A photograph of Trump administration official Mike Waltz’s phone shows him using an unofficial version of Signal designed to archive messages during a cabinet meeting.
Mike Waltz, who was until Thursday U.S. National Security Advisor, has inadvertently revealed he is using an obscure and unofficial version of Signal that is designed to archive messages, raising questions about what classification of information officials are discussing on the app and how that data is being secured, 404 Media has found.
On Thursday Reuters published a photograph of Waltz checking his mobile phone during a cabinet meeting held by Donald Trump.
The screen appears to show messages from various top level government officials, including JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, and Marco Rubio.
Probably backdoored
You’re thinking of Grind’r.
Seems more like they left the front door wide open.
We trained him wrong, as a joke
squeak squeak
I am bleeding, leaving me the victor!
Someone should really try “my nuts to your fist style.”
That’s a lot of nuts!
Eeny meeny miney mo
I wonder where my glove will go
DA NA NA NA NA- NEO.
DA NA NA NA NA NA NA- SPORIN.
Lemme get this straight
It’s a problem for the government to use signal because all govt correspondence needs to be on record and retrievable in the future
But it’s also a problem to use archiving of encrypted chats?
Not an American, can someone explain?
No, both are a problem because they aren’t approved and controlled.
Yes.
The answer is that this is all a bunch of stupid bullshit and that the Trumplicans truly don’t give a damn about laws that no one can force them to follow.
At this point, there’s really no point in trying to look for consistency or rational justification for anything these people do.
What laws are being broken? If republicans control both houses, why don’t they approve the app or change the law?
Government communications must be archived.
The head of each Federal agency shall make and preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency and designed to furnish the information necessary to protect the legal and financial rights of the Government and of persons directly affected by the agency’s activities. 44 U.S. Code § 3101.
By using Signal, they’re intentionally breaking the law since Signal doesn’t retain communications. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is they don’t want a record so they can’t be held accountable in the future.
If republicans control both houses, why don’t they approve the app or change the law?
The simple answer is that this wouldn’t pass the Senate, because the filibuster still exists (for now) and you need 2/3s vote to end debate and hold a vote (called cloture). It’s unlikely you’d get the 15 or so Dems needed for this to happen.
The complicated answer is that Congress has been perfectly happy ceding more and more of its authority to the Presidency for a long time now. When you’re elected for a two-year term (as Representatives are) but spend 1+ year campaigning (because seriously, fuck US elections) you don’t want to do anything that even the short-term-memories of American voters might remember. So they’re perfectly happy letting the President take the blame for anything if it’s their party in the White House, or obstructing him if it’s not.
The point they’re trying to make seems to be that the specific unofficial Signal app they are using does archive those messages. So the fact Signal by itself doesn’t, is irrelevant. The government is paying TeleMessage for this Signal app instead of using the official Signal app… The only reason for that would be for the archiving capability.
I mean… If they’re using Signal specifically because it doesn’t store messages, and they are trying to hide the communications and not archive them… They wouldn’t be using the app capable of archiving them in the first place, they’d just use the official Signal app.
Not sure why this is hard for people to understand since the article is explaining exactly what this app is and does and how it bypasses the “Signal doesn’t arching texts” issue entirely, because it doesn’t matter what the official Signal app does or doesn’t do.
Everyone gets that. What you don’t seem to get us that when the law says government communications must be archived, it doesn’t mean “an Israeli company has a copy of all my sensitive texts” is how to accomplish that.
Sure. You are legally required to archive all correspondence by approved by our security departments software, not a corporate app that shares the info with corporations and are on unsecured servers. Our security warned them to not do this and they did it anyway.
Also, do you remember “but her emails” for Hillary Clinton? That was because she used a private app for some of her emails. She wasn’t using it to wage a war.
Lemme get this straight
It’s a problem for the government to use signal because all govt correspondence needs to be on record and retrievable in the future
But it’s also a problem to use archiving of encrypted chats?
Not an American, can someone explain?
What stops the government approving the app themselves?
Nothing, but it hasn’t been done, therefore this is illegal.
Lmao that’s pretty funny, why am I getting downvoted
Asking questions with obvious answers. You come off as a sealion troll.
What is a sealion?
Obvious answers for Americans maybe
God forbid you ask a question on the internet these days
Obvious for anyone with an internet connection and half a brain. Case in point, you could google “sealion troll” and get far more info than you’d ever get from a lemmy comment.
What the fuck does that mean
Sea lioning.
He’s doing the job of a stand-up comedian. His paycheck should reflect that.
The article makes me wonder if Waltz is intentionally countering the counter-revolution.
Either that, or he’s just stupid as fuck.
Maybe both.
That is slightly better than using regular signal. I wonder if they only started using it after the leaks?
What would be funny is if Signal made some changes that break that app’s functionality.
No, it is not. Those convos are being stored somewhere, who knows if it’s even completely secure.
Modified clients could be transmitting the private keys to the server.
But not storing communications like this is literally illegal. It’s not good, but it’s breaking the law less.
Neither the app nor the archiver are approved or managed. This is absolutely even more illegal.
Is it if those backups are in Russia?
they’re in Tel Aviv
How did this photo even happen? They don’t use privacy covers? Who’s running this operation??
You’re not supposed to have sensitive info on your screen in public in the first place.
That’s why you have privacy glass meaning you can only read the screen from a narrow angle range.
I have a polarizing filter on my phone, but that can be circumvent Ed with the right camera lens.
Damn that Ed, always circumventing things.
I’m leaving Ed be. He’s cool, but his views are polarizing.
Next question: how does the rest of the photo come out when using that camera lens?
Polarized light still feels like black magic to me, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it would have a negligible to no effect on anything else in the frame, but my instinct says it would mess up a bunch of random things, thus making it useful for very specific spy craft type applications, but not for general use.
This is the dumbass that is running the operation. Well, not anymore. He just got fired and nominated for ambassador to the UN.
Seriously
Talk about paid-vacation, I mean, paid-suspension
He just got fired and nominated for ambassador to the UN.
Wait, really? It’s getting impossible to keep up with this shit.
Holy shit it’s real
It’s like every mind numbing event is endcapped with a stinger: But wait, there’s more!
And your gonna feel worse about it!
You’re*
This is a link to the modified app instruction.
https://www.telemessage.com/signal-archiver-android-installation-upgrade/
I doubt anything digital is private.
Gotta save that juicy blackmail
what a putz
I’m just shocked he didn’t have a post-it note with his code written in blue pen in the other hand…
Too stupid even for Trump to keep onboard.
Jd Vance:
I have conformation from my counterpart its turned off. He’ll be there.
Oh boy! Here we go a crimin’ again! ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ
To make matters somewhat worse, tele message appears to be an Israeli company
mossad, looking through the logs: “already knew that. tell us something we don’t know ffs.”
Although they are owned by Smarsh, an American company.
