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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

#201

Post by woodruffw »

like_any_other wrote: post #195
woodruffw wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that big: USG procures defense and intelligence tech more or less constantly from Israel. It's unlikely that Israel would threaten that relationship (and the value they extract from it in terms of favorable relations) in exchange for military intelligence that's already shared with them. (I feel like I have to say this in every thread that insinuates something sinister about being a "former Israeli…

> I don't think it's that big: USG procures defense and intelligence tech more or less constantly from Israel. It's unlikely that Israel would threaten that relationship (and the value they extract from it in terms of favorable relations) in exchange for military intelligence that's already shared with them. Correct - they would not use that intelligence to threaten that relationship, but to maintain it. Knowing the…

The over/under there doesn't make sense: the US hasn't had a meaningfully hostile-to-Israel policy ever, so pervasively tapping some of the most sensitive USG communications would be a stunning risk to take with a very safe ally.

(It also beggars belief in the current climate -- I would be hard-pressed to name a single member of the current administration who hasn't yelled until purple in the face about their support for Israel's current government and wartime policies.)

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

#202

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

michaelt wrote: post #126
gavin-1 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does conservative brain drain mean?

A few decades ago, the Republican party had one foot in the anti-intellectual camp, but only one. They were the party of young-earth creationists, religious pro-lifers, climate-deniers and gun-lovers - but also of educated fiscally conservative folks. The party would welcome economics professors and leaders of medium-sized businesses, promising no radical changes, no big increases in spending or regulation, and a gen…

What's anti-intellectual about religious pro-lifers?

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

#203

Post by [deleted] »

mullingitover wrote: post #50
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.

[deleted]

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

#205

Post by thenewwazoo »

dgellow wrote: post #198
thenewwazoo wrote: post #193

[edit: apparently I responded to the wrong post. uh, oops. that's embarrassing.]

I would say, you maintain a blog where you demonstrate your skill and knowledge. As a side effect, I’m pretty lots of people here would be interested to read your debugging, design process, etc :)

Sorry I nuked my comment after realizing it was in the wrong article but I wanted to say I appreciate the response. I’m a decent writer (which is why I think I should probably get around to applying to 0xide) but finding time to blog with a full time job and a kid is hard. Not that that’s an excuse.

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

#206

Post by ramesh31 »

More and more I am starting to understand that making money with software really has nothing to do with quality. It's about checking boxes. Enterprise SSO? Check. Auditing? Check. Does it "kinda" do the thing as advertised? Sort of, poorly, and slower than many free open source offerings. Oh, and also the company is in talks for an acquisition, so the entire engineering team is just drawing up plans for their vacation homes and picking out their BMWs at this point, while the product rots. Doesn't matter, here's your eight figure contract so we can tell the SLT we did a thing. By the time enough people have had to deal with it to get rid of it, all the decision makers will have moved on to something else.

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

#207

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

uxp100 wrote: post #9
harrisrobin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Israel’s grip on DC’s balls is far too strong I more or less agree. > We’re literally an occupied nation The language of the US under occupation is a neonazi talking point, ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government) being a phrase neonazi morons like. Maybe a coincidence.

I don't like the association any more than you, but what's the greater threat to the United States, the capture of its congress, administration and intelligence community by a foreign power, or a ragtag group of politically and culturally irrelevant LARPers?

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

#208

Post by colanderman »

ceejayoz wrote: post #190
colanderman wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not part of Signal's security model, but trusting people in that chat very much can and should be part of the user's security model. If you don't trust them, why are they in the chat in the first place?

> If you don't trust them, why are they in the chat in the first place? Journalist? Taliban negotiator? Ex-wife?

You are conflating "trust in all ways" with "trust to receive the communications in the specific chat they are party to". The former is not relevant.

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

#209

Post by pmontra »

grishka wrote: post #102
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?

Any client-side limitations are not part of the security model because you don't control other people's devices. Even with an unmodified app, they're trivially bypassed using a rooted/jailbroken device.

Or with the more affordable (in terms of skills) method of using another phone to take pictures of key messages on the screen of the first one.

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

#210

Post by like_any_other »

woodruffw wrote: post #201
like_any_other wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it's that big: USG procures defense and intelligence tech more or less constantly from Israel. It's unlikely that Israel would threaten that relationship (and the value they extract from it in terms of favorable relations) in exchange for military intelligence that's already shared with them. Correct - they would not use that intelligence to threaten that relationship, but to maintain it. Knowing the…

The over/under there doesn't make sense: the US hasn't had a meaningfully hostile-to-Israel policy ever , so pervasively tapping some of the most sensitive USG communications would be a stunning risk to take with a very safe ally. (It also beggars belief in the current climate -- I would be hard-pressed to name a single member of the current administration who hasn't yelled until purple in the face about their suppor…

You might think so, but they didn't face any backlash for buying politicians [1,2] and bragging about it [3], so why would they worry? You also assume that the US is a "very safe ally" naturally, and not as a consequence of means such as these.

[1] After House Speaker Mike Johnson Pushed Through Israel Aid Package, AIPAC Cash Came Flowing In - https://theintercept.com/2024/01/20/israel-aipac-house-mike-...

[2] The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy - https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/israel-lobby-and-us...

[3] More than 95% of AIPAC-backed candidates won their election last night! Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics! - https://x.com/AIPAC/status/1590362232915132417

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