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U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

theatlantic.com

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Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#541

Post by boringg »

alistairSH wrote: post #425
boringg wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Option (a) 100%. This is an abysmal mistake on the big stage for a bunch of new people on the job. That it is the intelligence community makes it feel so much worse.

"abysmal mistake" makes it sound like this wasn't a considered action and willful disregard for both op-sec and the law. There is zero chance these guys didn't know what they were doing... At minimum, Mike Waltz is retired special ops, Rubio has had high-level clearance for ages from his time in the Senate, same for Gabbard in the House. None of them responded "Hey, this is poor op-sec and illegal, perhaps take this…

Im not defending anything here but i also know how unsophisticated executives are and these guys are for sure not technical savvy people. Normally handlers do all the orchestration. I mean it looks pretty clear they chose to work outside the standard operating channels.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#542

Post by uberdru »

simonh wrote: post #513

Steve Witkoff was on the chat while he was in Russia. There’s a vulnerability in Signal where you can set up linked devices that replicate your signal messages. You can do this by just scanning a QRcode. This is known to be used by Russian hackers. What are the chances the Russians duped Witkoff into scanning a QR code while he was in Moscow?

Totally! Probably for a restaurant menu or something. . . It also seems likely that they added Jeffrey Goldberg, (the Atlantic's editor-in-chief) to the chat as the outlet, so the whole thing would become public. . . .

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#543

Post by ctrlp »

analog31 wrote: post #539
ctrlp wrote: post #390

In my opinion there are at least two ways to interpret this: a) It's an unintentional opsec failure. Perhaps there was an address book collision with another intended user. Perhaps it was fat-fingered. This seems likely. b) It was an intentional leak. Perhaps overtly, perhaps covertly, by one or more of the channel members for unknown purposes. This seems less likely as there are better ways to leak with less blowbac…

They are being spied upon, by the future, on purpose. That's why we have laws regarding records retention, open meetings, etc.

Lincoln famously suspended the law of habeas corpus (due process) for the purposes of preserving the Union and his ability to govern, and many consider him to be one of our greatest statesmen. There is no government on earth that can function "in the open". Secrecy is a requirement. Go ahead and try to plan an office party without some "need to know" organizers and see what kind of trouble and interference you stir up.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#544

Post by snickerbockers »

atonse wrote: post #141

Setting aside the obvious shock of the actual subject, I'm going to try the herculean task of bringing this back to being a HN-related topic... My guess is that there is someone named Jeffrey Goldberg in the NatSec team (or high up, it seems like a common combination of first and last name at least), and likely that they meant to add him, rather than the EDITOR IN CHIEF of the Atlantic of all people. Could this be a…

I'm putting my money on somebody fat-fingering the wrong contact. Maybe it's just me but I swear every phone I've ever owned has had extremely unreliable UIs, stemming from a combination of phantom touches being detected, and the phone moving buttons around as I'm trying to interact with it, as if it's on dialup line struggling to load somebody's Sonic the Hedgehog fanpage on GeoCities one gif at a time in 1996. And it's just phones too, this never happens on my PCs.

Of course, none of this excuses the failure to verify the identities of everybody in their chat, the choice to use a (probably) unvetted app on a (probably) unvetted personal device, or any other of a number of basic opsec rules that should be obvious to anybody who is vested with the authority to order an airstrike on the other side of the planet.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#545

Post by anigbrowl »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #291
impendingchange wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost as bad as a private email server being used for governmental business.

“People have gone to jail for 1/100th of what – even 1/1,000th of what Hillary Clinton did.” -Hegseth “How is it Hillary Clinton can delete 33,000 government emails on a private server yet President Trump gets indicted for having documents he could declassify?” - Waltz “Nobody is above the law. Not even Hillary Clinton – even though she thinks she is,” -Rubio

I always ask MAGA people why Clinton wasn't prosecuted by the Trump administration over this, and have never received a clear reply, if I got a reply at all.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#546

Post by bb88 »

simonh wrote: post #528
bb88 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why must a Signal attack take place only in Russia? If Russia intelligence operations can operate freely in the US, they can attack US Officials in the US as well.

Good point. I was just thinking Witkoff must be dealing with Russian functionaries all the time in Moscow so they have near constant direct access. There’s nothing to stop them duping one of them in the US though, and it doesn’t seem like duping these guys would be a stretch.

Honestly, the Russians probably already have done so. It's just a matter of who's phone in that group has been compromised.

In a previous world, some three letter agency (FBI maybe?) would seize the phones in the chat to investigate the leak.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#547

Post by chasil »

joshuamerrill wrote: post #478
whattheheckheck wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you specifically calling out you are not suggesting punishment nor prosecution?

Because I don't know whether either of those are appropriate. There aren't many comparable breaches to this one. The closest in modern times may be Hillary Clinton's email server being used for government business. In that case, the FBI investigated and declined to bring charges, under the expectation that a jury would be unlikely to render a guilty verdict. Okay, fine. But the FBI investigated and laid out the facts…

Assuming this to be true, this conversation is over.

"The Biden administration installed the Signal messaging app on CIA computers and approved it for official government use."

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/03/25/has-the-staffer...

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#548

Post by useless_foghorn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #433
idle_zealot wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why have a bunch of rules and policies that you do not follow yourself? If you can get away with it, why wouldn't you set things up this way? Rules for thee, not for me. You can't try to view power plays like this through the lenses of ethics or morality. The point is to use rules to bind and punish your enemies and to make sure that only your friends can get away with breaking them. You do this with media capture…

> If you can get away with it, why wouldn't you set things up this way? Ethics and morality. > You can't try to view power plays like this through the lenses of ethics or morality. Yes, you can, that's the entire point of ethics and morality. > The point is to use rules to bind and punish your enemies and to make sure that only your friends can get away with breaking them. Well, yes, that's the point of the specific…

Power is less appealing if you aren't seeking to abuse it. I agree that an ethics and morality lens is both useful and necessary, but I fear it doesn't illuminate the actions and motivations of the powerful. Perhaps in contrast or relief, but not directly.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#549

Post by simmerup »

yowzadave wrote: post #482

What are the odds that Goldberg was included in the Signal chat intentionally by a whistleblower? I.e., someone who had reservations about what was about to take place (either the bombing action itself, or the intentional avoidance of government recordkeeping) and so included him as a witness?

Sounds like youre desperately searching for competence where none exists

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#550

Post by ctrlp »

markhahn wrote: post #524
ctrlp wrote: post #390

In my opinion there are at least two ways to interpret this: a) It's an unintentional opsec failure. Perhaps there was an address book collision with another intended user. Perhaps it was fat-fingered. This seems likely. b) It was an intentional leak. Perhaps overtly, perhaps covertly, by one or more of the channel members for unknown purposes. This seems less likely as there are better ways to leak with less blowbac…

if you think the national security infrastructure is untrustworthy, you need to fix the national security infrastructure. getting elected doesn't mean you get to create your own private government - we call that a revolution, not an election. but of course, this lot thinks the existing government is all corrupt / deepstate.

Democratic elections are always potentially mini-revolutions. That's the risk of democracy.
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