TL;DR
- Users who have rooted their phone, have their bootloader unlocked or are using some custom ROMs report that their RCS messages are not being sent, even though RCS shows them as connected.
- The Google Messages app does not show any error messages when blocking RCS messages of these users and does not send the messages out as SMS or MMS either.
- Google famously campaigned for Apple to include RCS messaging in iMessage but is now blocking it for certain Android users.
I think after XMPP, Google Talk, Wave, Hangouts, Allo, etc… people should know better than to adopt a messaging service from Google.
Yes, I know RCS is theoretically an open standard, but if Google can keep me from using it, it effectively belongs to Google.
Seriously. How many more chat apps from Google do we need to learn the lesson?
Theoretically? RCS is not an open standard. It requires a license from GSMA.
XMPP is not from Google. They just successfully pulled an EEE.
You’d think people would know better than to adopt anything from google.
It’s not like everyone has a choice in the say. Given that many schools and workplaces rely on Google for something
There is a difference between adopting, and being forced to use, you know.
It’s worse than that. Carriers have a say as well. For example, Samsung messages works with RCS in some markets but US providers currently lock it out. They only allow Google messages for RCS. Absolutely infuriating.
RCS is monopolised by Google. Theoretically open (“maybe, in the future, once it’s secure…”), but practically not.
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XMPP was ok for its time
Not only for its time! While flawed, I still see it as probably the best middle ground for messaging. It has evolved since then, its servers are easy to host and it has a variety of clients that support e2e.
Yeah I was using ejabberd around 2006 to connect some high touch clients, and it certainly got the job done.
Yeah, but I think that most of the clients are a bit dated in UX otherwise. There isn’t really anything that I could suggest a friend to use
Yeah hard to call it an open standard when there’s a single implementation that’s closed source and goes off of spec.
It seems crazy that Google is in last place for providing messaging services. It’s like:
Various 3rd party apps > Apple > Microsoft > Google
God, it’s like they don’t want RCS to succeed.
RCS is just stupid. When I was still building phones a decade ago we had some operators ask for it - but after reading the standards decided to just ignore it and hope it passes. Pretty much everybody did that, until google got interested - presumably because they figured it’d be a good way to get control of messaging on a lower level. As that’s exactly what RCS is: control of messaging, and ideally the option to charge for it, just like SMS and MMS before that.
What’s really bizarre is that Google had the chance to be a dominant player in messaging when they made Hangouts the default SMS client on Android. Instead, they backpedaled and let Hangouts wither into obscurity. I’m mostly glad they screwed that up, but also puzzled.
Hangouts was the best thing going for a while there. Of course they had to goog it up.
I would go so far as to say Google Chat today is better than Google RCS.
Hangouts/Google Talk was great when they had federation and allowed 3rd party clients. After they locked that it went to shit.
I miss the golden age when we had AIM, ICQ, or GoogleTalk, etc all on the client of our choosing.
More like they need to have everyone use the app so that they can offer “AI Assistant” features through it.
With UI decisions like the shortcut bar, they really don’t. I switched to another SMS app because I couldn’t stand it.
That other app? Cantstandya.
They want it to succeed. And they (Google with Apple) will be the only ones having to say who can send a message.
Google are so needlessly hostile to people that root, what the fuck does sending messages have to do with having elevated permissions on a phone?!
The hostility towards custom ROM in general, is what forced me to root. Initially I used LineageOs without root. However, that got me in to issues with various apps, due to not passing safety net. So now I use magisk to hide that I use a custom ROM. So, they basically forced me to root.
I stopped using LineageOs due to their stance towards rooting and weak arguments behind it.
Monopoly is the only thing companies strive for.
Google is probably trying to get around the cardinal rule of network security: you can’t trust the client.
Their RCS client probably doesn’t make sending a huge volume of messages (i.e. spam) easy, and more automation is possible with root. Yes, it’s stupid, but it’s not completely without purpose.
This is really it. Plus not everyone who roots (or, rather, everyone with a rooted phone) fully understands the security implications of running as root. I’d assume that since their implementation of end to end encryption must require a device-side key pair, and I’d wager that it’s pretty trivial to obtain private keys once you’ve obtained control of a rooted phone. For an adversary, this is a serious threat to the users privacy and security.
This is just one example. I’m sure it’s incredibly difficult to make a platform that you market as secure and private when your users have full control of the system that the application is running on. It’s a never ending cat and mouse game where the device user (whether “intended use” or not) has the upper-hand most of the time.
Not being a total Google apologist here though. They should have made it quite clear that they were blocking messages, and why. Not doing at least that, is inexcusable.
I’m a hardliner when it comes to user control of their own devices, so I’m not going to agree with Google’s behavior here even if it, on average results in a benefit to users.
I don’t think it provides a net benefit to users though. I think Google wants to be lazy about building spam-mitigation solutions, and wouldn’t be sad if it results in fewer users blocking ads and tracking. If Google was positioning its RCS client as a hardcore security product, maybe it should warn both sides of the conversations that there’s a risk of compromise, but even Signal, which is far more dedicated to security doesn’t do that.
Zero-click exploits are a more common attack vector than modified operating systems in the real world, and I’d be willing to wager my up-to-date LineageOS install is less vulnerable to them than the average person’s phone.
Do they not have the equivalent of TPM/Secure Enclave on Android phones?
Because if they don’t have actually secure key stores, and require them for certification, that’s on them.
I knew it! I had the sneaking suspicion that this was the case. About a month ago I updated my phone to Android 14 (custom rom) and noticed I started having trouble with RCS after a couple days since the update. I knew I was going to lose the play integrity but whatever. RCS was nice but I will not bend… just pushing me a step further to de-googling my phone. Lol it’s funny how they cry to Apple about supporting RCS but yet refuse to allow third party apps or phones that don’t meet their requirements, pathetic. There should be an encrypted text communication standard that isn’t controlled by one company who can lock you out because you don’t have approved software, that is ridiculous. That being said, I wish Signal was still a SMS app.
There should be an encrypted text communication standard that isn’t controlled by one company who can lock you out because you don’t have approved software
XMPP + OMEMO
XMPP + OMEMO
also matrix
That too, but it is more resource-hungry to host (my biggest problem is that I have very limited storage and haven’t quite figured out how to disable media downloads from all rooms). But yea, indeed still an option.
In worst case, symlink image folder to /dev/null.
I think the conduite server should be very lightweight, secure and easy to set up. But it’s leaking video
Yea, Synapse was out of the question for my low-power VPS, so I was going to try either this one or Dendrite. Just that last time I looked, I did not resolve the storage concerns. Ideally, I would like to not save any media and text that comes from federated servers.
Needs to be something like family is going to use you see. Which is why I liked what Signal had since it doubled as SMS.
Messaging layer security exists now, just a matter of implementing it for xmpp
Great example since Google essentially hijacked XMPP and took it into a fully-intentional nosedive.
You should have De googled a long time ago, they always pull this kind of shit
I agree but there’s 2 apps there is no good alternative for and they are paid, at least one of them I am learning Android studio + Kotlin to recreate it. The other I have found Wx which is OK but besides that there is no good advanced weather radar.
Can you not just acquire the apk?
Yea tried that already, one won’t work at all and one will stop working after sometime. I assume it still has something to do with google services. I have not tried with microg. Either way… I’ll get there to google-free land eventually its a work in progress. Sometimes I do consider just ripping off the band-aid and installing raw lineage os then learn to deal with it from there.
I’ve disabled it for now. Rooted phone is enormously more valuable to me than RCS that only half works right to begin with.
I was able to get RCS working again yesterday by updating to the latest version of Play Integrity Fix, but if that hadn’t worked, I would have disabled it and then probably switched over to Textra or Yatta for texting since RCS is basically the only thing keeping me on messages for texting.
I have it disabled anyways along with the Carrier Services app. Guess what: my battery life improved dramatically.
Carrier services isn’t required for RCS anymore pixel phones brand new don’t even have it installed.
You can just install the PlayIntegrityFix module. It works again.
Google doing shit and it’s fine to circumvent it.
Yep. Sadly WhatsApp is the standard now… I’d like to go back to something neutral like SMS, but not if they pull this shit.
My 6a on GrapheneOS stopped working months ago and I’ve spent hours trying to figure out what I had changed in an attempt to fix it.
Google broke it at their end? For no reason but spite? What cunts.
Glad to see I’m not the only one! Same phone, same OS, same issue here too.
They are indeed some spiteful ass cunts.
Probably for “security reasons”
No, they want people part of their ecosystem (play services) so they can spy on you better. And incase ya forgot RCS could be a potential attack vector as it is more code that can possibly be used for nefarious actors.
MMS can be easily be used this way because of auto retrieval of pictures that have been modified with code that auto runs once downloaded and opened by the messaging app.
On older Android devices vulnerable to Stagefright, malicious code will auto-run as soon as the MMS picture preview is loaded by the system notification shade, if I’m not mistaken
Quite ironic given that they cried because Apple didn’t adopt RCS on iOS, and now they make it less accessible themselves.
It’s apparently the Google Messages app, not Android itself. Good to know.
it’s the only OEM-independent, RCS-compatible app for now, so it’s not like you can work around it by installing another client.
It suggests that apps without this problem can be developed, which means more paths to a workaround than if we had to modify the operating system.
Sure but specifically with RCS, Google has to allow devs to use it in their apps. And they won’t.
How is Google going to stop them?
Forbidding an app from the Play Store is unlikely to stop these users, who already use rooted devices and custom ROMs. They’ll just get an app from their ROM provider, F-Droid, or elsewhere.
Does RCS depend on Google services integrated with the mobile network operator? If Google tried to use that position to forbid alternative apps, it would seem likely to run afoul of the Digital Markets Act.
I don’t know a lot about RCS specifically, though. Is there another issue I haven’t considered?
Using RCS requires low level access to phone’s modem. You won’t get it on Android. Google is bypassing it’s own restriction by using proxy servers while having the deal with phone operators.
proxy servers
Interesting, can regular people do the same, e.g. through Twilio or similar? That is, can VOIP hosts who can handle SMS also handle RCS?
Edit: aha, for Twilio at least, yes they do: https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/omnichannel-messaging-rcs
You won’t get it on Android
Why do you say that? Custom ROMs already get low level access to the same hardware that official ROMs get. Is there some reason to think it would be different in this case?
This basically means adding the feature ourselfs and making our own build, not something we can name Android to give low level access to RCS in modem. This is feature we will just add.
Also on the side note, while in theory possible it will be a pain. We can’t just reinstall one package like modemmanger on typical Linux system, we must make a whole new builds for every device and apply patches again on every major Android update. While modem manufacturers do not even share documentation for them, just share a proprietary Android driver that should be in OEM system. So adding such feature means big reverse engeeniring, big effort for automatic patch and build system, all to support in my opinion already outdated and useless protocol which because it is already obsolete with standard XMPP or Matrix based apps.
How is Google going to stop them?
well, so far none of the third party SMS apps have implemented RCS support, and when asked, every developer replies that they need Google to open their standard for other clients to use, so I guess they’ve been doing a pretty good job at stopping everyone else.
Have they given a reason why the specifically not able to do it, or do they just not want to do it because it’s “unlicensed” or “out of spec” if it’s just the second option then it’s a problem of having unwilling people and not a real entry barrier.
If there’s an actual barrier to developing something like that it’s important to understand what it is.
Have they given a reason why the specifically not able to do it
yes, every time the reason given was Google not opening their API to the public.
Oh good i dont use that
Good thing nobody uses sms to chat here where I live…
The bad thing is that Whatsapp is the alternative.
The thing is, RCS isn’t SMS. That’s kind of the point. RCS is a replacement for SMS. The two protocols just happen to be available in the same Messages app. It’s like sticking WhatsApp inside Messages, except it’s a different protocol.
Oh I get it, but well, my point still stands, nobody here uses the stock messaging app, which can send SMS.
Which is partly good, as iMessage is not predominant here either.
Same here… whatsapp became so widespread, that even governmental agencies and private businesses use it for official communication.
That is what blew my mind indeed, and as someone who hates constantly dialing companies and such for minor crap, I kinda am glad they went this way lol.
So that’s why I can’t send RCS messages.
Google also won’t roll out RCS to Google Voice. They’re just as shit as everyone else.
Ay yo, wtf
I think Magisk has a patch for this now.
Might as well double down and get luckypatcher again too lmao.
Oh it’s still working?
google gonna google.
remember when they used to have “don’t be evil” in their company mission statement? i miss that google
I remember rooting for their upstart little browser and being excited getting an invite to gmail, and thinking their OS was a cool alternative to the big mega-maniacal Apple stuff…
…now I just feel like my younger self had been taken for such a fool.
I always picture them in a meeting:
Person a: So… …looks like in order to get into the Chinese market, we’ll have to work with the Chinese government to help them censor certain topics…
Person b: but… …our motto… The optics aren’t good on that…
<uncomfortable silence>
Person c: maybe we don’t need a motto.
now they are owned by alphabet too which is funny cause it was founded by the guys that founded google and they just restructured google and all its holdings to be under alphabet.
Pretty sure they created alphabet and all the other subsidiaries to escape paying taxes.
See alphabet owns things like the G logo, where they then sell a licence to google at crazy high prices to make Googles profit margins seem smaller than they actually are and because Alphabet use Tax havens (Ireland, Isle of mann, Panama, etc) alphabet pays no taxes on that revenue.
Yea I wasn’t saying it was a good thing for us or the world even. Its funny because of all the things you just mentioned.
what’s the benefit of using RCS ? Is it the bubble colour BS?
Nobody who cares about RCS cares about the bubble color.
People who care about the bubble color are tech-illiterate Apple fanbois.
People who care about RCS care about being able to send high-resolution photos, group chats, and video calls with their tech-illiterate Apple fanboi friends and family in a default, common messaging app.
Also the non-fanboi Apple users, and the tech-literate Apple users, and the Android users. All in one default app and an open standard. Amazing.
open standard.
Which is why it’s such a mess. The RCS standard is defined by the GSM association, an organization with well over a thousand members. Want to add a feature to RCS? Prepare for years of bureaucracy trying to get the standard amended. Then 750+ mobile operators worldwide need to upgrade their systems, adding at least another few years.
Meanwhile when Apple wants to add a feature they can just roll it out in the next iOS release.
And that’s totally fine.
It runs over IP and it’s designed in a way that allows implementers to have their own adaptations within their walled garden, like End to End encryption in Google messages.
Also important to note that Apple is not discontinuing iMessage as a result of supporting RCS. In fact, if I were a betting man, I’d imagine that within the next 5-10 years, Apple will either be moving iMessage to RCS, or to some other common platform along with the rest of the industry. It’s just not going to be worth their effort to maintain and update iMessage while also maintaining compatibility with RCS. They may even make improvements to the standard that allow them to make more features within a walled garden.
iMessage is legit the only thing tying me to iPhone. My wife and her family just can’t be bothered to use any third party apps (except Facebook Messenger for a couple of them, and I downright refuse to use that). So, as we exchange pictures and video a lot, it’s just easier.
Apples real secret sauce is its tight vertical integration between software and hardware. Because they have full control over both, they can squeeze out a ton of optimizations for a very limited selection of hardware. How that software interacts further up the stack…I think Apple will eventually realize that that juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Edit: proofreading and realizing that both the Apple puns were completely unintentional.
You forgot teenage girls and (apparently) dumb women on Tinder, but yes.
They did say Apple fanboys
E2EE, unlimited attachment sizes, rich formatting, read/delivered notifications, reactions, group chat, stickers, a third-party app integration, stuff I’m forgetting about, and all part of the standard Messaging app.
E2EE
But only through Google’s RCS
Lol wtf 🤣🤣 then it’ll be 100% E2EE.
read receipts, security and larger file sizes
No, iMessage is not compatible with RCS just yet. Messaging between an iPhone and Android is still SMS
It’s like SMS but with some lacking chat-like features added. No benefit compared to standard Internet chatting.
