WhatsApp will soon make it possible to chat with people who use other messaging apps. It’s revealed some more details on how that will work.

— Apps will need to sign an agreement with Meta, then connect to its servers.

— Meta wants people to use the Signal Protocol, but also says other encryption protocols can be used if they can meet WhatsApp’s standards

— WhatsApp has been testing with Matrix in recent months, although nothing is agreed yet. Swiss app Threema says it won’t become interoperable

  • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
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    9 months ago

    From what I understand, it’s implemented on mobile carrier level, so any phone or other device with a cellular modem connected to a carrier that supports it should be able to use it (edit: of course, ignoring insufficient access, at the very least rooted Android or some Linux should work). Can’t really find more specific details right now though. Here’s a library and sample client for it though: https://github.com/Hirohumi/rust-rcs-client

    Of course, this is only for clients, it’s true you can’t set up your own server.

      • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
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        9 months ago

        Carriers already support it, and I think the reason Google sends it through their backend instead of the carrier’s is so they can support their proprietary extensions (that’s my guess at least, and I think I read that the app can also use carrier services directly but I can’t find the text that said that anymore). And as far as I’m concerned that means there are indeed many phones that support it.