Re: Encryption comes to RCS at last on iPhones.

On 2025-03-19 03:38, Marion wrote:

On Tue, 18 Mar 2025 18:20:50 +0000, Andy Burns wrote :
 

What's interesting though is how it will work when the Internet sucks.
>
Nothing can happen until the two devices exchange the keys, right?

>
Does the internet suck sufficiently to stop you logging in to amazon, that needs a key exchange ...

 I'm not sure I understand the question, but I was just trying to figure out
how RCS/MLS works, in terms of what happens if one or both are offline.
 But after searching for how RCS/MLS works, I found they have a queuing
mechanism, a key exchange store mechanism, & a fallback to SMS/MMS
mechanism. This, of course, is to be expected. I just didn't know it.
 Now I do. (At least to a level useful to me on a flaky connection.)
 Since I'm across the pond from you, I don't pay extra for anything, as we
typically get unlimited everything for about $25/month per device, so my
only need for RCS/MLS is to get clear non-blurry media from iPhones.

$25 for everything?
August-September 2023 I needed to purchase a prepaid SIM card for a month in Canada. I don't remember what I paid at Bell Canada, I think it was about $50, and it did NOT include phone calls to Europe. Other cheaper providers in the mall had the same limitation, no phone calls to Europe included.
Prior to that SIM card I had a prepaid card bought on Amazon Spain from T-mobile, and it was problematic. Also no phone calls to Europe, something that a traveller needs.

Personally, even as I'm a privacy guy, I don't care about encryption.
But it would be nice to be able to communicate with iPhone users.
Without having to use WhatsApp (which is better in all ways than Messages).
 So I'll install an RCS/MLS capable messenger on Android when they arrive.
 The problem for me is I really love the functionality of the last known
good version of PulseSMS; which doesn't support RCS.
 When there's a non-Google messenger for Android that supports RCS/MLS,
that's the one I'll test out, as I've tested all the free SMS/MMS apps.

Why would anybody write a messenger to compete with the system one made by Google, that has all the features? I understand you don't want it, but crossplatform RCS exists for about a year and you have not found any other messenger yet.
Maybe Samsung could write one, but AFAIK they gave up.
--
Cheers, Carlos.