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Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

micahflee.com

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Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#41

Post by crooked-v »

khaki54 wrote: post #37
voytec wrote: post #16

> 404 Media journalist Joseph Cox published a story pointing out that Waltz was not using the official Signal app, but rather "an obscure and unofficial version of Signal that is designed to archive messages" Wow. And that's while their entire point of using Signal is to have conversations scrapped after a week to leave no no traces of criminal activity.

Do you think they are using the message archiving version so that they can meet organizational message retention requirements? Maybe they are using signal to ensure they have e2e encrypted messaging on their devices?

There are already government e2e apps. The only reason to use something else is to have selective auto-deletion and/or to use personal devices for official classified data.

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#42

Post by 1oooqooq »

dang wrote: post #38
1oooqooq wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honest question, but you decided to go against the "don't change titles" rule to choose one unprovable point until another just as unprovable point is proven? it could be argued both ways with the same argument.

There's no "don't change titles" rule, though it's interesting how the actual rule gets truncated to that in people's minds! Here's the actual rule: " Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html In this case I was thinking of both the 'misleading' and 'linkbait' bits of that 'unless'. (By the way, this is common HN modera…

the "use" assume nothing happened after the report (app still in managed domain). "used" assume an extra action taking place, which is a stretch imo.

but i assumed wrong that you added the "d", not that you're only exempting the submitter title. thanks for the insight into your always nice moderation.

follow up question: you work seven days a week??

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#43

Post by 1oooqooq »

jimmydoe wrote: post #30

We should all feel relieved that trump admin are following law to archive their chats after all. Unfortunately this Israeli company is just incompetent, should try something from Russia next time, given that’s all the data end up to be anyway.

cutting the middle man is very neo lib of you. you may have a bright future in this administration.

also keeping government honest and open is also very libertarian. covering all fronts.

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#44

Post by viraptor »

baobun wrote: post #33
spenvo wrote: post #20

There is new reporting that a hacker has breached the parent company, TeleMessage, including live data being passed across servers in production. https://www.404media.co/the-signal-clone-the-trump-admin-use... It was marked as a DUPE of this discussion, despite being a major new development https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43890034 Hopefully that decision can be reconsidered

There seems to be a coordinated and consistent campaign to bury submissions from 404 Media on HN. Hopefully something can be done about that, too.

In August last year I got this from dang when reporting a dead 404 link: "The site 404media.co is banned on HN because it has been the source of too many low-quality posts and because many (most?) of their articles are behind a signup wall."

Not that I've really seen the low quality and the signup requirement doesn't stop other domains. There's quite a few things that originated from 404, so I hope HN gets over whatever it was that annoyed them originally.

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#45

Post by watusername »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #10

White House communications director previously revealed (after “Signalgate”) that Signal was an approved and whitelisted app for gov’t officials to have on work phones and even discuss top-secret matters on. But I haven’t heard that TeleMessage was approved (and I’d have serious questions if it were given the foreign intelligence factor). Anyone know if there is a clear answer to whether it’s been approved?

According to the new 404 Media article [0] about the app's archive server actually being hacked, TeleMessage does have contracts with several governmental agencies. Still not a direct answer to the question, I know, but it tilts the answer overwhelmingly towards "yes."

[0]: https://www.404media.co/the-signal-clone-the-trump-admin-use...

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#46

Post by pvg »

spenvo wrote: post #36
pvg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just link the new development in an ongoing story that's already on the front page, just like you did. The alternative would be a second front page thread which splits the discussion and is worse all-round.

That's a fair point, and it's your call - however, if the new (major) development is covered in this way then 1) users on the front page won't see mention of it at headline level and 2) the discussion of that development on HN will be affected by/limited to the time-decay of a post that is 12 hours older. I understand that there are tradeoffs at play, it really comes down to if the development at hand is big-enough t…

It's not my call, I'm just explaining how HN typically works. If you want some story handled differently, you should send an email to hn@ycombinator.com. But 'two or more things about the same thing on the fp at the same time' is a big barrier to overcome, it almost never happens.

There is mod commentary on 'people might miss things because of the title' as well, it's mostly 'it's ok for people to click through the story or thread to figure things out' and that's also a fairly longstanding 'how HN works most of the time' thing.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

The operating assumption here is that people are smart enough to follow the developments in the story themselves - in the the thread and outside.

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#47

Post by [deleted] »

spenvo wrote: post #20

There is new reporting that a hacker has breached the parent company, TeleMessage, including live data being passed across servers in production. https://www.404media.co/the-signal-clone-the-trump-admin-use... It was marked as a DUPE of this discussion, despite being a major new development https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43890034 Hopefully that decision can be reconsidered

[deleted]

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#48

Post by nine_k »

mingus88 wrote: post #21
tedunangst wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it follows that they selected the archiving messenger because they wanted disappearing messages. The whole disappearing messages thing was just internet speculation.

This TM SGNL app is compatible with legit Signal clients and servers. It’s also possible that they are using this app to archive chats that other parties _believe_ to be disappeared. In other words, set your chats to disappear in 5 minutes and convince your target to dish some sensitive info. They think it’s off the record, but it’s instantly archived

The counterparty should be naive or stupid to think that whatever they send has no chance to be recorded forever. They should always assume otherwise.

The only interesting use case of disappearing messages is that messages one receives will disappear securely, even if they forget about receiving such messages, or have no access to the device at the time.

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#49

Post by senectus1 »

what is going on in the US gov IT?

They took an Israeli app, that is a modified version of signal. the modification BREAKS the one thing signal is excellent at (keeping your messages encrypted so that only the desired endpoints can read them), then distributed it within the US Gov.

This is insanity!

US's enemy's couldn't manufacture a better result themselves!

Re: Technical analysis of the Signal clone used by Trump officials

#50

Post by mullingitover »

spenvo wrote: post #20

There is new reporting that a hacker has breached the parent company, TeleMessage, including live data being passed across servers in production. https://www.404media.co/the-signal-clone-the-trump-admin-use... It was marked as a DUPE of this discussion, despite being a major new development https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43890034 Hopefully that decision can be reconsidered

http://archive.today/HqMvy

It's insane that this isn't front page news. This takes the original Signalgate breach to an order of magnitude higher level of severity.

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