- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
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.
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Too stupid even for Trump to keep onboard.
Let your local magats know how you feel about being subjected to this shit show daily. Really let them know how you feel.
They just mumble TDS and start pretending to speak in tongues.
Up the ante
This is a link to the modified app instruction.
https://www.telemessage.com/signal-archiver-android-installation-upgrade/
I’m just shocked he didn’t have a post-it note with his code written in blue pen in the other hand…
The article makes me wonder if Waltz is intentionally countering the counter-revolution.
Either that, or he’s just stupid as fuck.
Maybe both.
The “TM SGNL PIN” message is displayed on an unofficial — and less secure — version of Signal created by a company called TeleMessage, which makes clones of popular messaging apps, but enables the ability to archive messages
TeleMessage is an Israeli software company based in Petah Tikva, Israel. Founded in 1999 by Guy Levit and Gil Shapira, it provides secure enterprise messaging, mobile communications archiving and high-volume text messaging services.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeleMessage
Let that sink in
I don’t understand, signal is open source, why would they need to purchase an unofficial fork from a foreign company? Isn’t that an huge security issue?
And what’s the point of using end to end encryption if the app has been hacked to send messages to a remote server anyway
Signal is lacking a certain feature “Archiving messages” . This company used Signal’s open source code to add this feature and offer the whole thing as a “Signal plus” product.
Assuming best intentions, Waltz wanted Signal but also wanted the ability to archive messages so he opted for the software provided by this company instead of the original.
Preloaded with Pegasus at your disposal lmao
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007321231-Archiving-or-unarchiving-chats
Am I just being dense or does stock Signal already have this feature?
You can also export the entirety of your Signal chats and decrypt them on a computer with an open source tool.
I also thought they were using Signal specifically to avoid FOIA, which requires government officials to archive their messages.
So it is possible government officials are using disappearing messages in Signal (which is illegal for multiple reasons), which will give a reason to use a third party app, not that this specific app should be trusted in any way.
My understanding is that Archiving chats would be keeping a copy of these chats accessible elsewhere for archiving purposes and not directly related to the archiving feature you’ve mentioned.
Signal does support chat backup which is close enough but its encrypted and its complicated to make one (for security reasons) and I am not sure its possible to view the encrypted chats without going through the process of restoring the backup.
There are third party, open source tools to view encrypted Signal backups if you have the key to decrypt them.
Hello foreign intelligence agencies, would you like an easy way to intercept and read classified communications? Maybe just buy it off Mossad? JFC what is this clown show. Why are our intelligence officials even using off the shelf, or even modified, software solutions for communications? Shouldn’t we have some secure messaging app and protocols developed here?
Am I missing something here or is it really this dumb?
They are going out of their way to use an Israeli platform to discuss top secret government business on. Seems pretty obvious why.
I mean it’s probably both but I would bet my life that Trump is actually a Russian agent. You don’t grab a whole pile of classified documents and bring them to your home in a location secured worse than the door to a bedroom and not proceed to give those away.
Now, direct involvement and level of control - idk but he must be “on their payroll” so to speak.
Who knows they’re a whole den of corruption, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn some of Trump’s staff are selling state secrets.
Most of that shit went to Saudi Arabia for the 2 billion paid to Jared Kushner’s company years ago.
Isn’t Israel known for its tech firms making phone security bypass tech (I.E. NSO Group and their Pegasus SW?)
well that is how you become Israel’s and Russia’s bitch and sell your own country so they don’t reveal the dirt that they found about you
Petah Tikva.
Sounds like a Klingon insult.
It translates to “you have Play-Doh on your forehead”.
Petak-T’kva!
/ stab
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?
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?
What the fuck does that mean
Sea lioning.
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.
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.
No, both are a problem because they aren’t approved and controlled.
Wish I could read the whole article
I’m so grateful for archive.is and every project like it
Thanks
Hostile intelligence agencies can have a little espionage, as a treat.
To make matters somewhat worse, tele message appears to be an Israeli company
Although they are owned by Smarsh, an American company.
mossad, looking through the logs: “already knew that. tell us something we don’t know ffs.”
Super Secret MAGA Signal Archive App!
Download MAGASecretsApp.exe at MAGASecretsApp. ru now!
Actually, it’s an Israeli version of Signal, so it’s literally the only people in the whole world worse at spying on their “friends” than the Russians.
lol this guy can assemble into a whole war thunder forum on his own
“send top secret government chats to a server in Israel?”
YES / LATER
Could it be that Mike was the insider that was leaking stuff to the media and this archiveable version of Signal is to be able to prove and/or keep Signal conversations that would otherwise be removed from the official app? I mean, just them using Signal is a violation of the Records Act, no, due to the ability to remove entire chats after a period of time? Everyone thinks he’s incompetent or dumb, but he may have added that reporter on purpose to expose their use of Signal in the first place and he’s using this unofficial version to save chats we would otherwise not have record of. If the insider info stops now, we’ll know why.
deleted by creator
That is slightly better than using regular signal. I wonder if they only started using it after the leaks?
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.
Is it if those backups are in Russia?
they’re in Tel Aviv
Neither the app nor the archiver are approved or managed. This is absolutely even more illegal.
What would be funny is if Signal made some changes that break that app’s functionality.
what a putz
