The SMS ban worked. We know. We tested it. Messages from foreign phones did not arrive and messages to them disappeared somewhere. And communications between local phones, ditto. There is on news as to what happens to those messages that are intercepted and blocked but no one should be in the least surprised that mobile companies keep copies of messages. It's a legal requirement almost everywhere and the use of call records and SMS data is a hackneyed feature of TV police dramas.

But the filtering of those messages is relatively rare.

But Google has found a way around it. What if your SMS wasn't sent as an SMS but as data.

That's what Google is doing with its RCS system within Android. RCS is part of Android's Messaging app. It's turned off by default but it nags users to turn it on. But it doesn't tell you what it is.

RCS stands for Rich Communication Services and it's everything you have from a myriad messaging systems (including WhatsApp and the SMS and MMS you've been used to since the 1980s) but better.

Several companies have tried to bring messaging into their ecosystem but none has managed. There is no doubt that Messaging is Google's WhatsApp (and many others) killers.

Limitations: it is an Android-specific function - so it doesn't work on iPhones or Kylin.

What does it do? If a user has data (wifi or mobile data) then the message is taken out of the SMS/MMS system and sent through the data network. It doesn't touch SMS or, importantly, the SMS provider. And it is delivered through the data system, not the SMS system.

So, to use the Malaysian example, the bar on URLS is circumvented, even though the users at both ends think they are sending an SMS. This is reinforced by the fact that it is necessary only to enter the recipient's phone number to send a message. No registration is required at either end.

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