Text messages despatched between iPhones and Android units will quickly profit from end-to-end encryption (E2EE), after the GSM Association (GSMA) yesterday printed new specs for the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol that embody help for cross-platform E2EE.
RCS is a longstanding effort to allow SMS-style cross-platform communications with richer options, resembling group messaging, typing indicators, learn receipts, and file-sharing — much like what messaging apps resembling WhatsApp present.
While many Android handset makers had adopted RCS by the years, Apple was the principle outlier till it lastly succumbed with the introduction of iOS 18 final 12 months. Most of the core RCS options have been accessible for cross-platform messaging since then, however E2EE has hitherto been lacking — till now.
Selling level
E2EE, for the uninitiated, is an information encryption methodology that ensures solely the sender and the recipient of a message can learn its content material. For tech firms, this privacy-preserving promise is a significant promoting level, because it assures customers that their messages are protected from surreptitious snooping. Apple has supplied E2EE because it launched iMessage again in 2011, although after all that solely labored between iOS units, 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 personal Messages app, however encrypting messages throughout not solely totally different shoppers however solely totally different platforms comes with its personal distinctive challenges. That’s the place the GSMA’s common profile enters the fray, offering a standardized specification for constant, interoperable RCS messaging throughout units, networks, and operators.
Based on the cryptographic Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, the brand new E2EE mechanism within the RCS Universal Profile 3.0 is an important piece of the interoperable jigsaw, one that may in the end allow iPhone and Android customers to speak securely through their system’s native messaging app.
“That signifies 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 press release. “Together with different distinctive safety features resembling SIM-based authentication, E2EE will present RCS customers with the best stage of privateness and safety for stronger safety from scams, fraud and different safety and privateness threats. ”
