- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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.
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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.
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.
I would go so far as to say Google Chat today is better than Google RCS.
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?
