Gmscore: Why does GCM needs to connect to mtalk.google.com ?
Following issue #566, I am wondering if microG creates a local redirection to intercept traffic intended to mtalk.google.com or is it connecting to that domain ? If so, why ?
theofruitrouge
All 5 comments
Because GCM depends on Google servers? If you don’t know how GCM works, no problem, I’ll explain it. ;)
ArchangeGabriel
on 6 Jul 2018
@ArchangeGabriel Indeed I don't know how GCM works… I don't mean to waste your time but if you want you can explain me !
theofruitrouge
on 6 Jul 2018
OK, so basically the idea is the following: your system makes one connection to Google servers, specifying some kind of AndroidID to be recognized.
On the other side, every apps that use GCM has a server part somewhere, that also makes a connection to the Google servers, specifying an app identifier. Then, when one event is to be sent to you, it is send to the Google servers with your AndroidID, allowing the server to thus relay it to you.
The idea behind that is to have only one open connection on your phone, instead of one per app, allowing for much greater battery life. The cost is privacy, because that means all messages are going through Google servers. App can work a bit around this by having either encrypted messages content or minimal amount of information inside. But at the very least Google will have the following information: you have received a message from this app at this given time.
ArchangeGabriel
on 6 Jul 2018
Thank you very much for that explanation. At least GCM does't require a G-account to work !
We can hope to see changes with Firebase Cloud Messaging.
theofruitrouge
on 15 Jul 2018
No, FCM builds upon GCM, it works the same way w.r.t. my above explanation. As far as proprietary apps are concerned, there is little hope to change anything here, but for FLOSS software maybe a self-hosted replacement could be done.
ArchangeGabriel
on 15 Jul 2018
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Most helpful comment
OK, so basically the idea is the following: your system makes one connection to Google servers, specifying some kind of AndroidID to be recognized.
On the other side, every apps that use GCM has a server part somewhere, that also makes a connection to the Google servers, specifying an app identifier. Then, when one event is to be sent to you, it is send to the Google servers with your AndroidID, allowing the server to thus relay it to you.
The idea behind that is to have only one open connection on your phone, instead of one per app, allowing for much greater battery life. The cost is privacy, because that means all messages are going through Google servers. App can work a bit around this by having either encrypted messages content or minimal amount of information inside. But at the very least Google will have the following information: you have received a message from this app at this given time.