user5678 However, here is the problem: The raison d'etre of GrapheneOS is that Google Play Services (or any other app) must not have special privileges. Otherwise, you should just use PixelOS. Seriously. All benefits of GrapheneOS are gone once you unlock the front door.
The Graphene devs have indicated that they think they can find a work around for this. They are just not working on it currently (it seems). It is not a question of either allow the system level privileges or not. Just as Graphene has created an entire compatibility layer to make Google Play and Play services work in Graphene like regular apps, it would seem they could do some thing similar for Google Messages so that RCS works. I think you are misunderstanding the problem and the possible solutions.
GoS_anonuser1 But whether you use carrier servers or google servers on YOUR end (your device) does not guarantee RCS E2E encryption, as it is a provisional standard and not all carriers have implemented it
So, in short, even if you have gotten "RCS working" on your phone, doesn't mean you are sending/receiving E2E encrypted RCS messages and unless you snoop the traffic, there's no sure way to know this
There seems to be a lot of confusion that the main benefit of RCS is that it has the possibility of being end-to-end encryption. I even saw the main Graphene dev make a remark that implied this, in the Github issue about this problem. There's a lot more to RCS than end-to-end encryption.
First of all, even without end-to-end encryption, RCS still has transport layer encryption. This is infinitely better than SMS which is just a plain text protocol, with known security holes that cannot be fixed. The US government has issue warnings saying that you should basically assume all your SMS messages are being monitored by foreign state actors (because it's so easy to access the servers that run SMS--and again this is based on problems with SMS, known for more than a decade, that can never be fixed). RCS solves these problems, even without end-to-end encryption.
RCS also allows for accurate read receipts, typing indicators, etc.
More importantly, and somewhat in Google's defense, all of these verifications steps that make getting RCS to work on Graphene difficult, including the need for Google Messages to have special system privileges, are there in order to combat spam and fraud. With SMS it's easy to spoof phone numbers and send tons of messages out from computers. RCS is trying to address this.
RCS also allows businesses that send messages to consumers, including one time security tokens, to be verified businesses, so you know the communication is legitimate. I'm already getting messages like this from one financial institution. With SMS, who knows who really sent it.
GoS_anonuser1 If you start using Google RCS servers for your RCS messaging (and Google messages app), you are basically negating the major point of using GrapheneOS in the first place. Your choice, but asking GrapheneOS team to implement/make it work for you is perhaps not their top priority
The above and all the headache / time spent it causes is the reason why I personally don't use RCS at all. To me, it is currently a botched and failed standard, spottily implemented and doesn't deliver what was promised.
You present the issue as if people have a choice to use RCS or not. For those who enabled RCS when it was working fine, before all the changes in September, they cannot go back. If you disable RCS, you will break group messages with iPhone users. The only solution is to get everyone in the group message to delete it from their phones and then have the Android user create a new group message. This is practically impossible to do if they are large group messages involving a lot of people. Meanwhile, people send you messages thinking you are receiving them, but you never get them. So you are in a sense trapped to continue using RCS. If you can't get it working on Graphene, then the only solution is to go back to stock Android. This is why I consider the problems with RCS on Graphene to be a major bug and not a feature request.
What more, businesses use carrier based messaging, be it SMS or RCS, all the time, to communicate with people, including for two factor security tokens (and many businesses still offer no other method or use carrier based messaging as an important fall back, even when authenticators are an option). People need carrier based messaging to work properly. The idea that we could all go to Signal or WhatsApp or whatever is a fantasy.
Carrier based messaging is something distinctly different from all other closed garden messaging systems like Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage (iMessage is both a closed garden messenger system and a default carrier based messaging app, but people get confused about the distinction--an obvious business strategy on Apple's part). The idea that people can completely get away from carrier based messaging is wrong.
This is why, if Graphene wants to claim that it is a full blow independent mobile OS (as they do claim) then it needs to work with carrier based messenging. If RCS is the future and replacement for SMS, Graphene needs a solution for RCS. If they are unable to get Google Messages working, then they should develop their own messaging app or impliment RCS at the system level. The devs have said that's too much work (apparently Samsung came to the same conclusion). In that case, then they should bite the bullet and find a solution to get Google Messages working (that was Samsung's solution).
The more Graphene drags its feet on RCS, the more Graphene users are going to have real problems, as it continues to roll out around the world and replace SMS.
spammerofspam Some apps on GOS already have special privileges, so this logic implies that there's already no point in using GOS. E.g., it says right in the GOS documentation that "Android Auto requires privileged access in order to work."
If apps having privileged access (real or sandboxed) means this whole thing is a waste of effort and we should just use the stock OS, it's already the case and has been for a long time.
Perhaps another view is that it's worth it to come up with ways to selectively add privileges when sensible and valuable to the community.
Yes, exactly. Although the devs have said that the special privileges for Android Auto are more limited than what Google Messages requires. But one of the main features of Graphene is its compatibility layer that makes Play Services and Google Play work as regular sandboxed apps. Graphene heavily promotes this fact as differentiating it from custom ROMs etc. The purpose of Graphene is not to allow people to de-Google their lives. The purpose of Graphene is to harden the OS and make it more secure and secondarily to improve some aspects of privacy.