this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Any Open-Source RCS apps yet? (lemmy.farley.pro)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Are there any apps that support RCS that aren't made by Google or a crappy cellular provider (ie: bloatware Verizon apps)?

I appreciate the features RCS has, but I'd love to get that without sending it all to Google with a "trust us" approach to backdoor keys. The documentation I looked at indicated that anyone could setup an app to support RCS and communicate with Google's RCS users, but I can't find any apps that actually do that.

Also would love to be able to message from multiple devices using RCS, which Google has working in their web app.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

RCS is all about controlling the messaging market — just like every other messaging network out there. Every implementation is proprietary and locked behind the implementer's servers.

If you want something open source you want Signal. There are also other messaging solutions that you can self-host.

Big tech will never give you open access to their networks because that's against the whole point.

SMS is the odd one out because it doesn't require servers, and the reason it's so open and universally supported is because back in the day the governments of France and Germany forced carriers to do it that way, and once it got popular it spread.

[–] orclev 27 points 1 year ago

SMS is also super low level, it's like the equivalent of ping. The GSM protocol already had a way to send small packets of data to phones for diagnostic/control purposes and someone figured you could also cram small text messages in there and thus SMS was born. It was really created as a way to monitize functionality that already needed to exist on the network for technical reasons. Back in the early days of GSM text messaging plans were a big money maker for the carriers because it cost them almost nothing to send SMS across the network but they charged customers by the message.

[–] AProfessional 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Signal is two things, a protocol to use over something else, and a proprietary service.

Matrix is an example of a total solution.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Signal is great, but it was unclear if I would be able to self-host my own Signal server if I wanted to support the public network and provide redundancy to my local LAN and connected networks.

Every time I look at Matrix it looks really cool and sounds great. But each time I try to setup a client or actually use it, nothing works, apps crash, and I can't actually use the dang thing. I tried setting up my own server, even tried using a public server with the Element web-app and still nothing worked, couldn't join rooms, etc.

Love the idea, haven't seen a decent implementation yet. Honestly kinda wish there was PGP for sms or something like that. I couldn't care less if the transport is insecure, as long as I can trust that only the intended recipient and myself can read/modify my messages.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Signal is great, but it was unclear if I would be able to self-host my own Signal server if I wanted to support the public network and provide redundancy to my local LAN and connected networks.

~~You can't. Signal's server is closed source. Only the clients are open.~~

I just discovered Signal open source the server. Please kindly disregard what I said. I had the old news in my mind (maybe).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Signals server software is open source. I suspect you mean the main signal network is closed and centrally controlled (it's not federated basically) - anyone can run a private signal server (and network) but not as a node within the main signal network is my understanding.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe they meant that at some point a few years ago Signal didn't update their public open source server code for neraly a year or so while simultaneously rolling out new features.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

WTF? Signal Server code is open source 🤔🤨

[–] mashbooq 0 points 1 year ago

To add to what others have said, Signal's server code is open source, but they took the anti-spam module closed source last year

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I thought it was something like that. What I really want to see is an open-source version of Briar.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Go look at SimpleX Chat. Decentralized, no identificators, very privacy focused.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Briar is open source, but yeah, check out SimpleX Chat

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just checked and you're right! I looked into Briar a while ago and ignored it because I couldn't run the Briar-Mailbox program on Linux.

[–] AbidanYre 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think it runs on iOS yet either, which may limit who you can contact with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have an off-grid Linux box that hosts a local Wi-Fi network and some communication and entertainment apps. I want to host a chat service for asynchronous off-grid comms. Briar looked like the perfect option if I could just add the mail-box to my Linux box.

Simplex looks like it might do something similar, but it doesn't look like it does comms over direct Bluetooth.

[–] AbidanYre 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It doesn't. But you can run your own server pretty easily.

You could also check out Jami. It doesn't do direct Bluetooth but it works on a lan if you run your own dht... proxy? bootstrap server? It can also do local discovery over udp, but I haven't tried that yet. I think async may chew up battery though

Maybe your own matrix server?

[–] Lime66 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Matrix doesn't have forward secrecy, and signal is not proprietary, it's free and open source,

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And Matrix does not fall back to SMS (unless someone implements such a Matrix client).

It would also be silly to try to get everyone you know to use YOUR Matrix client, or one compatible with it.

[–] AProfessional 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Signal removed SMS support a while ago...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Indeed, making it ineligible as an alternative to RCS or iMessage

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This was recently asked, RCS is a closed ecosystem.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Thank you, I didn't see that thread.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As far as I understand it, there is an API but as with all APIs you need a key/license/magic number to use it.

So far, Google has allowed access to Samsung, a carrier version and no one else.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

I assumed you'd have to interface with Google to get messages to/from other RCS users using their app, but does that not happen via a bridge-server?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding of how RCS works, the messages would still go through Google and their servers. With that said, this would probably be more privacy friendly than straight up using the Google Messages app, since it'd have less Google telemetry and data collection, but still not ideal or truly private since it'd still be Google's platform you're using to message at the end of the day.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

messages would still go through Google and their servers

As I understand it, there is nothing Google-specific in the standard. At the moment, Google is the main (only?) provider of RCS services to mobile networks though so data is highly likely to go through Google servers. However, that's not mandated by the standard, it's just a consequence of the current state of the market.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

nope.

[–] Hildegarde 0 points 1 year ago

Reaction Control System?