Textual content messages despatched between iPhones and Android gadgets will quickly profit from end-to-end encryption (E2EE), after the GSM Affiliation (GSMA) yesterday published new specifications for the Wealthy Communication Companies (RCS) protocol that embrace help for cross-platform E2EE.
RCS is a long-standing effort to allow SMS-style cross-platform communications with richer options, corresponding to group messaging, typing indicators, learn receipts, and file-sharing — just like what messaging apps corresponding to WhatsApp present.
Whereas many Android handset makers had adopted RCS by means of the years, Apple was the principle outlier till it lastly succumbed with the introduction of iOS 18 final 12 months. Many of the core RCS options have been accessible for cross-platform messaging since then, however E2EE has hitherto been lacking — till now.
Promoting level
E2EE, for the uninitiated, is an information encryption technique that ensures solely the sender and the recipient of a message can learn its content material. For tech corporations, this privacy-preserving promise is a significant promoting level, because it assures customers that their messages are secure from snooping. Apple has provided E2EE because it launched iMessage again in 2011, although in fact that solely labored between iOS gadgets, whereas WhatsApp accomplished its E2EE rollout in 2016 (and, once more, it solely labored between WhatsApp customers).
Google, for its half, has beforehand added E2EE to its own Messages app, however this was its personal proprietary enterprise separate to the RCS protocol itself.
Encrypting messages throughout not solely totally different shoppers but in addition fully totally different platforms comes with its personal distinctive challenges, which is the place the GSMA’s universal profile enters the fray, offering a standardized specification for constant, interoperable RCS messaging throughout gadgets, networks, and operators.
Based mostly on the cryptographic Messaging Layer Safety (MLS) protocol, the brand new E2EE mechanism within the RCS Universal Profile 3.0 is an important piece of the interoperable jigsaw, one that can finally allow iPhone and Android customers to speak securely through their system’s native messaging app.
“That implies that RCS would be the first large-scale messaging service to help interoperable E2EE between shopper implementations from totally different suppliers,” GSMA technical director Tom Van Pelt stated in a statement. “Along with different distinctive security measures corresponding to SIM-based authentication, E2EE will present RCS customers with the very best stage of privateness and safety for stronger safety from scams, fraud and different safety and privateness threats.”