[HN Gopher] Waltz's team set up at least 20 Signal group chats f...
___________________________________________________________________
Waltz's team set up at least 20 Signal group chats for crises
across the world
Author : mdhb
Score : 240 points
Date : 2025-04-02 19:09 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.politico.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.politico.com)
| palata wrote:
| > Hughes said. "Any claim of use for classified information is
| 100 percent untrue."
|
| It's great to be able to say "Signal has never, _EVER_ been used
| for classified information " in a context where classified
| information discussed on Signal has just been leaked.
| mindslight wrote:
| It's the first line of the thirty-three dog whistle defense.
| The followers accept that answer as King Krasnov having simply
| declared that any such information isn't classified, just like
| he did for those boxes of files exfiltrated to his bathroom-
| turned-guest-library. It's the adult version of a kid going
| "I'm not hitting my brother I'm just swinging my arms and
| walking forward". And then of course if the courts actually
| start to disagree, the neofascists ramp up the threats for
| stochastic violence.
| palata wrote:
| > It's the adult version of a kid going "I'm not hitting my
| brother I'm just swinging my arms and walking forward".
|
| I always say that adults are kids who don't have the
| supervision anymore.
|
| When a kid says "2 + 2 = 5" you can say "well you always fail
| your math exams, you obviously can't be trusted with that".
| When an adult says it... it becomes a "belief" and we
| "respectfully agree to disagree".
| krashidov wrote:
| The logic is that since they are the bosses they can dictate
| what is classified and what is not. So something is classified
| until it's mishandled, at which point it's not classified,
| therefore it's not mishandled. lol.
| AzzyHN wrote:
| Trump has maintained he has the power to declassify things with
| his mind alone, so I'm sure this is entirely true. Whatever
| they were talking about, bam, it's no longer classified.
|
| At least they're using Signal, I guess. Can you imagine if this
| leaked and they were using something like Telegram!?
| palata wrote:
| > Can you imagine if this leaked and they were using
| something like Telegram!?
|
| That would be a lot more fun :-).
|
| But I'm happy it's Signal: they apparently got a ton of
| downloads from all the attention and they deserve it.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Two of the people said they were in or have direct knowledge of
| at least 20 such chats. All four said they saw instances of
| sensitive information being discussed.
|
| Are they adding just everybody under the sun in these chats or
| only those who think wouldn't be traitors? For example I can
| understand _one_ snitch being added by mistake. But _four_
| snitches?
|
| That's a lot of snitches in my book.
| acidmath wrote:
| > All four were granted anonymity because they were not
| authorized to publicly discuss the private chats.
|
| Anyone with access to NSA plus various subcontractors' toolsets
| can "unmask" these people in like five minutes. Musk may not be
| "tech genius" some of the media makes him out to be, but he knows
| enough about how the internet and computers work (or has advisors
| who do) to figure that out.
| skybrian wrote:
| I'm doubtful because the government leaks like a sieve. Maybe
| it's not that easy?
| bsimpson wrote:
| One nice side effect of Signal's importance for
| governmental/military use is that it helps keep it free for
| civilian use. They can't mandate a backdoor for something other
| parts of the government rely on to be secure.
|
| I once heard a great anecdote to that effect, and to my
| embarrassment I can't recall the details to repeat here.
|
| (And yes, I understand that there are limits on what is
| appropriate to share with civilian hardware on a civilian
| network, but the truth stands that part of the reason there's not
| a push to breach encryption in the US like there is in the UK is
| because Signal is relied upon even by the government when they
| need a private channel on civilian hardware.)
| deelowe wrote:
| > They can't mandate a backdoor for something other parts of
| the government rely on to be secure.
|
| Why not? It wouldn't be difficult to have a backdoor in the
| civilian use-case that's disabled for government use.
| richardw wrote:
| Now the task of an adversary is to simply enable the backdoor
| rather than create it from scratch. The people using Signal
| for this are doing it on their own devices, so now you have
| multiple problems.
|
| Eg how to get non technical people to know when they're using
| the civilian version.
|
| Alternative crazy universe: Just use the tech that was
| created for the government and does all the right things.
| moshun wrote:
| But then you're required to archive the discussions for the
| public to access. That's much worse for these people than
| foreign agents (and journalists apparently) listening in
| and taking notes.
| simonh wrote:
| A major reason for these people using Signal is specifically
| to avoid government access to records of these chats. In
| particular access by future administrations, or current or
| near future judicial or congressional investigations.
| leptons wrote:
| Sorry, but no, there is no good thing to come from government
| using Signal. With its auto-deleting messages, that makes it
| _illegal_ for government employees to use, and destroys
| transparency.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I believe that's true for employees of the executive branch.
|
| Is it true for the other two?
| quantified wrote:
| The president can pardon anyone.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Well, that's not strictly true. The president can't
| pardon people for convictions by state courts, for
| instance. Nor can the president issue pardons for
| presidential impeachments.
|
| It's not clear that a president can pardon himself,
| either, but that's not been tested in court so who knows?
| oniony wrote:
| Illegal has no meaning for people who can pardon themselves
| and each other.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| If anything having his appointees commit lots of public
| crimes is great for Trump because his pardon power then
| gives them a powerful incentive to please him personally.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Auto-deleting messages are not necessarily auto-illegal.
| Voice conversations are also auto-deleting but obviously
| they're common among government employees.
|
| Officials are required to document decisions in an archival
| way. If they fail to do that, it is arguable that their
| failure to follow the law is the problem, not the messaging
| technology.
|
| I think it is in everyone's interest to resist the assumption
| that chat and text messaging is intended to be a permanent
| record--even for govt officials.
| kelipso wrote:
| > They can't mandate a backdoor for something other parts of
| the government rely on to be secure.
|
| This is a strong assumption.. A government is a collection of
| people. While there might not exactly be warring factions in
| the US government, there are certainly numerous agencies and
| organizations that operate under varying degrees of
| independence.
| walterbell wrote:
| News reports would be much clearer if each faction had a
| medieval crest, logo, or even UUID.
| Yoric wrote:
| Give them a NFT.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Even more sinister is the false hope bias. The Signal app can
| be used as a honeypot to plant a pseudo-secure messenger, a
| sophisticated device around a backdoor, or even a trojan-like
| capability.
|
| The Tor network was deemed the culprit of anonymity and
| secure connections not long ago. We all know how it went.
| jerheinze wrote:
| > The Signal app can be used as a honeypot to plant a
| pseudo-secure messenger
|
| Given its open source nature that would be exceedingly
| difficult.
|
| > The Tor network was deemed the culprit of anonymity and
| secure connections not long ago. We all know how it went.
|
| What are you talking about? Tor is still the uncontested
| king of low-latency anonymity networks.
| arccy wrote:
| is it really open source when you have to use the binary
| builds from signal through the app stores? it could be
| like the xz attack: clean source, bad binaries.
| jerheinze wrote:
| https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Lol. No.
|
| BlackBerry was in the same position, and it was absolutely
| backdoored from a crypto perspective. The FBI doesn't cry about
| iPhones anymore, so they've likely (along with other entities)
| identified alternate methods to access communications.
|
| The use of these sorts of actions are about avoiding
| accountability, not security. Again, BlackBerry is the exemplar
| -- PIN messaging was tied to a device, not a user. People 20
| years ago were doing these signal chats with BlackBerry
| devices, swapping them around physically to build these groups.
|
| Even then, people in these positions of power weren't as
| reckless and incompetent. In addition to the reporter, one of
| the participants was on a civilian phone in _Russia_. The FSB
| or whomever does their signals intelligence got a real-time
| feed of intelligence, military operations, etc. The American
| pilots were put at risk, and Israeli spies were burned.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| > The FBI doesn't cry about iPhones
|
| Is there any evidence that iPhones have some security exploit
| that Apple + Three letter agencies can use?
| walterbell wrote:
| Have you looked at the list of security issues fixed by
| Apple? They contain multiple zero-day exploits found in the
| wild.
|
| This week's releases: 100+ security issues of varying
| severity fixed in macOS, 50+ issues fixed in iOS.
|
| Citizen Lab has some reports on exploits.
| redeux wrote:
| > so they've likely (along with other entities) identified
| alternate methods to access communications.
|
| > Is there any evidence that iPhones have some security
| exploit that Apple + Three letter agencies can use?
|
| GP never made that claim.
| walterbell wrote:
| Does anyone remember which US gov entity funded Signal and
| Open Whisper Systems?
|
| Signal chairman is ex-CEO of Wikipedia.
|
| Signal CEO estimated annual costs at $50MM.
| yongjik wrote:
| Eh.... you think government officers who fat-clicked a
| journalist into a top secret discussion would care about
| whether some other three-letter agency has access to a backdoor
| in Signal?
|
| For all we know, whoever US agent who was responsible for
| handling these potential "backdoors" is already laid off and is
| available for pickup by foreign governments with the right
| payment.
| burn000burn wrote:
| you believe that fat clicker story? consider this: what if
| they wanted to leak, they wanted to leak to someone that the
| bombings were going to put in immediate danger, and they
| added the journalist just in case the leak got exposed?
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| Doesn't pass the smell test for me. The most obvious answer
| is probably the correct one and IMO the most obvious
| situation would be:
|
| Jeffrey Goldberg's number was absolutely in Mike Waltz'
| phone because Mike Waltz was one of his sources.
|
| Mike Waltz accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat
| either due to a misclick or (more likely, IMO) being dumb
| enough to use a conflicting contact id label for multiple
| people and being careless when forming the list.
|
| Not being able to admit to being a Goldberg source for
| political reasons, he (Waltz) made up some insane story
| about the number being 'sucked into his phone' and having
| never talked to Goldberg.
|
| Additionally, I'd assume (based on being the most obvious
| solution) that Trump et al fully realize Waltz was both
| responsible for this screwup and would like to fire him for
| it but view firing him as giving "the libs" a win and have
| stubbornly kept him on despite not really wanting to (less
| because of his screwup and more because of who he
| accidentally added).
| jiggawatts wrote:
| This is the most likely explanation. To add to this: They
| will fire him, but in a few months time for "unrelated
| reasons" such as "unsatisfactory job performance" or
| whatever.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| To me it seems most likely that Goldberg was in Waltz's
| contacts phone app, but Waltz did not realize that the
| Signal phone app ingests all your contacts when you
| install it and log in.
|
| It's incredibly common for senior officials and senior
| journalists in DC to have each other as contacts. DC runs
| on relationships and people reflexively hang onto any
| phone number or email they perceive as valuable.
|
| And it seemed weird (to me at least) that such a privacy-
| focused messaging app would just "suck in" all my
| contacts the first time I turned it on. I can believe
| that other people would not realize this happens. And
| thus not be vigilant about inscrutable usernames like
| "JG" that might be duplicated.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Waltz was Congressman from Florida before National
| Security Advisor, and it makes sense that he would have
| contact info for The Atlantic editor-in-chief.
| codedokode wrote:
| > phone because Mike Waltz was one of his sources
|
| But the article throws Waltz under the bus; I don't think
| this is how you treat your precious sources. So
| Goldberg's number must have been there for some other
| reason - for example, maybe it was sent with an interview
| request.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| The story should have ended Waltz's career, at which
| point he would have been a zero-value source going
| forward. The story was far more valuable than the current
| value of the source, and the future value approached zero
| assuming someone else broke the story before the
| Atlantic. Reasonable calculus.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I took a look at the Signal group creation UI when this
| story came out.
|
| Not only does Signal suggest contacts, but it also
| suggests people you're in mutual groups with. Even if
| Waltz didn't have the Atlantic's JG as a contact, it's
| possible that they were both added to some group, and
| that Waltz accidentally picked JG-the-journalist when
| creating his Houthi raid one.
| curt15 wrote:
| >Additionally, I'd assume (based on being the most
| obvious solution) that Trump et al fully realize Waltz
| was both responsible for this screwup and would like to
| fire him for it
|
| What did Hegseth mean by "We're clean on OPSEC"? Who was
| assuming responsiblity for the security of their
| communications?
| anxoo wrote:
| i mean... you're saying if signal weren't secure, trump's clown
| cabinet would stop using it? the guy who kept boxes of top
| secret documents in a bathroom at mar-a-lago? you don't think
| they'd just use SMS or facebook messenger or anything if using
| signal was a slight inconvenience?
| alp1n3_eth wrote:
| You'd be surprised how much the government would potentially
| hurt itself in its own confusion. Not all parts of it are
| aligned to the same beliefs / mission, and there are certainly
| parts that believe in the saying "Why are you worried if you
| have nothing to hide".
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| There was a rather interesting criticism of the recent wide-
| ranging cuts to USAID that basically said it wasn't unlikely
| that some of that USAID money was being used in clandestine
| intelligence operations (supporting the tribe of this warlord
| or that, paying someone off, rewarding allegiances, whatever)
| that DOGE and perhaps even most at USAID would never, ever be
| cleared to know about. With the inability to prevent those
| aid packages from being cut without also blowing their
| operations, the intelligence community would just have to sit
| and watch it happen.
|
| I of course have no way of knowing if that's true or not, or
| if it is what damage may have been done, but it's interesting
| to consider.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I don't claim to be an expert, nor to be able to speak
| credibly on the interactions of the millions of people in
| government.
|
| I just remember hearing an anecdote from a friend with ties
| to Signal that some part of the government wanted to
| recommend it and another part slapped their hand because they
| didn't want to encourage people to use technology that law
| enforcement can't breach.
|
| Even though I just use it for casual conversations with
| friends, that gave me some extra confidence in using it.
| overfeed wrote:
| > They can't mandate a backdoor for something other parts of
| the government rely on to be secure
|
| Has the NSA moved on from the NOBUS ("NObody But US") doctrine?
| Empirically, they have been more than happy to keep any
| vulnerability (or backdoor) available if they believe only they
| can exploit it.
| almosthere wrote:
| sounds like an employee of signal
| chatmasta wrote:
| The CIA director - excessively biased as he may be - testified
| last week that Signal is a CIA-approved application that was
| preloaded onto the device he was issued on his first day. He said
| this practice extends back to at least the Biden Administration.
|
| Given this, and _assuming_ it's true, I wonder to what degree a
| controversy can be predicated on usage of an approved application
| on an approved Government device. I'm sure there is plenty to
| nitpick around the edges ("classified vs. top secret," "managed
| device vs. personal device," "expiring messages," etc.), but the
| fundamental transgression cannot be "using Signal."
|
| More importantly, I just don't think people _care_ -- beyond
| pearl-clutching, tribal narratives and palace intrigue -- about
| the safety of "classified data." And the sad part is that it's
| obfuscating the real story, which is the federal government's
| seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Yemeni residences in an
| attempt to execute a mildly infamous terrorist. It's the banal
| tone with which the government officials discuss it - like it's a
| new product launch or a weekly check-in meeting - that we should
| find disturbing. Nobody cares about the communication medium; if
| anything, we should wish for _more_ transparency and visibility
| into discussions like this...
|
| (Also, it's quite an endorsement of Signal.)
| gkolli wrote:
| I'd say the 'nitpicking around the edges' is actually
| incredibly important, but as you also said, people don't care.
| Yes, all the attention is on the use of Signal, and not the
| bombing/killing innocent Yemenis to score some political
| points.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| The bombing/killing of innocent Yemenis can't be politicized
| because everyone agrees with it, nobody can score political
| points from it if everyone is in agreement.
| diffxx wrote:
| Yes, though don't forget about the incompetence of adding the
| wrong person to the chat which goes part and parcel with the
| embarrassingly superficial/cynical discourse.
| chatmasta wrote:
| I still can't believe this. It's just so comically absurd,
| like it's straight out of the plot of _Veep_. Of all the
| people to add to the group chat, you add your most vocal
| critic with the largest megaphone?
|
| There are a few possible explanations:
|
| - _"It was intentional."_ This doesn't pass the smell test
| and it's not clear who benefits.
|
| - _"It was a setup."_ I suppose this is possible, if the
| Intelligence Community is preloading the application onto the
| devices in question.
|
| - _"It was an accident."_ In some ways this is the most
| believable and unbelievable. What are the chances that you
| just happen to add Jeff Goldberg to the chat?! Which leads to
| the final possibility...
|
| - _"It was an accident, and not the first time."_ We just
| heard about it this time because Goldberg was the one
| included. This would explain the astounding coincidence,
| because it changes "the one time they messed up was in front
| of the editor of _The Atlantic_ " to " _this_ time they
| messed up was in front of the editor of _The Atlantic_."
|
| If they did it once, what are the chances the most vocal
| recipient was the first example of the mistake?
|
| I'm sure we can count on an extensive audit of the
| participants in these 20+ other chats......
| notahacker wrote:
| > More importantly, I just don't think people care -- beyond
| pearl-clutching, tribal narratives and palace intrigue -- about
| the safety of "classified data
|
| This doesn't actually contradict your point about tribal
| narratives, but it's not that long ago that data misuse was an
| election-defining narrative involving FBI investigations and
| crowds chanting "lock her up"...
| afavour wrote:
| I agree that a lot of people don't care. But the government
| installs secure rooms (SCIFs) in various locations for the safe
| discussion of classified material:
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/news/scif-inside-high-security-rooms-2...
|
| Just because Signal comes preinstalled on devices doesn't
| automatically mean it's intended for discussion of classified
| material.
| hypeatei wrote:
| Exactly, Signal should be used for "official" things like
| scheduling lunch with colleagues. I don't think it's proper
| (and potentially illegal) to be planning the things they did
| on there. It's too easy to screw up which is why the public
| knows about it now; you're not able to easily invite third
| parties into a SCIF.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Scheduling lunch is a great example. It's the kind of low-
| grade information which would be marginally beneficial to
| adversaries (who might arrange to, say, bug a restaurant if
| they knew VIPs would be meeting there), so it's worth
| hiding, but it's not really of public interest so doesn't
| need to be recorded durably. And the downside of leaking
| impending lunch plans to a journalist, one time, by
| accident, is likely inconsequential compared to, say,
| leaking impending military attack plans to a journalist,
| one time, by accident.
| mdhb wrote:
| Signal does not come preinstalled on devices for them. He
| lied about that.
| lunarlull wrote:
| Can you cite something to corroborate that claim?
| mdhb wrote:
| https://www.scribd.com/document/843124910/NSA-full
|
| It's not even approved for unclassified information
| that's used in an official capacity.
| djeastm wrote:
| I'd have liked to see the CIA Director cite something to
| corroborate HIS claim.
|
| The Biden Administration strongly denies his claim.
|
| >Former Biden officials, though, said that Signal was
| never permitted on their government phones.
|
| "We were not allowed to have any messaging apps on our
| work phones," said one former top national security
| official on the condition of anonymity. "And under no
| circumstances were unclassified messaging apps allowed to
| be used for transmission of classified material. This is
| misdirection at its worst."
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-war-plans-signal-
| biden_...
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| There's a lot here, and it's more complicated then "the
| government should never use Signal".
|
| First off, I 100% agree that the bombing of civilian buildings
| in Yemen should be a bigger controversy. I don't really have
| anything to add to that, I just agree that it's important.
|
| There are a lot of situations where it'd be acceptable for a
| government employee to us Signal, even to communicate
| potentially sensitive data. There are a lot of times where
| someone with only phone access may need to communicate
| sensitive info, and Signal is a good tool for that. It's a hell
| of a lot better then text messages or Slack or whatever.
|
| The issue isn't Signal's security, it's the security of the
| phone it's installed onto. The phones of high-ranking
| government employees are a huge security weak point, and other
| countries know it. One has to imagine that Russia (or some
| other country) is trying very hard to hack into Pete Hegseth's
| phone. A lot of countries have invested huge amounts of money
| into developing hacking teams, and it should be assumed that
| any device with access to the broader internet is a potential
| target.
|
| That's why government devices that access high-security
| information have immensely high security requirements. From
| air-gapped networks, to only buying hardware from vetted
| vendors, to forbidding outside devices (like phones) from even
| being in the same room. This is a level of security that Signal
| can't provide, and is necessary when discussing things like
| military plans.
|
| Finally, the fact that someone accidentally added a journalist
| to this group and _no one_ said anything shows a frankly
| reckless attitude towards security. Someone should have double
| checked that everyone on the group was supposed to be there,
| and the fact that no one did is fucking embarrassing.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| You know what else comes preinstalled on phones? The phone,
| sms, and mail apps.
| mdhb wrote:
| That message is in 100% direct contradiction with literally
| every other piece of evidence to come out of the IC. I would
| put it to you that he lied under oath.
|
| Here's evidence in writing from NSA from earlier this year that
| makes it extremely clear that isn't the case:
| https://www.scribd.com/document/843124910/NSA-full
| lyu07282 wrote:
| > the real story, which is the federal government's seemingly
| indiscriminate bombing of Yemeni residences in an attempt to
| execute a mildly infamous terrorist
|
| also the story about how a natsec reporter just happens to be
| so intimately in contact with these officials that they
| accidentally add him to the group chat in the first place.
| There is no adversarial relationship between journalists and
| the state department, there never was, no matter who is in the
| white house. They just parrot whatever the US or allied nations
| are saying when it comes to foreign policy (that is the illegal
| invasion and murder of innocent civilians in foreign sovereign
| nations).
|
| The fact that they used signal and leaked some messages to a
| propagandist is a distant third, but everyone only cares about
| that, makes me sick. This is why the US is hated around the
| world, and nobody gives a shit about Trump outside the western
| bubble.
| internet_points wrote:
| Were they following Elon's advice?
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-two-word-tweet-send...
| :)
| ada1981 wrote:
| The reason for this is simply to avoid discovery / FOIA requests,
| since messages delete.
|
| Of courses it's illegal, but the entire administration is
| operating as a criminal enterprise / an extension of all previous
| administrations, but in a way the most impressive disregard for
| rule of law we've seen.
| ada1981 wrote:
| Burin' Karma to speak the truth here.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Any time you read anything having to do with this administration,
| remember:
|
| _The behavior will continue until an effective negative stimulus
| is given._
|
| Then immediately stop reading. The details don't matter at this
| point.
| jfengel wrote:
| It has to be a stimulus they feel as negative.
|
| Losing office is about the only unarguable one. Barring a coup,
| that isn't happening any time soon.
|
| Practically any other stimulus will be perceived as positive.
| delusional wrote:
| I think what the commenter says is more dire than that. Even
| after this administration, this is going to keep happening
| until a major event happens. It's not just about the ghouls
| in there now, it's about the ghouls that will follow.
| simonh wrote:
| A lot of people seem to think this is an anomaly, but they
| thought that about the first Trump term.
|
| Fundamentally Trump is a symptom. When he goes, all the
| voters that voted for him will still be there, and they'll
| still have all the reasons they voted for him.
| throwawaygmbno wrote:
| It is more dire than that. The south was basically
| completely forgiven for starting the civil war and
| fighting for slavery. Then as soon as they were given a
| little bit of leeway they enacted Jim Crow laws, began
| erecting statues of the losers of the Civil War, and
| started the KKK to drive out black people they could no
| longer use as slaves.
|
| Many of the people you see in films and photos furiously
| protesting the civil rights act, picketing with signs
| against MLK Jr, lynching people during that time, putting
| glass in the seats of children because the schools were
| forced to end segregation, etc are still alive. Trump was
| grown and had started college when the Civil Rights act
| passed.
|
| Its time to start just forgiving them because they never
| seem to forget.
| david422 wrote:
| > When he goes, all the voters that voted for him will
| still be there, and they'll still have all the reasons
| they voted for him.
|
| IMO this is a problem with the Democratic party not
| connecting with voters. Voters voting for Trump don't
| feel represented by Democrats, and that is something
| Democrats should be solving for.
| dralley wrote:
| It's many things, and that is certainly one of them.
|
| But a crazy percentage of voters thought the economy was
| literally in a recession. Not even that it was doing
| poorly, but that there was a recession. Some people just
| live in an alternate reality.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I agree partially. But there is a large part of the MAGA
| movement who hate anyone that is not a Christian White
| Straight male getting ahead. The Democrats will never get
| those people.
|
| The Democratic Party is not blameless. They are seen as
| being soft on immigration now. Obama deported more people
| than Trump.
|
| They forgot the lesson that allowed Bill Clinton to win -
| "It's the Economy Stupid".
|
| And no matter how you feel about it. There is a large
| part of the United States, even among the LGB crowd who
| don't want biological men in women's sports.
|
| DEI the way it is framed is toxic to millions and I as a
| Black guy rolled my eyes at much of the indoctrination
| and "ally" nonsense I had to endure during my stint at
| BigTech.
|
| No matter how you feel about this either, it takes a
| remarkable amount of lack of self awareness by the DNC
| not to know how toxic this attitude is to a large swath
| of American voters.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-
| mee...
|
| > _The rules specify that when we have a gender-nonbinary
| candidate or officer, the nonbinary individual is counted
| as neither male nor female, and the remaining six
| officers must be gender balanced_
| gopher_space wrote:
| Yes, but we've seen how easily they can be controlled by
| playing to their hatred.
| wat10000 wrote:
| That's what really depresses me. What's the point in
| fighting this stuff when half the voters think it's ok?
| It's one thing to take down an unpopular leader causing
| trouble, quite another to take down tens of millions of
| people.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| I'm convinced they don't think it's okay, they just think
| whatever Fox News tells them endlessly is what's okay
|
| If Fox News tomorrow changed their tone and message all
| those sheep would change
|
| It's that simple
| wat10000 wrote:
| For sure. It took about two seconds after USAID got
| wrecked for people to come out of the woodwork saying "oh
| yeah, USAID was notoriously corrupt, everybody knew that
| forever." When I'm pretty sure they didn't know the place
| existed the previous day.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| True, but I think this misses the deeper dynamic nature
| of such things. Trump is the symptom, but these voters
| were also reacting in their turn. It is highly unlikely
| that this exact sequence of triggers will immediately
| repeat themselves.
| stevage wrote:
| I think that's what effective means.
| mmooss wrote:
| High-aggression is a negotiating tactic with basic goals - to
| intimidate the other side into thinking you are implacable,
| and to make you seem unstoppable.
|
| It's a tactic. Like everyone else, they have interests and
| goals and needs, and they can be deterred in the same way.
| The problem is, nobody really tries. The Democrats keep doing
| the same ineffective things - a demonstration of being cowed
| and intimidated.
|
| For example, the Dems have almost no ability to communicate
| with the public. Whatever Trump and the GOP say are
| effectively true because there is no counter voice (beyond
| some third parties). The Dems don't do anything about it;
| they just keep communicating in the same way.
|
| The Dems have no talking points. A few of them are organizing
| now around 'economic populism' - in other words, they are
| completely cowed and will avoid all the major threats to
| freedom, democracy, the rule of law, safety; the corruption,
| cruelty, and hate. They are going to their safe space -
| economic policy!
| curt15 wrote:
| >For example, the Dems have almost no ability to
| communicate with the public.
|
| This +100. Even B Clinton as a 25+yr citizen communicates
| better with the public than 99% of active Dem politicians.
| brightball wrote:
| When people can see their social accounts copying and
| pasting the same content it does look a
| little...disconnected/inauthentic.
| trhway wrote:
| Even when it is directly connected - ie. the people will
| see much higher prices copy pasted everywhere due to the
| Trump's import taxes while Trump will be giving to the
| billionaires the tax cut financed by the tariffs - and
| the people will still cheer up on Trump.
| mmooss wrote:
| Because the policy is not the issue. Trump has never been
| consistent or carried through much on policy; he lies to
| everyone. It's the politics and ideology - extreme
| reactionary politics of destroying 'liberals' regardless
| of the cost.
| mmooss wrote:
| Yeah, Bill Clinton is a very effective speaker; wow. Or
| compare people like JFK or Bobby Kennedy - look up their
| speeches. Or Ronald Reagan, to be bipartisan. It's like
| the Dems have forgotten that leadership involves vision,
| charisma, inspiration, courage, ...
|
| However, I was referring to the lack of a mechanism.
| Whatever the Dems say, almost nobody hears it. Name a
| major statement by a Democrat in the last week? In the
| last month?
| curt15 wrote:
| Maybe more of them could follow Pete Buttigieg to Fox
| News?
| mmooss wrote:
| Yeah, but that's just a tertiary strategy. Think of it
| this way: The Dems are so pathetic, their best option is
| to try to use the enemy's communication mechanism.
|
| They simply need to solve their problem. That they have
| it is absurd and makes them look pathetic, cowed, and
| ineffectual victims - not something people vote for. What
| is more important to a political party than a means of
| public communication?
| trhway wrote:
| > Name a major statement by a Democrat
|
| Name a major Democrat. There is none. After 3 electoral
| cycles when party bureaucracy each time crowned the
| candidate instead of a candidate rising through the
| primaries the party has no leaders anymore - note the
| difference between a leader and a top bureaucrat, the
| Dems have no deficit of the latter.
| PJDK wrote:
| Coming from a UK background something I've been long
| curious about is is there a constitutional reason for when
| the opposition presidential candidate is selected.
|
| It seems like the current way of doing things leaves the
| opposition rudderless through most of a presidential term,
| followed by a bitter fight where their own side rip each
| other apart followed by only a few months to try and
| establish oneself as leader in waiting.
|
| Could the democrats do their primaries now? It feels like
| that would 1. Distract from Trump so he doesn't get run of
| the news 2. Mean that all the "candidate X is a bad
| democrat" stories could be long forgotten by the next
| election. 3. Give a pedestal to the actual presidential
| candidate as the go to person for the media to get
| reactions from 4. If they turn out to be genuinely terrible
| there's a lot of time to find out and potentially replace
| them.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| the problem is that running any sort of campaign that
| effectively reaches the continental and population scale
| of the US is incredibly expensive. Bernie Sanders for
| example raised $228M during his primary campaign in 2016.
| it would be hard to see how to make that happen more
| frequently.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Constitutional? No, except that states run the primaries.
|
| ... but when the primaries are is encoded into state law,
| so it would be a challenge to change it for every state
| if one wanted to shift when "the primaries" as a whole
| concept are.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The states have laws when you can hold a primary but
| nothing in the constitution.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Coming from a UK background something I've been long
| curious about is is there a constitutional reason for
| when the opposition presidential candidate is selected.
|
| That's a very interesting point. On the other hand, the
| GOP did have a leader through the Biden administration -
| Trump.
|
| Even when they don't, such as under Obama, they do have
| effective means (Fox, social media, etc.) and content
| (effective, disciplined talking points) of communication.
| The Dems have neither.
| jfengel wrote:
| That is a good observation.
|
| Primaries are actually a relatively recent innovation.
| Before that, the candidates just appeared from the party
| machines. All of the ugliness went on out of public view.
|
| For the last several elections people complained that
| there wasn't much difference between Obama, Hillary
| Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. And there isn't.
| They are a center leftish (by American standards) bunch.
|
| The party has a small wing further to the left, but it
| just isn't enough to put forth a strong candidate. That
| is the biggest ugliness we get now: they don't feel
| represented and often, they don't vote.
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| > The Dems have no talking points. A few of them are
| organizing now around 'economic populism' - in other words,
| they are completely cowed and will avoid all the major
| threats to freedom, democracy, the rule of law, safety; the
| corruption, cruelty, and hate. They are going to their safe
| space - economic policy!
|
| Because sadly, thats what the people respond to. When given
| the choice between food on the table / roof over their head
| / cash in the bank account and abstract values like
| "republican government", "rule of law" and "protecting
| human rights" etc. they will choose the former. Especially
| as long as its OTHER people's rights, and OTHER parties
| getting surpressed, they don't care quite so much. We've
| seen this play out in Russia. Granted they did not have the
| long history of Republican government that the US has had.
|
| The irony with Trump is they may get neither. At least some
| of them. Authoritarians have way of mollifying that minimum
| % that actually matters. Mostly people with guns and
| willingness to use them. In the US we're talking as low as
| 25% (so 75% of us are effectively screwed). And when you
| have billionaires controlling the information space, it
| would be very difficult to organize opposition.
|
| I'm now looking out to 2028. Trump and his cronies may be
| plotting to crash the system and "declare an emergency" so
| elections get suspended. Or the alternative, he just runs
| again and dares anyone to stop him. The blue/purple states
| should at the very least, bar him from appearing on the
| ballot there's a question of whether there will have enough
| backbone and could not be sufficiently threatened/bullied
| into backing down, or if he tries to pull a 2020 again with
| an "alternate electors", at the very least cause confusion
| so the election can be thrown to the House where GOP almost
| assuredly would have control over the state delegations.
| Lastly, the various Federal agencies, possibly even the
| military would be sufficiently "Trumpified" such that they
| will threaten, maybe even resort to force.
| mmooss wrote:
| > When given the choice between food on the table / roof
| over their head / cash in the bank account and abstract
| values like "republican government", "rule of law" and
| "protecting human rights" etc. they will choose the
| former.
|
| That's the opposite of the truth. Republican regions have
| long voted against their economic interests in favor of
| their values. Look at all the white working class people
| in the South that have long voted Republican over values,
| even as the GOP took away or blocked their benefits,
| education, health care, minimum wage, labor rights, etc.
| wat10000 wrote:
| They vote for their economic interests, in the sense that
| they vote in the way that they believe furthers those
| interests. Whether that vote _actually_ furthers those
| interests is another matter. Republicans have been very
| successful at convincing people that they're the ones who
| are good for the economy and everyone who works hard will
| prosper under their policies.
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| I don't think thats the way most of them see it. Right-
| wing propaganda has effectively convinced them that
| unions, government regulations, worker and environmental
| protections, etc. are all bad and the free market will
| magically solve everything.
| jfengel wrote:
| I can't imagine what kind of talking points one needs to
| offer past "uh, we aren't criminals and we're not
| incompetent".
|
| If the response is "yeah, we're good with those things,
| what else have you got?" I don't know what to say. You want
| bread? Maybe some circuses?
|
| The Democrats did have plenty of policies. Realistic ones.
| Not the most exciting. If the public wants to be excited,
| and aren't picky about it, then indeed they should have
| that. But I'm not going to be able to provide it.
| mmooss wrote:
| > I can't imagine what kind of talking points one needs
| ...
|
| > The Democrats did have plenty of policies. Realistic
| ones. Not the most exciting. If the public wants to be
| excited, and aren't picky about it, then indeed they
| should have that. But I'm not going to be able to provide
| it.
|
| I think it's obvious that such an approach doesn't work;
| does that matter to you? You seem defiant to me (though
| interpreting tone from text is very uncertain); who are
| you defying? There's nobody to defy - you either get the
| results or not.
|
| It's also obvious, IMHO, that the issue isn't policies
| but politics and ideals - freedom or oppression,
| humanitarianism or cruelty, power or democratic equality,
| democracy or authoritarianism, etc. How many bridges to
| build next year doesn't measure up, and if that's what a
| politician talks about, they are clearly hiding from a
| difficult reality.
| Craighead wrote:
| DARVO is so incredibly effective. I wonder what comes
| next for the world.
| mmooss wrote:
| Interesting, I hadn't heard that term before. It's
| essential to put a name on it.
| lovich wrote:
| The American people have proven over the past few
| elections that they don't care about policy or the
| economy even
|
| "It's the economy, stupid" is over
|
| It is now the era of "It's the vibes, stupid"
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The Democrats also tried to fool the American public like
| "Weekend with Bernie's" and prop Biden up for way too
| long and couldn't have a proper primary. Harris couldn't
| distance herself from Biden.
| tw04 wrote:
| No, the democrat's problem is they weren't willing to
| just flat out lie. They told the public the truth, basic
| facts like no, the president doesn't have the power to
| unilaterally lower your grocery prices. And whether due
| to desperation, or lack of education, or otherwise, the
| voting public chose the proven pathological liar who said
| he would be the one to lower the price of eggs. Right up
| until the week after the election when he had to explain
| why the prices weren't going down.
|
| There are countless interviews with voters quoting the
| laughable and provably impossible promises/lies Trump
| spouted during the last campaign as their reason for
| voting for him.
|
| If what you're advocating is that the democrats need to
| embrace denying reality and lying to the public if they
| want to win, I can't disagree with you. But I also think
| historians won't have a tough time pointing to the end of
| the American experiment.
| mmooss wrote:
| > They told the public the truth, basic facts like
|
| Just telling people the 'truth' isn't effective
| communication at all (in fact, it can be dangerous) -
| that should be obvious to anyone with some experience in
| life. To tell the 'truth' and then throw up your hands
| because it didn't work is just being at victim.
|
| A major political party knows all that - it's shameful
| and corrupt that they don't care to be effective.
| caycep wrote:
| In theory, Congressional investigation w/ power of subpoena
| and an ability to hand out prison sentences. Also in theory,
| if they lose office, subsequent admin needs to be able to
| prosecute. Assuming we can vote again in the future
| JeremyNT wrote:
| A truism, but:
|
| There are a _lot_ of Trump supporters on HN. More data points
| that highlight how incompetent or corrupt this administration
| is might eventually sway them.
|
| Midterm and special elections are real points where negative
| stimuli could occur. If polling gets bad enough, swing state
| Republican politicians might start sweating sooner.
|
| So maybe for _you_ this is just obvious confirmation of what
| you already know. But by reporting and following up on this
| story, maybe some people will learn and understand something
| they did not before.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Trump supporters are unswayable. The same rule about negative
| stimulus applies. Nothing you can say makes a difference, but
| if they start losing money eventually they might change
| behavior. Or they radicalize further.
| NickC25 wrote:
| It's just odd to me.
|
| I mean, yeah the Democrat party sucks.
|
| Here's this "macho tough guy" that wears a diaper, lifts,
| and makeup...who's famous for bankrupting a casino (twice),
| and was known for decades as a cartoon character, a clown,
| a moron. They hear the "on day 1" promises that won't ever
| get resolved. They see what happened the last time this guy
| took the wheel.
|
| And they want more of it? Unswayable indeed.
|
| I thought America was immune from fascism because it
| generally took the form of an idiotic leader that had
| charisma. I thought my fellow countrymen and countrywomen
| were smarter than that. Of all the people to succumb to,
| it's _this fucking guy_? Seriously?
| mgdev wrote:
| If people you respect are swayed, ask yourself (or
| better: them) what they see that you don't. I doubt it's
| a matter of intelligence, so much as perspective.
|
| If no one you respect has been swayed, you should know:
| the other side is making the same baffled judgements
| about you.
| wat10000 wrote:
| The usual answer is some mix of, I like his policies, he
| tells it like it is, and the Democrats are worse.
|
| Sounds good but makes little sense. He contradicts
| himself constantly. Anyone will find policies of his that
| they can agree with, because he covers the spectrum. You
| want strict gun control and universal government health
| care? He's your guy. You're a 2A absolutist and think
| health care should be totally unregulated? Trump is your
| man! Likewise with "tells it like it is." I'm convinced
| that his popularity is mostly due to the fact that he
| just spews so much crap. If you manage to only hear the
| parts you like, you'll think he's great.
|
| "The Democrats are worse" could be sensible, but it's
| almost always based on a notion of Democrats that's
| completely disconnected from reality.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's baffling. I sort of get why some people like
| strongmen. Hitler and Mussolini fought and bled for their
| country. Stalin and Mao led armies to victory. They were
| bad people but I can't deny that they were strong in some
| sense.
|
| But Trump? A middling businessman and second-rate TV star
| nobody would have ever heard of if he hadn't been born
| rich? He has zero credentials for this. What gives?
| mmooss wrote:
| > the Democrat party sucks
|
| > And they want more of it [Trump]?
|
| Those two things are closely related. Who votes for
| inffectual, feckless, cowards, who are hiding from the
| crisis?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The dems paid an insanely heavy cost to appease the 1% of
| the population that is chronically on twitter. They lost
| mountains of votes to trump over that.
| the_optimist wrote:
| You speak oddly of people like they are monolithic and
| lacking perceptive nuance (more like animals than any
| people I know). In the US, of all places, there is
| tremendous heterogeneity. What are the key elements that
| you know of "they"?
| the_optimist wrote:
| I think it's safe to say that there is severe overfitting
| and pattern matching behavior involved. When I come
| across someone who says something so broadly judgmental
| and unfounded, I become immediately intrigued as to how
| this person is either exploiting or exploited, one of
| which is assured. I hope you are doing okay.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Trump supporters are unswayable.
|
| You fell for the aggression tactic - it's just a cheap
| negotiating / political tactic. Act hyperagressive and some
| will believe you are unstoppable, implacable, etc.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43561401
| alaxhn wrote:
| Does this sentiment extend more broadly than a single
| administration? Can we broadly expect many potentially
| problematic behaviors to continue until an effective negative
| stimulus is given?
|
| It's interesting to me why this perspective is popular when
| applied a certain administration but not popular when applied
| to other things such as
|
| * Poverty \ * Drug Addiction \ * Homelessness \ * Obesity \ *
| Undocumented Border Crossings
| kelipso wrote:
| This is what I find so funny about the oh so serious protests
| about the current administration that people make in these
| comments. When other administrations do the same thing, it's
| one excuse after another, or just silence. These people are
| just mindlessly posting based on political memes, they're
| simply not serious.
| djeastm wrote:
| >Then immediately stop reading. The details don't matter at
| this point.
|
| That's truly an absurd suggestion. I hope you're just
| attempting to make some kind of point, but not suggesting
| people actually ignore "the details"
| lenerdenator wrote:
| People have been doing nothing but reading "the details" for
| the last ten years.
|
| Where are we?
| mmooss wrote:
| I'd say it's the opposite. They are flooded with
| misinformation, disinformation, and disruptive trauma, and
| don't read the facts.
| the_optimist wrote:
| You have remarkable authority on this. Can you tell us more
| about it?
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Well said
|
| Stimulus
| techterrier wrote:
| I know we've all been talking about how 'history is back' in
| terms of geopolitics not ending like some thought in the 90s. But
| if a huge proportion of goverment communications is taking place
| on self destructing messages rather than minuted meetings and
| filed paperwork etc, perhaps history has ended after all.
| trhway wrote:
| History has always been what the winner makes of it, and with
| self-destructing messages that winner's task just got much
| easier.
| kelipso wrote:
| There are a ton of face-to-face conversations between officials
| that don't get recorded. Why is text messaging so special? Are
| their phone calls recorded? I don't think they are.
| codedokode wrote:
| I wonder people who criticize the government for using Signal,
| you only discuss work using company-approved applications? Also
| why do they use Signal and not Telegram, which probably has more
| useful features like spoilers, paid messages, animated emojis
| etc.
| cafard wrote:
| No, when I am discussing military actions, I write postcards
| instead. But please note that I use Pig Latin for extra
| security.
| samgranieri wrote:
| I use Pony Express
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| Pig Latin with ROT13 encoding, of course!
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| My work doesn't involve sending American pilots over enemy
| territory or relaying information from intelligence assets
| inside terrorist organizations.
|
| Is this a serious question?
| watwut wrote:
| I actually do. There is literally zero reason to not do so ...
| even ignoring security.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Exactly. My work-provided chat app and email automatically
| contains the whole company's contacts. And the messages show
| up on people's work devices.
|
| If I wanted to use a personal chat or personal email, I'd
| need to know their personal details, or copy-paste their work
| info, it would confuse which accounts they reply to... it
| would make no sense at all.
|
| I keep my work convos and personal convos separate not just
| because it's company policy, but it's 100x easier _for me_.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The entire financial industry got slapped very heavily for
| organizing things in secret chats after the LIBOR scandal. A
| lot of people regularly get training of what may and may not
| discuss under what channels.
| jordanpg wrote:
| I keep thinking that the real story about this Signal stuff is
| that whatever authorized government equipment/software they're
| supposed to be using probably just sucks. Onerous, old, too much
| authentication, password silliness, biometrics, auto logout after
| 2 minutes, etc etc.
|
| Do not mean to downplay the mistake (at a minimum, the SecDef
| should suffer the same fate a lower ranking member of the DoD
| would for reasons of military order), but humans will be humans.
| Dealing with security sucks and involves trade offs and
| compromises.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| No, the government has not had issues running military
| operations using its existing comms. The actual story is that
| they used Signal on purpose to bypass required government
| record-keeping laws.
| alaxhn wrote:
| Can you please help us to understand why you believe the
| military has had *no* issues using existing comms? At face
| value this is an extraordinary claim and it flies in the face
| of examples of friendly fire such as
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj30zk1jnmno. I think the
| strongest possible statement would be "military comms are
| equal to or better than civilian alternatives with the
| exception that they do not bypass government record keeping
| laws" but I'm mostly unaware of what the military uses to
| communicate so it's difficult for me to accept this at face
| value with an explanation of the existing systems and their
| capabilities.
|
| Some government software and processes are not pleasant to
| deal with such as the process of obtaining a green card so I
| don't really fault people for being skeptical of the existing
| systems without evidence of their robustness.
| guelo wrote:
| I would say two things. 1) security inherintly is annoying, the
| more secure something is the more it sucks to use. Military
| communication channels have to withstand the most powerful
| attacks in the world, everyone, Russians Chinese Europeans
| Israelis, would all love to get access. So these have to be
| extremely secure and thus annoying to use channels.
|
| 2) their are laws about storing government communications which
| are built in to the official channels. Trumpists are
| suspiciously intentionally breaking these laws.
| nappy-doo wrote:
| Well, it's clear this was leaked so they can throw Waltz to the
| wolves. "He was a rogue employee, and he is the only one who did
| this."
|
| I am not conspiratorially minded, but I bet this was because
| Waltz had Jeffrey Goldberg's number. I bet Waltz leaked things to
| Goldberg in the past, and this is the Trump administration
| cutting ties with him in the most "sleep with the fishes" way
| possible.
| mdhb wrote:
| That theory really doesn't work. It's not a situation where one
| person went rouge and did something. The thing about a group
| chat is that it's literally by definition a group activity and
| that particular group now includes:
|
| 1. The head of the CIA
|
| 2. The secretary of defence
|
| 3. The vice president
|
| 4. The director of national intelligence
|
| 5. The White House chief of staff
|
| 6. Chief of Staff for the Secretary of the Treasury
|
| 7. Acting Chief of Staff for the Director of National
| Intelligence, and nominee for National Counterterrorism Center
| Director.
|
| 8. The Secretary of State
|
| Plus a bunch of others including random trump political allies
| like Steven miller and witkoff, a journalist and an as yet
| unidentified person known only as "Jacob".
|
| But they collectively got together, and decided repeatedly to
| do this over 30 different occasions in just this story alone.
|
| But don't let anyone try to convince you this was some single
| persons problem, this was the absolute textbook definition of a
| conspiracy at the highest levels of government to knowingly and
| repeatedly violate the law with regards to both handling
| classified information and around government record keeping
| laws.
|
| And this line they are trying to spin about signal was somehow
| approved for use is here in black and white proven to be wrong
| with the NSA making it clear there was a known vulnerability in
| the platform and it wasn't even approved for unclassified but
| official use communications as recently as February 2025:
| https://www.scribd.com/document/843124910/NSA-full
| nappy-doo wrote:
| Does this administration need to make sense?
| Cpoll wrote:
| > throw Waltz to the wolves.
|
| Except they forgot to actually throw him to the wolves? Or will
| that come later somehow?
| gsibble wrote:
| Get this political shit off my tech website's news feed.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Looking at your comments, I don't think you actually believe
| this.
| mdhb wrote:
| Choosing to click on it so you can be mad is really a you
| problem.
| skeptrune wrote:
| I'm really surprised that these folks go with Signal over
| something like Element or another Matrix client. Element/Matrix
| is already used in other places within the Government and has a
| better UX for team collaboration while maintaining high standards
| of encryption, so you would think that would be the default.
| remarkEon wrote:
| What is supposed to be the default, though? Presumably not
| something that goes on your phone, right?
|
| That said I'm not sure how leaders are supposed to quickly
| collaborate across time and space anymore. Not every location
| has a SCIF, but I suppose that's the high bar we should hold.
| mmooss wrote:
| > high standards of encryption
|
| Security is far more than that and Signal does the 'far more'.
| Every independent security expert (I can think of) recommends
| Signal for security, including CISA, and now the CIA, NSC, etc.
|
| One security pundit, I think Schneier, said that focusing on
| encryption is like putting a titanium door on your house and
| saying it's secure. Yes, nobody can damage that door, but there
| are windows, hinges, a lock to pick, the chimney, remote
| listening devices, tracking Internet usage, searching your
| garbage, ...
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