Google takes first major step: E2EE interoperability across all messaging apps

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-mls-e2ee-messages-3457483/

by bertman • 2 years ago

25 13 2 years ago

raziel2p• 2 years ago

Is MLS required by law/EU or something like that? I wonder if this will be the type of thing that will only be implemented by "mandatory" phone messaging apps, and never adopted by the big players like Whatsapp and Messenger.

PhilippGille• 2 years ago

Some info about the EU mandate and Meta working on it here: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/03/06/security/whatsapp-mess...

gostsamo• 2 years ago

The EU requires only interoperability. E2E encryption is not asked for and even against some members of the EU who want chat monitoring capabilities. However, FB and Google might implement it to reassure people that their private data is not used for ads purposes.

jeroenhd2• 2 years ago

It's not an EU requirement (at the moment, at least). Interoperability is required, and MLS is an IETF standard (RFC 9420) to accomplish secure cross service messaging.

Several Facebook people (@fb.com) were taking part in protocol design, so I wouldn't say they'll never adopt it. It all depends on how much shit the EU is willing to take when it comes to interoperability.

MLS without MIMI isn't going to change much, though, and MIMI is still a work in progress.

bertman• 2 years ago

MIMI: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mimi/about/

(More Instant Messaging Interoperability)

frithsun• 2 years ago

Google is evil and all, but they're on the right side of this fight.

jeroenhd2• 2 years ago

So far I haven't seen Google publish anything of significance for interacting with their RCS server, or the details of their implementation of open messaging concepts.

Where they're not using MLS, they're using the Signal protocol. Without publishing details about key servers and authentication methods, none of their layers on top of open standards such as RCS are very beneficial to anyone but them.

diggernet2• 2 years ago

When can we have a non-Google RCS app on Android?

AAAAaccountAAAA2• 2 years ago

We already have a some sort of prototype.

https://github.com/Hirohumi/RustyRcs

diggernet2• 2 years ago

Oh, that's a good start. Thanks! Though from what I've heard, Google won't allow replacing the RCS app like you can with SMS/MMS. Which would significantly limit its usefulness, unless that changes.

big-green-man• 2 years ago

Didn't we have this already? Facebook Messenger and Google Hangouts were both XMPP under the hood like 8 years ago. Am I missing something or is there an actual innovation to be found here?

Google takes first major step: E2EE interoperability across all messaging apps

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