Linus Larsson about signal and the Trump Administration’s leak
The communication app Signal is a phenomenal creation. Thanks to very good encryption, it is used by journalists, oppositionists in dictatorships and then some time Even by the Swedish Armed Forces.
The gloss you need to understand why is total stretch crying, end-to-end enCryption in English. This means that the chat message I write in my mobile is encrypted with me and kept secret and unreadable until it lands on the recipient’s mobile.
Who handles that plays, at least in theory, no matter. Not even the one who owns the chat service (signal is run by a foundation) can unlock encryption and spy.
Signal is a secure app. But not idiot safe. Thus – not sure against idiotic use. Because if, as the Trump administration has now done, you happen to add an outsider to your group and for some unfathomable reason do not discover it before you start talking about plans to bomb Yemen, well then no encryption in the world plays any role.
It’s a tough Insight those who work with IT security sooner or later reach. Sure, please be sure to have the world’s best technical security, but human cushion is more difficult to protect yourself.
Of course, it would have been wrong to use a signal to talk about war plans even if they did not happen to add a journalist to the group. It has good security, worth trusting in many contexts, but nothing is 100 percent. It was confirmed when the Armed Forces signal to its official app: it may be used for communication with lower privacy class, think staff confidentiality and the like. But not for secrets that have defense confidentiality.
A weak link is Also the mobiles. Was the usual private iPhone or Android mobiles that vice president JD Vance and the others used? In that case, the risk is imminent that they were hacked and could be intercepted. It is no easy thing to hack an iPhone with all the latest security updates, but when you are subject to espionage of states such as China, Iran and Russia, you can expect them to do it.
Of course, there are official communication paths for political and military peaks in Washington DC to discuss the most sensitive plans.
They have high security. But also the advantage that you do not happen to add an unauthorized in your chat group, no matter how thick sausage fingers you fumble on the screen with.
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