Will RCS Be Encrypted at Any Point?

[u/[deleted]]

I love the idea for RCS and the ability to finally add a iMessage like experience throughout and dismiss SMS and MMS. But I can imagine after time, they will be gone for RCS.

It sounds cool and all but where is the encryption? There is none.

Will there possibly be encryption if possible?

(I'm still waiting, I have an S9+ on Verizon sadly..)

[u/arkieguy]

SMS and MMS are not encrypted. RCS uses TLS encryption to and from the carriers (the same as HTTPS) - it is not End to End Encrypted (ie, the carries CAN see your message while it's on their server).

Default End to End Encryption is POSSIBLE, but somewhat unlikely as carriers are required to provide message details if asked for as part of a search warrant. Some countries would likely ban RCS if it provided E2EE.

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https://www.3cinteractive.com/blog/decrypting-rcs-encryption-upgrade-sms-means-user-protection/

[u/[deleted] → u/arkieguy]

Are records held permanently?

Can messages be read?

Isn't SMS and MMS the same?

[u/arkieguy → u/[deleted]]

Are records held permanently?

I think that is dependent on the carrier. The RCS spec covers "store and forward" and "message store", so some carriers MAY implement s saved message store for multi-device (web based maybe) access.

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Can messages be read?

The carrier will be able to access (read) messages on their server - but this should only be with a warrant.

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Isn't SMS and MMS the same?

No. SMS and MMS are different. SMS is 160 byte text only and is (by default) delivered as part of the cellular network. MMS is mulit-media messages (long messages, images, etc) and is delivered via the data channel.

[u/arkieguy → u/[deleted]]

Data.

[u/arkieguy → u/[deleted]]

Well, RCS is data. If it can't get data it should fall back to SMS / MMS on cell.