Re: Encryption comes to RCS at last on iPhones.

On Tue, 18 Mar 2025 01:32:00 -0000 (UTC), badgolferman wrote :

Google's side of things, Android users already have E2EE between them by default for RCS texts.

 This is simply wrong.

 Are you sure?
https://support.google.com/messages/answer/10252671?hl=en

Hi badgolferman (and knowledgeable Android users like Andy & Carlos),
I don't keep up on RCS since it does nothing for me that I can't get with
WhatsApp (grandkids are sending me videos from iPhones all day, every day).
And when I last asked Andy what he pined for in RCS, it was "net-based"
texting (SMS/MMS) because of how they're charged for texts in the UK.
In the US, most of us have unlimited everything, so we can text long videos
all day every day between Android & iOS users, so I don't need RCS.
However... it's still good to be kept informed. So I read the original
article and I read your article and it seems that this is a summary:
1. Your article says if you use the Google Messages app on Android (which I
do not use) & if everyone you text is using it, then indeed, it's E2EE.
2. The OP's article seems to say iPhones will scramble (on the device)
their messages to Android RCS users (using RCS universal profile 3.0 which
utilizes Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol), where the unscrambling
will be done on the Android users' device, with nobody being able to read
it in between.
Both Google & Apple have confirmed support for RCS Universal Profile 3.0
and E2EE, but both need to integrate it (apparently) into their platforms.
The key is both have work to do since it's apparently a new standard.
Also every messaging app has to do some work to incorporate the two things.
RCS Universal Profile 3.0 added standardized end-to-end encryption (E2EE).
MLS (Messaging Layer Security) is the specific cryptographic protocol.
In summary, I could very well be wrong because I have no need for the
encryption but I do have a fuzzy video problem & others have the data cost.
So I'm trying to understand how this new agreement fixes these two issues:
1. Fuzzy video
2. Cost for messages
While MMS is handled by the cellular carrier, RCS is handled by the
cellular data plan, so when both phones are using RCS, then the video will
be sent via the carrier cellular (or Wi-Fi) data plans using modern codecs. Presumably the cost for people like Andy will be in their data plan?
And presumably fuzzy baby videos for people like me will go away because
RCS data presumably has much larger carrier (or Wi-Fi) bandwidth so videos
won't be drastically shrunk like they were with MMS?
Is this quick assessment of those two articles anywhere near accurate yet?