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.
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 hard to call it an open standard when there’s a single implementation that’s closed source and goes off of spec.
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.
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.
Monopoly is the only thing companies strive for.
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.
More like they need to have everyone use the app so that they can offer “AI Assistant” features through it.
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.
google gonna google.
remember when they used to have “don’t be evil” in their company mission statement? i miss that google
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.
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 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
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.
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 have a pixel, it defaults to RCS and those do not reliably deliver to my husband, who is on an android Samsung phone. I can’t figure out what the big advantage of RCS is.
Quite ironic given that they cried because Apple didn’t adopt RCS on iOS, and now they make it less accessible themselves.
So I read that the RCS Apple wants to implement isn’t exactly the RCS Google is using.
My hope is that once Apple starts using (a hopefully open standard) RCS, then everyone will switch to that and everyone everywhere can communicate securely.
That’s not how Apple works at all. They have had iMessage for a long while now and refuse to open up the technology. They want to monopolize the communications so that they can keep controlling it.
My guess is they are just trying to sabotage any attempts at an open standard.
Sadly, you make a good point. They will probably develop their own RCS servers and let others connect to that.
let others connect to that.
I would be surprised if that happened. As we learned in the Apple v. Epic case (we all suspected before hand but was confirmed) Apple has kept I message closed so that parents wouldn’t “buy cheaper android phones for their kids”.
The strategy that has a proven track record, like the currently wildly popular BlackBerry Messenger.
everyone everywhere can communicate securely
We can do it right now without the need to please phone operator, device manufacturer and OS developer to add support for a protocol that does not even have E2EE standardized yet.
I’ve disabled it for now. Rooted phone is enormously more valuable to me than RCS that only half works right to begin with.
You can just install the PlayIntegrityFix module. It works again.
Google doing shit and it’s fine to circumvent it.
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.
Good thing nobody uses sms to chat here where I live…
The bad thing is that Whatsapp is the alternative.
Same here… whatsapp became so widespread, that even governmental agencies and private businesses use it for official communication.
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.
I’m on GrapheneOS. It just never verifies my number for RCS, so everything is just sent as SMS/MMS. Has been going on for a couple of months now. I have no idea why as it does not remotely harm them whatsoever, and hurts their adoption. I’m waiting for a non shitty RCS app to come out, hopefully one that’s FOSS.
begrudgingly leaving a 1 star review about RCS not working
I think Magisk has a patch for this now.
Might as well double down and get luckypatcher again too lmao.
Any idea how long this has been going on? I have an unlocked bootloader but am running a standard upgrade version on my phone and it was never rooted. Some time in the last few months I started getting warnings that my texts weren’t going through and was asked if I wanted to switch to SMS… yeah ok I’d never heard of RCS before so yes please use SMS for all of my messages, and everything worked fine.
Supposedly this isn’t doing any warning or asking to fall back. The messages just fail silently. I’d root and use the play integrity hider magisk module.
Hmm ok, maybe not related then. I had no issues with going back to standard SMS, and if they won’t play by the rules then why should I care as long as I can text my family?
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