
Guarantee it’s not fully E2E.
It doesn’t matter if it’s E2E or not when Google can spy on you directly on the phones at either end.
Sent messages “through Google”? Like Chat? Email? That’s such an ambiguous statement.
E2EE has been a available approaching three years now. I’d imagine if they were lying and defrauding the population, someone would have found out by now. This announcement is just that it’s on by default for everyone.
Hangouts.
Now, open up the RCS API to third party texting apps… Like you said you would many years ago
Yes! I’d love to go back to using Signal as my main messaging app.
Definitely happy that this is happening, good on them. However in practice since most of my friends are on iOS I’m still reduced to SMS/MMS and a terrible user experience
My entire universe uses whatsapp exclusively 🤮 and I refuse.
There’s an app currently in beta called Beeper that aggregates a bunch of chat apps into one and also lets Android users connect to iMessage using an Apple ID. Highly recommend getting on the wait-list for it, the app has been great and the team working on it are very responsive and transparent.
Unfortunately RCS support is still in active development so anyone using it may not want to connect their number yet (unless they’re cool with SMS’ing with other Androids).
Oh yeah I heard about that! Do you use it? How’s the iMessage support on Android? Ideally I’d love if my chats with Android users go over RCS but chats with Apple users go over iMessage.
That all said relaying my chats through a 3rd party doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside…
Get better friends /s
but ya, the only person I text who is on iPhone is my “influencer” sister. Everyone else uses Android, and I can use RCS.
Kinda wary to switch in case it turns up in the Google Graveyard.
Fortunately I think this is one of the ones that will stay around.
But everything still kept in their cloud right?
You bet it’s end to end and encrypted with my key and your key and our friends key the CIA’s key… Wait, what?
/s… I hope
Still won’t be using it. Sworry!
More like, sworry not sworry. Am I right?
I think this is the first feature RCS provides which I want.
Do you know what RCS all provides? because it provides a LOT of great features. I mean the biggest one is 105MB file sizes. I guess you can stick with your carrier limited MMS, which is usually set to 300KB. Or maybe you can pay for Discord Nitro to send more than 8MB files? How about Snapchat which is limited to 60 seconds video files? Perhaps Telegram, that limits your upload speed to a snail pace unless you buy Telegram Premium?
I haven’t attempted to send a file via txt in almost 20 years. They’re txt messages. I also don’t use discord nitro, snapchat, or telegram.
So how do you send quick photos and videos? Don’t tell me you’re the person that sends a link lol
It doesn’t really come up since I use txts to talk to people.
Why wouldn’t one use links? Everything is pushed to the cloud anyway. Uploading them again is a lot of extra power used for no gain.
