Encrypted RCS Standard
Jess Weatherbed (Hacker News, MacRumors, ArsTechnica):
iPhone and Android users will be able to exchange end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) RCS messages in the near future thanks to newly updated RCS specifications. The GSM Association announced that the latest RCS standard includes E2EE based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, enabling interoperable encryption between different platform providers for the first time.
The GSM Association said it had started working to enable E2EE on messages sent between Android and iPhone in September last year.
Personally, I never really thought it made sense for Apple, a company whose brand is about security and privacy, to withhold support for encryption on RCS. But the real issue was that the RCS standard did not include support for cross-platform encryption, even though other providers, like Google, enabled encryption on their platforms.
As noted by 9to5Mac’s Michael Burkhardt, Apple has indirectly confirmed that it will be adopting the RCS Universal Profile 3.0 specification, which includes not only end-to-end encryption, but also several other iMessage-like enhancements that were originally introduced in version 2.7 of the specification. iOS 18 supports RCS Universal Profile 2.4.
I have also noticed recently that Google Messages and Apple Messages now do a pretty good job of supporting each other’s tapbacks.
[…]
But what happens when new/updated Android phones support the new RCS encryption spec, and older devices don’t? A lock icon for the encrypted chats? If it were up to me, iOS would drop support for non-encrypted RCS — iOS should use RCS with E2EE for every device that supports it, and fall back to dumb old no-encryption-at-all SMS for all devices that do not.
Previously:
1 Comment RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Very thankful that they didn't just wholesale use the Google implementation of encryption and did an actual bonafide standard.
