Rudimentary RCS support is in the iOS 18 beta — with some big caveats

I understood that Apple's implementation of RCS won't initially do E2E encryption, as it's not part of the official standard, but, rather, a Google-proprietary add-on for Android. Apple says it will work to get some form of E2E encryption (maybe not Google's) into the standard, at which point it will implement it. If my information's out-of-date or incorrect, please put me right!

luxuriant said:

I understood that Apple's implementation of RCS won't initially do E2E encryption, as it's not part of the official standard, but, rather, a Google-proprietary add-on for Android. Apple says it will work to get some form of E2E encryption (maybe not Google's) into the standard, at which point it will implement it. If my information's out-of-date or incorrect, please put me right!

Apple made one comment about it, and it was not a clear commitment to getting encryption added to the RCS standard. Their comment only referred to improving the security of RCS and working with "GSMA members" to do so, not necessarily doing so within the GSMA standards group nor making it end-to-end encryption. In essence, they stopped short of committing, and as far as I know, they have not made a comment since.

Google, for their part, has tried working with GSMA for nearly a decade to set an E2EE standard, to no avail. Google had to take it upon itself to enable it for the benefit of Google Android users.

E2EE isn't on the GSMA priority list based on appearances, and I don't know why Apple would be encouraging it either since it would make RCS as a service across all providers as private and secure as iMessage and thus cost them a marketing point. 

gatorguy said:

luxuriant said:

I understood that Apple's implementation of RCS won't initially do E2E encryption, as it's not part of the official standard, but, rather, a Google-proprietary add-on for Android. Apple says it will work to get some form of E2E encryption (maybe not Google's) into the standard, at which point it will implement it. If my information's out-of-date or incorrect, please put me right!

Apple made one comment about it, and it was not a clear commitment to getting encryption added to the RCS standard. Their comment only referred to improving the security of RCS and working with "GSMA members" to do so, not necessarily doing so within the GSMA standards group nor making it end-to-end encryption. In essence, they stopped short of committing, and as far as I know, they have not made a comment since.

Google, for their part, has tried working with GSMA for nearly a decade to set an E2EE standard, to no avail. Google had to take it upon itself to enable it for the benefit of Google Android users.

E2EE isn't on the GSMA priority list based on appearances, and I don't know why Apple would be encouraging it either since it would make RCS as a service across all providers as private and secure as iMessage and thus cost them a marketing point. 

And let's put all the information out on the table to avoid marketing bias. Google's implementation of E2EE is proprietary to Android, and thus isn't completely open for anyone to use either. So it's using the same marketing point against competing Linux-based phones.

auxio said:

gatorguy said:

luxuriant said:

I understood that Apple's implementation of RCS won't initially do E2E encryption, as it's not part of the official standard, but, rather, a Google-proprietary add-on for Android. Apple says it will work to get some form of E2E encryption (maybe not Google's) into the standard, at which point it will implement it. If my information's out-of-date or incorrect, please put me right!

Apple made one comment about it, and it was not a clear commitment to getting encryption added to the RCS standard. Their comment only referred to improving the security of RCS and working with "GSMA members" to do so, not necessarily doing so within the GSMA standards group nor making it end-to-end encryption. In essence, they stopped short of committing, and as far as I know, they have not made a comment since.

Google, for their part, has tried working with GSMA for nearly a decade to set an E2EE standard, to no avail. Google had to take it upon itself to enable it for the benefit of Google Android users.

E2EE isn't on the GSMA priority list based on appearances, and I don't know why Apple would be encouraging it either since it would make RCS as a service across all providers as private and secure as iMessage and thus cost them a marketing point. 

And let's put all the information out on the table to avoid marketing bias. Google's implementation of E2EE is proprietary to Android, and thus isn't completely open for anyone to use either. So it's using the same marketing point against competing Linux-based phones.

Well, of course it is. GSMA won't implement it, so Google can do what it can at its own expense or wait. I can just about guarantee that if GSMA makes it a requirement in the standard, Google won't hesitate to drop committing its own servers and money to the "proprietary to Android" version. There's no love in covering, at their expense, what the GSMA and carriers should be doing.

As for the marketing angle: I believe Google and Samsung being enabled, while other Android licensees are not, has more to do with the expense of doing so for EVERYONE without those companies contributions back to Android. Samsung does, but I'm not aware of other Androidi-based smartphone companies giving back.

IMO, only one of the two duopolists considers E2EE to be a competitive advantage, and a vested interest in it never being part of the GMMA RCS standard.

gatorguy said:

auxio said:

gatorguy said:

luxuriant said:

I understood that Apple's implementation of RCS won't initially do E2E encryption, as it's not part of the official standard, but, rather, a Google-proprietary add-on for Android. Apple says it will work to get some form of E2E encryption (maybe not Google's) into the standard, at which point it will implement it. If my information's out-of-date or incorrect, please put me right!

Apple made one comment about it, and it was not a clear commitment to getting encryption added to the RCS standard. Their comment only referred to improving the security of RCS and working with "GSMA members" to do so, not necessarily doing so within the GSMA standards group nor making it end-to-end encryption. In essence, they stopped short of committing, and as far as I know, they have not made a comment since.

Google, for their part, has tried working with GSMA for nearly a decade to set an E2EE standard, to no avail. Google had to take it upon itself to enable it for the benefit of Google Android users.

E2EE isn't on the GSMA priority list based on appearances, and I don't know why Apple would be encouraging it either since it would make RCS as a service across all providers as private and secure as iMessage and thus cost them a marketing point. 

And let's put all the information out on the table to avoid marketing bias. Google's implementation of E2EE is proprietary to Android, and thus isn't completely open for anyone to use either. So it's using the same marketing point against competing Linux-based phones.

Well, of course it is. GSMA won't implement it, so Google can do what it can at its own expense or wait. I can just about guarantee that if GSMA makes it a requirement in the standard, Google won't hesitate to drop committing its own servers and money to the "proprietary to Android" version. There's no love in covering at their response for what the GSMA and carriers should be doing.

Only one of the two duopolists considers E2EE to be a competitive advantage, and may not want to see it enabled on RCS. 

So why didn't they make it open source/open protocol and allow Linux-based phone manufacturers to be interoperable?