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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

#81

Post by bayarearefugee »

LWIRVoltage wrote: post #53

From people on Reddit: Something that blows my mind- but is fully true "Hell, I've been in fucking EVE Online alliances that had better opsec than this." "I'll raise you one: I've never been in any EVE alliance that didn't have better opsec than this." ..I noted Board Games(Secret Hitler, for example) require better opsec. So do card games- it's mindblowing to note this too... [Main comment by me - technical outlook]…

Even if we are generous and assume Signal's protocols and entire communication infrastructure are 100% safe and cannot be compromised, any one single person in the group chat using Signal on a compromised device invalidates all of that.

The fact that Signal was used is less concerning to me personally than the fact that they had this group chat outside of the overall safety umbrella of fully end-to-end vetted systems.

Though the use of Signal is still concerning in that any official system they would otherwise use would have (one would hope) made it far harder if not impossible to accidentally leak the conversation to a random third party.

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

#82

Post by anigbrowl »

lapcat wrote: post #27

> Waltz set some of the messages in the Signal group to disappear after one week, and some after four. That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law: Text messages about official acts are considered records that should be preserved. I suspect that this was the point of their using Signal, to avoid preservation of records.

SO much for 'the most transparent administration in history', not that I bought into that claim in the first place. Seems like a violation of multiple public record-keeping laws.

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

#83

Post by asdff »

belter wrote: post #28
danso wrote: post #11

Staggering display of incompetence and carelessness. And unfortunately, one that we’re unlikely to get much transparency about, in terms of how such an operational screwup was allowed to happen. > At 11:44 a.m., the account labeled “Pete Hegseth” posted in Signal a “TEAM UPDATE.” I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an a…

Is this worst than using Top Secret documents as toilet paper? https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/06/FyM1h-C...

I never realized before with this photo, but space was actually made to still use the toilet sitting in that room with the tower of boxes 6 inches from your face. Straight out of a comedy sketch, almost too perfectly staged with the gaudy lights, stool colored formica, and $2 walmart shower curtain with the pressure fit rod right into the plaster. A shame for all of us that the photo came out of real life and not satire.

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

#84

Post by asdff »

tptacek wrote: post #37
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe your statement is accurate. [Edit: I interpreted "curated manually" to mean that dang picks each story that is on the front page. tptacek interpreted it to mean that, since users upvote and comment on stories, that's "manual curation". I interpret that as being "automatic curation", that is, an algorithm picks the front page stories, even though it's based on users' upvotes and comments. I cannot prov…

It is (it's a combination of manual and community inputs) but almost certainly the reason this isn't on the front page is that lots of people flag stories about the Trump administration. I didn't flag this one (it's too juicy, and has a Signal connection) but I flag most of the other ones.

Why flag any and not just see what the community engages with? You don't have to participate in threads about subjects you aren't interested in, you know. And the expectation that this is somehow taking time from the community who would otherwise be engaging in threads you are more interested in yourself, is a little, well, self centered to me.

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

#85

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #62
tptacek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm pretty sure this is actually about shipping lanes and freedom of navigation. Israel doesn't need the help. If you read the story, one of their concerns is that if they don't act, Israel was going to instead.

So no, then it clearly wasn't about shipping lanes and freedom of navigation but just about taking the credit. After all if Israel was going to do it instead it could simply be solved by waiting a little bit. These guys are super transactional and they were afraid they missed the moment that would allow them to take credit and use it as coin for exchange.

I'm not interested in litigating Israel with you, sorry.

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

#86

Post by anigbrowl »

Balgair wrote: post #77

If anything, I'm a bit surprised that Jeff Goldberg burned this source. If anything, I'd suspect that he'd keep the channel open as long as he could. Or, he's got other channels that work better. All the same, I mean, wow. These guys are just morons here, there's really no other way around it. I'm trying to think of a charitable way to spin this and I've got nothing. Like, very clearly, these people are going to get…

My theory is that he had to balance the journalistic scoop of the century with the risk of being arrested for illegally accessing/storing classified information. If they had noticed before he published the story then he could have been vanned and the public told that he had infiltrated a secure channel, and who would be able to say otherwise? MAGA people would cheerfully call for his execution.

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

#88

Post by mostafah »

Balgair wrote: post #77

If anything, I'm a bit surprised that Jeff Goldberg burned this source. If anything, I'd suspect that he'd keep the channel open as long as he could. Or, he's got other channels that work better. All the same, I mean, wow. These guys are just morons here, there's really no other way around it. I'm trying to think of a charitable way to spin this and I've got nothing. Like, very clearly, these people are going to get…

My guess is that he was consulting their lawyers during this. IANAL but it might have been a crime if he did not leave the group as soon as he was sure it was real. He keeps mentioning that he was not certain this is real until the first attacks. After the first attack, he could not continue this argument.

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

#89

Post by bayarearefugee »

Balgair wrote: post #77

If anything, I'm a bit surprised that Jeff Goldberg burned this source. If anything, I'd suspect that he'd keep the channel open as long as he could. Or, he's got other channels that work better. All the same, I mean, wow. These guys are just morons here, there's really no other way around it. I'm trying to think of a charitable way to spin this and I've got nothing. Like, very clearly, these people are going to get…

He was probably worried about the legal ramifications of not doing so, though these days he may be more likely to get sent off to some El Salvadoran prison for writing the article and exposing their staggering incompetence than he would be for continuing to knowingly listen in on the chat.

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

#90

Post by hypeatei »

anigbrowl wrote: post #82
lapcat wrote: post #27

> Waltz set some of the messages in the Signal group to disappear after one week, and some after four. That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law: Text messages about official acts are considered records that should be preserved. I suspect that this was the point of their using Signal, to avoid preservation of records.

SO much for 'the most transparent administration in history', not that I bought into that claim in the first place. Seems like a violation of multiple public record-keeping laws.

You can already guess what consequences they're going to face: none.
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