GSMA announces E2EE for RCS, Swisscom must join in!

Now the GSM Association has announced the integration of End-2-End Encryption into the RCS standard. This means there is no longer any excuse for Swisscom, RCS must now be supported, and properly, for both Android and Apple!

Finally we could get away from WhatsApp and all the other rubbish and communicate with one standard all over the world again, just like we used to! (e-mail, telephone, fax).

That’s why I’m asking Swisscom to finally move forward here!

https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/article/rcs-encryption-a-leap-towards-secure-and-interoperable-messaging/

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    Zovioppau63 As far as I remember from previous discussions on RCS, end-to-end encryption was less or not at all the argument on the part of Swisscom, which is why this technology was never implemented beyond the trial stage. In addition, there are laws and ordinances in Switzerland (e.g. with the euphonious name “BÜPF”) that oblige telecommunications providers to grant the authorities access to their customers’ communications if necessary. It would certainly be interesting to know whether this extension of the standard could circumvent this legal framework. Either way, I am still more of the opinion that RCS was, is and will remain a failure. Unfortunately.

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    Have you tried turning it off and on again?

        PowerMac

        I do not share this opinion! I am still of the opinion that Swiss network operators should support RCS without ifs and buts. For the reason that RCS should be supported as the successor to SMS/MMS, because it is a standard like SMS. And encryption is not a problem with all the other messengers either. But it would be a standard without being tied to octopuses like Meta etc. .

        https://www.iphone-ticker.de/rcs-ende-zu-ende-verschluesselung-fuer-ios-und-android-252094/

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         changed by fmueller
        • 5018 has responded to this post.

            The question is what is the point of E2EE when you know that the federal government is planning a revision of the surveillance law. I quote from a recent newspaper article:

            Until now, the law has distinguished between two categories: the aforementioned telecommunications service providers (TSPs) and the so-called providers of derived communication services (DACS). The list of TSPs in Switzerland now includes over 500 companies, including the “3 big Ss”: Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt. These companies have the greatest obligations to co-operate with the authorities. Among other things, they must carry out real-time monitoring, hand over all technical data relating to a customer connection and contract details and store data for six months.

            In contrast, services such as Threema and Protonmail were previously only categorised as AAKD - also thanks to the legal cases won - and were therefore subject to far lower obligations to cooperate. However, with the partial revision of the Surveillance Act, AAKDs are now to be divided into three sub-categories: AAKD with minimal duties, AAKD with reduced duties and AAKD with full duties.

            *This is intended to bring about “harmonisation between FDAs and AAKDs of comparable size and economic importance”, according to the Federal Council communication.

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            Zovioppau63 Finally we could get away from WhatsApp and all the other rubbish and communicate with a standard all over the world again, just like we used to! (e-mail, telephone, fax).

            Never ever. WhatsApp and the like have long since caught on with customers. It’s simply too late. Today, customers communicate via a messenger, usually WhatsApp, in other countries, especially in Asia, WeChat is in demand and so on. There is hardly any demand for anything else because the “normal person” is not interested. That’s the reality, even if some people don’t want to admit it. Once again, I’m not against RCS, but… there’s no demand for it and there’s no money to be made from it either.

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             changed by Samsi

              Nothing in the BÜPF states that end-to-end encryption is not permitted. The law also does not stipulate that the encryption must be weakened, or that a backdoor is required or anything similar.
              In the case of RCS, only the metadata must be made available. RCS is compatible with the BÜPF and I already use it for conversations.

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