Signal gate is worse than we thought

Privacy and Security News
1

Mike Waltz (and probably other U.S. government officials) are using a closed-source and publicly unavailable fork of Signal, which violates the copyleft license. It sends all plaintext messages to an insecure server. And it is developed by an Israeli company with connections to Israel Defense Forces’ Intelligence.

Summarized by myself.

Below are my thoughts and opinions. What do you think?

  1. This is very problematic for U.S. security, since access to classified messages is very poorly secured.
  2. Violating Signal’s copyleft license is illegal, but I doubt there will be any consequences.
  3. I wonder if the U.S. government is using similar forks for WhatsApp or Telegram.
  4. I hope this will be a lesson for all.

Check out Micah Lee’s other articles.
Fun fact: Micah Lee created OnionShare.

Update:
(1) The archive has been hacked.
(3) The U.S. government has been using similiar forks for WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat.

3 Likes
2

Not only is this extremely dangerous because any of their personal devices are most certainly compromised, it is also illegal. When the entire administration is using a self deleting communications channel they are all violating the Presidential Records Act.

2 Likes
4

Is that a problem? Also, I don’t think you know who this person is. Please read up more on him. I don’t see a problem with his work and he is a reputable writer in the industry.

7 Likes
5

As the article pointed out you kinda can only get TM SGNL if your device is enrolled in an MDM, which means they are not personal devices, they might use them as personal devices but thats a different problem

Isn’t that kind of the point behind TM SGNL? It archives all the messeges

3 Likes
6

What I’m amazed is beside their utter incompetence, a willful and knowing bypassing of procedures and hiding of evidence and communication. In any democracy that has any accountabilty all involved would be sacked, but apparently the circus goes on.

1 Like
7

Update: the source code has been found.

The source code contains hardcoded credentials and other vulnerabilities.

1 Like
8

Yikes on a stick.

An archiving app developed by “former” Israeli intelligence officers?

That is a bad idea squared.

1 Like
9

Given your profession, we both know in our heart of hearts it has to be someone from Mossad if it’s Israel. This is beyond dangerous indeed.

1 Like
10

I try not to get into politics much on this forum, but holy shit. This might be the first recorded case of a person with negative IQ. And these people run the US government!

I wish all US citizens good luck.

Fortunately I live in a sensible country, where a thing like that would not happen absolutely ever, ever.

11

Yeah, me too, to be honest…

1 Like
12

No country is perfect so I’m curious which sensible country you live?

13

The U.S. also used to be a country where this was unthinkable.

Be vigilant.

1 Like
14

And right on cue, TeleMessage has been hacked. The compromise includes customer chat archives

3 Likes
15

This made me laugh out loud. Thanks for sharing.

Of course this was going to happen as soon as the world learned of it.

Tsk tsk. The incompetence of these people never ceases to amaze me.

2 Likes
16

I hope this news will permanently cancel Recall on Copilot+ PCs, since taking screenshots of all Signal messages (and other sensitive data) is eerily similar.

1 Like
17

Russia. It was sarcasm

3 Likes
18

lol :joy: