iPhone and Android users will be able to exchange end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) RCS messages in the near future thanks to newly updated RCS specifications. The GSM Association announced that the latest RCS standard includes E2EE based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, enabling interoperable encryption between different platform providers for the first time.
Getting ever closer to the death of SMS 
Looks like the rumored E2EE in the RCS universal profile is happening, looking forward to it. Soon weāll have E2EE between iOS and Android devices by default.
Interesting to see the finally went ahead with it. Question remains however how many parties are going to support this.
Seems the Univeral Profile is very widely supported so a lot of people are going to be getting E2EE.
We will see, personally, I do not see myself using it to quickly. Seeing how in general everything in telecom is a burning dumpster fire, I would like to see how this will play out first.
I thought they were working on this for a while now, question being when
???
All part of Universal Profile 3.0 so whenever that comes out.
Now we just need an open source RCS app for Android
First it must be an open standard.
I would love to fork signal and add E2EE RCS to it, as a replacement to their previous SMS but RCS isnāt quite as open/documented as say most APIs.
A Signal fork would be amazing.
Who knows, maybe Signal will return to its roots and add RCS support themselves one day?
Iām going to feel more and more uncomfortable on the secure and private GrapheneOS because I gave up on using the encrypted messaging RCS on itā¦
As far as I know, the GrapheneOS community tends to recommend installing Google Messages.
I donāt at all feel safe agreeing to Googleās T&C, so I donāt follow that recommendation. But maybe you would.
Has the team here discussed what the recommendation would be once a universal profile was confirmed?
The only concern still is that Apple and Google will have some type of access to messages that are accessable to the US gov correct? Still at least its not an open free for all sure but wouldnāt the higher threat model and specifically journalist and activist want to stay on Signal only?
It wouldnāt change the recommendations since this is going to be very carrier and OS dependent but itāll just mean that by default a lot of people will have E2EE messaging without having to do anything.
I know. I also want to use Google Messages.
I gave up because like for a lot of GrapheneOS users, I canāt set up RCS on Google Messages.
Almost no one except Apple, Google, Samsung and a very few actually use RCS. I imagine if it was that easy to use, many other indie apps would implement it, but they arenāt. I think some kinda of authorisation from GSMA is needed, not sure if RCS is even open-source.
Incorrect
If Google actually provided the necessary API Reference like they do for SMS, Thatās where RCS apps would flourish. or at least Any form of developer documentation from say the GSMA themselves.
I think at least UK and Sweden wont support E2EE RCS.
is the rcs capability tied to a each provider (like apple , google. samsung) or is there an open implementation way for this to work.
I donāt like to use google messages on android. I use āRight messages appā currently.
are there any third party app which could potentially support rcs ?,( maybe through connecting to a nextcloud service)
Itās going to be part of the widely-used Universal Profile so it should be interoperable with basically every RCS implementation.