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Google is silently blocking RCS messages on rooted Android phones and custom ROMs

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.
TechNerdWizard42 ,

RCS a decade ago, cool. RCS today? Dead.

WhatsApp is the defacto messaging over data globally. If you live anywhere outside the Murican bubble, SMSs are not used for anything and iMessage isn't even a thing people with iCrap devices care about. Everyone, on every platform, uses WhatsApp. Governmental services, private companies, and all the people use WhatsApp.

The only text messages SMS I get nowadays are from Americans that don't understand anything else and American businesses that use them for 2FA which is super insecure and equally stupid.

pewgar_seemsimandroid ,

i will never use WhatsApp

fruitycoder ,

Do you have any numbers to back this up? My understanding is this is a very eurocentric truth, but I don't actually know the state of messaging apps in Asia, south america, or central and southern Africa.

TechNerdWizard42 ,

Anecdotally it's obvious everywhere you go. I travel all over the world often and it's always WhatsApp. The taxi drivers, the hotel people, everyone.

For actual studies I found a handful with a quick google that confirm it. Whatsapp reported 2 billion users in 2020. And then WeChat is the next which is China centric. Nobody uses standard SMS except Americans.

https://engage.sinch.com/blog/most-popular-messaging-apps-in-the-world/

olbaidiablo ,

Signal?

TechNerdWizard42 ,

I'm not saying what is good to use. I'm saying what is used. Everyone from grandma to the local store. If you want to survive communicating, you need to use WhatsApp everywhere in the world except the idiotic USA.

I personally use other apps like signal and telegram, but I also have WhatsApp because I have to and it is convenient enough. I'm ok that Meta gets a bit of data showing the amazon delivery driver and I shared a message at a certain time. It's useless data.

olbaidiablo ,

I'm trying to get friends into using manyverse myself. I'm trying to get away from corporate owned social media as much as possible, which is why I'm typing this right now on Lemmy.

TechNerdWizard42 ,

You can try but rarely is it successful unless you're a super popular influencer. If Mr. Beast came out with a platform and said use it, he'd get a million users in a day, all of them evangelizing to their friend groups and maybe it would take off. Otherwise you're just going to get ignored unless it's easy enough.

WhatsApp is easy enough and good enough. It is not the best solution, but part of its allure is that it is owned by a big corporation. Governments and billion dollar companies use WhatsApp as their backbone because it is big. They aren't going to roll their own.

And when someone is completely against WhatsApp... Why? If it's because you hate Zuck and Meta, then fine. Personal grudges are fine with me, but not a valid reason to dislike the platform for everyone, just yourself. The data that they get is who you are sending messages to, when, and the overall size. Everything else can be blocked. The content of the messages is secure unless you decrypt and backup elsewhere. One of my WhatsApp numbers is on a number from a VoIP line not even tied to my name or ID in any way. Meta collects information that I am talking to hundreds of delivery drivers arranging my deliveries. I'm ok with that.

They don't have any of my info. I don't have any social media accounts apart from Lemmy and a now retired reddit. Works well enough. And the older people can use it easily enough. Getting my mother to switch to telegram? Isn't happening. But WhatsApp... She's down for that.

olbaidiablo ,

I was just talking about my friend group which is quite small. I don't really want to hear from people outside of that.

jetsetdorito ,

you had me in the first line

but no thanks Facebook app

TechNerdWizard42 ,

Not a defense of Meta, just saying what's used. And if the option is completely insecure SMS or RCS vs WhatsApp, WhatsApp is a clear winner. If you could push everyone to a better app like a signal or telegram, sure. But the world is on WhatsApp. And if you look at how hard it is to get Americans off of SMS or iMessage, that's the issue you have with now 2 billion people minimum to get them to use a better more secure platform. And their perceived benefit for that trouble is near zero.

dunestorm ,
@dunestorm@lemmy.world avatar

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?!

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

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.

daddy32 ,

I stopped using LineageOs due to their stance towards rooting and weak arguments behind it.

Zak ,
@Zak@lemmy.world avatar

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.

JasonDJ ,

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.

Zak ,
@Zak@lemmy.world avatar

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.

conciselyverbose ,

Do they not have the equivalent of TPM/Secure Enclave on Android phones?

Because if they don't have actually secure key stores, and require them for certification, that's on them.

Iceman ,

Monopoly is the only thing companies strive for.

Zak ,
@Zak@lemmy.world avatar

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.

warmaster ,

Seriously. How many more chat apps from Google do we need to learn the lesson?

FreshLight ,
@FreshLight@sh.itjust.works avatar

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/0abe1b03-119b-4cd5-b01c-72cf11f07853.jpeg

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

You'd think people would know better than to adopt anything from google.

soulfirethewolf ,

It's not like everyone has a choice in the say. Given that many schools and workplaces rely on Google for something

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

There is a difference between adopting, and being forced to use, you know.

BreakDecks ,

Theoretically? RCS is not an open standard. It requires a license from GSMA.

recapitated ,

XMPP was ok for its time

EngineerGaming ,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

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.

recapitated ,

Yeah I was using ejabberd around 2006 to connect some high touch clients, and it certainly got the job done.

soulfirethewolf ,

Yeah, but I think that most of the clients are a bit dated in UX otherwise. There isn't really anything that I could suggest a friend to use

rottingleaf ,

XMPP is not from Google. They just successfully pulled an EEE.

kilgore_trout ,
@kilgore_trout@feddit.it avatar

RCS is monopolised by Google. Theoretically open ("maybe, in the future, once it's secure…"), but practically not.

Pantsofmagic ,

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.

Zink ,

It seems crazy that Google is in last place for providing messaging services. It’s like:

Various 3rd party apps > Apple > Microsoft > Google

moon ,

Yeah hard to call it an open standard when there's a single implementation that's closed source and goes off of spec.

moon ,

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.

BaardFigur ,

I don't want to use their system anyways

raptore39 ,

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.

Lifter ,

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.

raptore39 ,

Sadly, you make a good point. They will probably develop their own RCS servers and let others connect to that.

ChillPill ,
@ChillPill@lemmy.world avatar

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".

poopkins ,

The strategy that has a proven track record, like the currently wildly popular BlackBerry Messenger.

smileyhead ,

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.

KillingTimeItself ,

and yet I get crap about complaining about android and rooting it when this shit literally happens, on the regular.

Im sorry, i want to like android, but it's awful, and genuinely sucks.

this_1_is_mine ,

Wait.... It sucks cause they are actively working to break it. Not because its flawed. Its no different than apples stupid bubbles.

Lifter ,

I think the point is that if it can be sabotaged by a central authority, it sucks. Both Apple and Google suck.

KillingTimeItself ,

IMO, it sucks because it's not built to be the platform that people say it is. It can act as the platform people say it is, on top of it's existing platform, which makes for a pretty messy and unenjoyable experience.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

What is the benefit of RCS? Ever since it started using that system, I've constantly had to manually change over to SMS because RCS just stops functioning entirely causing messages sent by me to not be sent and messages sent to me don't get pushed to me until I turn RCS off. So from my perspective, RCS fuckin' sucks.

pete_the_cat ,

Essentially it allows for end-to-end encrypted messages and high quality pictures and videos.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

high quality pictures and videos.

Oooo... So I can send more than a grainy 30 second video now? I mean, when it's working?

dandu3 ,

Yeah. It works well for me and never really had many issues with it. Sometimes it's slow when sending huge videos but that's to be expected

DAMunzy ,

Yeah, but I still get shit quality from iMessage users.

jetsetdorito ,

begrudgingly leaving a 1 star review about RCS not working

DAMunzy ,

I left my one star.

4.3 stars as of my comment: 2024-03-03T11:31 UTC+00:00

RBWells ,

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.

Hadriscus ,

Yea, I can't talk to my mom with this either. We both use android

pHr34kY ,

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.

Noedel ,

Probably for "security reasons"

n3m37h ,

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.

lemann ,

On older Android devices vulnerable to Stagefright, malicious code will auto-run as soon as the MMS picture preview is loaded by the system notification shade, if I'm not mistaken

disgrunty ,

Glad to see I'm not the only one! Same phone, same OS, same issue here too.

They are indeed some spiteful ass cunts.

vikingqueef ,
@vikingqueef@lemmy.world avatar

google gonna google.

remember when they used to have "don't be evil" in their company mission statement? i miss that google

bastion ,

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.

vikingqueef ,
@vikingqueef@lemmy.world avatar

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.

n3m37h ,

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.

vikingqueef ,
@vikingqueef@lemmy.world avatar

Yea I wasn't saying it was a good thing for us or the world even. Its funny because of all the things you just mentioned.

MonkeMischief ,

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.

n3m37h ,

RCS can fuck off IMO

ZMonster ,
@ZMonster@lemmy.world avatar

Lol, unexpected intensity. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

n3m37h ,

MMS is insecure, RCS is MMS on crack.

yournamehere ,

use any american service - have all bad time.

thorbot ,

Yes comrade amerrica vry bad

anon987 ,

Half your country is fascist. So yeah, America bad.

pewgar_seemsimandroid ,

eliminate russia then we can stick to america bad

Gabu ,

Whataboutism. If two burglars entered your home, would you welcome one and only call the police on the other?

pewgar_seemsimandroid ,

russia is a bigger threat because it borders the eu

vikingqueef ,
@vikingqueef@lemmy.world avatar

half? thats it? you got red MAGA and blue MAGA. take your pic

Molecular0079 ,

God, it's like they don't want RCS to succeed.

aard ,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

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.

Zak ,
@Zak@lemmy.world avatar

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.

AtmaJnana ,

Hangouts was the best thing going for a while there. Of course they had to goog it up.

flop_leash_973 ,

I would go so far as to say Google Chat today is better than Google RCS.

joe_cool ,

Hangouts/Google Talk was great when they had federation and allowed 3rd party clients. After they locked that it went to shit.

AtmaJnana ,

I miss the golden age when we had AIM, ICQ, or GoogleTalk, etc all on the client of our choosing.

xcjs ,
@xcjs@programming.dev avatar

With UI decisions like the shortcut bar, they really don't. I switched to another SMS app because I couldn't stand it.

_dev_null ,
@_dev_null@lemmy.zxcvn.xyz avatar

That other app? Cantstandya.

theparadox ,

More like they need to have everyone use the app so that they can offer "AI Assistant" features through it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/01/28/new-details-free-ai-upgrade-for-google-and-samsung-android-users-leaks/

smileyhead ,

They want it to succeed. And they (Google with Apple) will be the only ones having to say who can send a message.

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