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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

#81

Post by sandworm101 »

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?

>> Signal was an approved and whitelisted app for ... discuss top-secret matters on.

No. Just no. Anyone who has handled TS information would know how nutz that sounds. Irrespective of software, TS stuff is only ever displayed in special rooms with big doors and a man with a gun outside. The concept of having TS on an everyday-use cellphone is just maddening.

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

#82

Post by abhisek »

RIMR wrote: post #77
abhisek wrote: post #72

Still trying to grasp the idea of archiving messages from E2E encrypted communication system into a storage that entirely breaks the purpose of using something like Signal. It’s like encashing on the trust of Signal protocol, app while breaking its security model so that someone else can search through all messages. What am I missing here?

There are compliance reasons where you want the communications encrypted in flight, but need them retained at rest for compliance reasons. Federal record keeping laws would otherwise prohibit the use of a service like Signal. I'm honestly impressed that the people involved actually took the extra effort for compliance when nothing else they did was above board...

> There are compliance reasons

Makes sense. But still debatable if the compliance requirements are acting against the security model or perhaps there are biggest concerns here than just secure communication.

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

#83

Post by tomhow »

viraptor wrote: post #44
baobun wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whate…

The main issue is the (sometimes) hard signup wall. I've been a moderator on HN for longer than 404media has existed, and I know from experience that this changes from time to time or article to article. Other paywalled sites that appear on HN (WSJ, NYT etc) have a porous paywall; you can (almost) always get around it by using an archive site like Archive.today.

If it's a good article (contains significant new information and can be a topic of curious conversation) and a paywall workaround works for that article, we'll happily allow it.

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

#84

Post by lysp »

wmf wrote: post #58
mdhb wrote: post #3

The big part of this story which nobody is talking about is the fact that the app is literally controlled by a bunch of “former” Israeli intelligence officers. Who now have what is arguably the worlds most valuable access out of anyone.

The US and many other countries have been buying Israeli surveillance tools for years or decades. I would hope that any message archiving is being done on an organization-owned server though.

> The US and many other countries have been buying Israeli surveillance tools for years or decades.

Yes, tools like Cellebrite and zero-day exploits.

Those are tools which are used to spy on people outside of the government.

This is a tool that has data created by the government.

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

#85

Post by timschmidt »

sandworm101 wrote: post #81
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?

>> Signal was an approved and whitelisted app for ... discuss top-secret matters on. No. Just no. Anyone who has handled TS information would know how nutz that sounds. Irrespective of software, TS stuff is only ever displayed in special rooms with big doors and a man with a gun outside. The concept of having TS on an everyday-use cellphone is just maddening.

[flagged]

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

#86

Post by mmooss »

gopher_space wrote: post #76
donnachangstein wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct answer is no one outside US Government IT knows for sure what is or isn't approved per their own rules. Every article (and comments therein) are just speculation and people trying to confirm their own biases, desperately looking for something to blame someone for, to produce more rage-bait and thus feed more ad clicks. Every single article is written with the presumption that there are no actual IT people…

[flagged]

Palantir has a lot of IT employees, as does Oracle and Musk's companies, which actively support Trump.

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

#87

Post by mmooss »

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?

The publicly known recommendations, from CISA for example, was to use Signal for non-classified information only.

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

#88

Post by seanhunter »

timschmidt wrote: post #85
sandworm101 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Signal was an approved and whitelisted app for ... discuss top-secret matters on. No. Just no. Anyone who has handled TS information would know how nutz that sounds. Irrespective of software, TS stuff is only ever displayed in special rooms with big doors and a man with a gun outside. The concept of having TS on an everyday-use cellphone is just maddening.

[flagged]

Do you have evidence that Obama discussed or viewed topsecret intel on that blackberry or are you just trying to muddy the waters with a false equivalence?

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

#89

Post by timschmidt »

seanhunter wrote: post #88
timschmidt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Do you have evidence that Obama discussed or viewed topsecret intel on that blackberry or are you just trying to muddy the waters with a false equivalence?

You think he used it only to discuss what flavor of ice cream was being served that day in the whitehouse dining hall? With only the senior staff? If so, I have a bridge for sale which may interest you.

> false equivalence

We're literally talking about people occupying the same positions. If anything, blackberry seems less secure. For instance, there's a global en/decryption key, and it's known: https://www.vice.com/en/article/exclusive-canada-police-obta...

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