HN Reader

> Hughes said. “Any claim of use for classified information is 100 percent untrue.”

It's great to be able to say "Signal has never, EVER been used for classified information" in a context where classified information discussed on Signal has just been leaked.

I keep thinking that the real story about this Signal stuff is that whatever authorized government equipment/software they’re supposed to be using probably just sucks. Onerous, old, too much authentication, password silliness, biometrics, auto logout after 2 minutes, etc etc.

Do not mean to downplay the mistake (at a minimum, the SecDef should suffer the same fate a lower ranking member of the DoD would for reasons of military order), but humans will be humans. Dealing with security sucks and involves trade offs and compromises.

The reason for this is simply to avoid discovery / FOIA requests, since messages delete.

Of courses it’s illegal, but the entire administration is operating as a criminal enterprise / an extension of all previous administrations, but in a way the most impressive disregard for rule of law we’ve seen.

One nice side effect of Signal's importance for governmental/military use is that it helps keep it free for civilian use. They can't mandate a backdoor for something other parts of the government rely on to be secure.

I once heard a great anecdote to that effect, and to my embarrassment I can't recall the details to repeat here.

(And yes, I understand that there are limits on what is appropriate to share with civilian hardware on a civilian network, but the truth stands that part of the reason there's not a push to breach encryption in the US like there is in the UK is because Signal is relied upon even by the government when they need a private channel on civilian hardware.)

> Two of the people said they were in or have direct knowledge of at least 20 such chats. All four said they saw instances of sensitive information being discussed.

Are they adding just everybody under the sun in these chats or only those who think wouldn't be traitors? For example I can understand one snitch being added by mistake. But four snitches?

That's a lot of snitches in my book.

Any time you read anything having to do with this administration, remember:

The behavior will continue until an effective negative stimulus is given.

Then immediately stop reading. The details don't matter at this point.

I'm really surprised that these folks go with Signal over something like Element or another Matrix client. Element/Matrix is already used in other places within the Government and has a better UX for team collaboration while maintaining high standards of encryption, so you would think that would be the default.

I know we've all been talking about how 'history is back' in terms of geopolitics not ending like some thought in the 90s. But if a huge proportion of goverment communications is taking place on self destructing messages rather than minuted meetings and filed paperwork etc, perhaps history has ended after all.

sounds like an employee of signal

Were they following Elon's advice? https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-two-word-tweet-send... :)

Well, it's clear this was leaked so they can throw Waltz to the wolves. "He was a rogue employee, and he is the only one who did this."

I am not conspiratorially minded, but I bet this was because Waltz had Jeffrey Goldberg's number. I bet Waltz leaked things to Goldberg in the past, and this is the Trump administration cutting ties with him in the most "sleep with the fishes" way possible.

The CIA director - excessively biased as he may be - testified last week that Signal is a CIA-approved application that was preloaded onto the device he was issued on his first day. He said this practice extends back to at least the Biden Administration.

Given this, and assuming it’s true, I wonder to what degree a controversy can be predicated on usage of an approved application on an approved Government device. I’m sure there is plenty to nitpick around the edges (“classified vs. top secret,” “managed device vs. personal device,” “expiring messages,” etc.), but the fundamental transgression cannot be “using Signal.”

More importantly, I just don’t think people care — beyond pearl-clutching, tribal narratives and palace intrigue — about the safety of “classified data.” And the sad part is that it’s obfuscating the real story, which is the federal government’s seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Yemeni residences in an attempt to execute a mildly infamous terrorist. It’s the banal tone with which the government officials discuss it – like it’s a new product launch or a weekly check-in meeting – that we should find disturbing. Nobody cares about the communication medium; if anything, we should wish for _more_ transparency and visibility into discussions like this…

(Also, it’s quite an endorsement of Signal.)

I wonder people who criticize the government for using Signal, you only discuss work using company-approved applications? Also why do they use Signal and not Telegram, which probably has more useful features like spoilers, paid messages, animated emojis etc.

> All four were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the private chats.

Anyone with access to NSA plus various subcontractors' toolsets can "unmask" these people in like five minutes. Musk may not be "tech genius" some of the media makes him out to be, but he knows enough about how the internet and computers work (or has advisors who do) to figure that out.