Just remember, no matter what way they spin this, they chose to ignore national security protocols and went out of their way to use an unsecure messaging app. That's the real story. The witch hunt they're undoubtedly going to go on is a perfect opportunity to redirect the public, save face, and further erode our freedoms.
You know, SOP for the whole Trump regime...
Actually, I'm more surprised people continue to believe the 'end to end' claims of these companies.
Signal makes it believable by providing source code and reproducible builds. It doesn't rule out the possibility that they've done something clever with the random number generator, or have the app store you use give you a compromised app, or provide any protection against endpoint compromise, but it's about as good as you can get.
Third party apps derived from theirs, which explicitly promise to log all your messages to a server somewhere, like TeleMessage, are, for obvious reasons, far less trustworthy.
Question: how can they even claim it’s e2ee if they also claim to log all the messages? Or is the claim that they log the messages in encrypted form? In which case any client(s) with the only copy of the keys could delete them, making the logs useless.
how can they even claim it’s e2ee if they also claim to log all the messages?
Who are the various "they"s in that question?
Signal claims that if you use the Signal app, it's end-to-end encrypted. The Trump admin was using an unofficial Signal-compatible app TM SGNL which probably didn't make those claims. And, Signal definitely never claimed that TM SGNL was end-to-end encrypted. In fact, it's likely TeleMessage violated the copyrights and trademarks belonging to Signal with their app.
But, in the end, the messages were still technically end-to-end encrypted. It's just that as soon as the messages arrived at one of those ends, they were sent to TeleMessage who archived them unencrypted in AWS. It's still end-to-end encrypted, it's just that one of those ends is incredibly leaky.
unencrypted in AWS
oh... mygod.
Yeah. The level of incompetence is impressive. Full data and metadata for all customers all dumped together in one datastore, stored in the clear in AWS.
"The data includes apparent message contents; the names and contact information for government officials; usernames and passwords for TeleMessage’s backend panel; and indications of what agencies and companies might be TeleMessage customers."
...
"The server that the hacker compromised is hosted on Amazon AWS’s cloud infrastructure in Northern Virginia."
...
"“If I could have found this in less than 30 minutes then anybody else could too. And who knows how long it’s been vulnerable?” the hacker said. "
Even with e2e security there is 2 e's that can get compromised, their use of a altered version of the app on one end is enough to cancel out the whole encryption part it, also on the other end.
But in this case it's like they have a lock for their garage door that is different from the lock on their car so they can't steal the car when somebody steals the key to the garage door, but then think they can leave the keys in the lock because there is a lock (encryption) on the doors.
Also, the reason we know about it is because Mike Waltz invited a journalist to a group chat.
Wow. It's almost like there is a reason that all those annoying OPSEC procedures exist.
We have forked off from the darkest timeline into its stupidest.
I like that your optimism separated the two
For now, until they pull request it back to the dark timeline
Changes Requested
Let's put them back together:
"Like Idiocracy, only less fun"
Well it's a fork. So it's technically got all of the darkest timeline up to the point they added the extreme stupidity patch.
There will be a merge PR soon enough.
Daily reminder that end to end encryption only works when both ends are secure
Does that include making sure the people using it are not morons
Also reminder, the greatest security vulnerability in every peice of software is the end user
Me(deadpan) : Wow, that is surprising.
You just have to assume that china and the blyats have all our shit.
That was a given when he kept boxes of top secret material in his bathroom.
Or when he was showing off docs at mar-a-fucko parties.
Hopefully someone releases all their messages to throw more shit in their faces. Overwhelm them with bullshit just like they did to everything
Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool…
So release the messages. Not that it matters what they said, absolutely nothing will happen except clicks for whoever reports on it.
Wait they were using an unpublished fork of Signal?
No. It's a wrapper around Signal that sends everything into a corporate cloud. The Isaraeli miltary/defense/espionage whatever have been using this, then sold it to a US company. I'm guessing the company provides wrappers around other apps as well.
It completely defeats the purpose of E2EE. I'm sure somebody told our oh-so-competent US government that's exactly what they need.
Like, it's actually worse than SignalGate.
Goverment officials are required to archive all communications, so it doesn't defeat the purposes of E2EE because you can't have full E2EE to start with. If it was propely implemented and didn't get hacked it would be fine. Tho I guess implementation wise if it really sends all the data to a corporate instead of government cloud that's a problem as well.
If it was propely implemented and didn’t get hacked
If it was properly researched and approved by DoD and used on authorized, secure devices which were running on secured networks, it would be fine.
The baseline for security has been pretty decent for years. It's painfully restrictive which is why they're chomping at the bit to make it easier, but just slamming a corporate product into use with secret data with no oversight has never been fine even if it was secure.
So basically, they hacked themselves out of any benefit Signal was giving them, and then an external party finished the hack.
They do provide wrappers for other apps too, I forget the name of the company but they provide them for WhatsApp, Telegram, and others.
These goddamned idiots are going to get at least one supercarrier sunk. At least one.
You can be horrified by the lack of security and its implications, or you can rejoice in the rampant stupidity that will be on display when the leaks begin.
Emojis, ALL CAPS, general cluelessness, the JD Vance “I don’t know about this, but whatever” comments.
Who could have seen this coming /s
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Any copy of the article that doesn't want my personal info?
Release em!
Shockingly comes days after the leak that the service is being used by the dork team. Someone really really really wants to get these backups.
Funny how the USA went nuts and strong-armed other Western nations to outright ban Chinese hardware and companies due to "security concerns." Yet allowed using a fork of Signal from a foreign nation, and those concerns were nowhere to be found. IOF is already known to be on par (if not better) with the USA in spying on and creating false flags globally. Yet the highest office chose to use it anyway. Which is beyond stupid given that a fork could have been made and ran by a USA company (or the NSA or whichever three letter agency) specifically for the same use. Hell those agencies already are and have been heavily funding the Signal Foundation.
Ha ha
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