Google RCS Messaging App Rolls Out With Enhanced Chat Security
Rich Communication Services (RCS) are a common mode of communication used by the latest generation to chat with friends or maintain business connections. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger are the commonly known among those RCS based applications that serves the purpose of sending messages through an internet connection. Google has recently launched an application which is based on such RCS chat services, enhancing the privacy terms along with providing a quality experience to the users. Millions of people often rely on such services to share sensitive information among them and now-a-days simple text messaging has been overruled by the existing features of an RCS service. As stated by Google,
We've completed our global rollout of chat features to make this modern messaging experience universal and interconnected for everyone on Android
Enhanced features of sharing quality images or videos and enriching group chats with more engagement through reactions, adds an edge to this service. Even more helpful features brought forth are - ability to start a video call from the conversation, Smart reply, end-to-end encryption and real-time spam detection.
Security is an important aspect which has been noticeably addressed by Google enabling encrypted messaging with Transport Layer Security (TLS) for protecting the data from being spyed upon by anyone. As noted by Google in their statement,
We recognize that your conversations are private and it's our responsibility to keep your personal information safe. We're continually improving security protections to safeguard your privacy and will be rolling out end-to-end encryption, starting with one-on-one RCS conversations between people using Messages
As detailed in a paper released by Google, RCS subtantiates the set of standard internet protocols as - Session Initiation Protocol, to create a successful connections through a central messaging server. The servers continue to route the messages without accessing the contents thereby increasing the protection from a compromised server, wherein the attacker cannot access the contents to modify them as the best they would only have a metadata or perform Denial of Service (DoS) attack.
Though such high-end encryption enables full proof security and privacy of users, law enforcement agencies are complaining on the possible use of the application to strengthen criminal activities. All these have the upsides as well as the downsides as Google manages to enhance encryption to a next level. Ensuring such Google has rolled out the 'Messages' application which is in the process of continuous test through the user reviews.