9 ms·

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 acces

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
- bayarearefugee 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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 2y ago
    > 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_ 2y ago
      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.

burn000burn 2y ago

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 2y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
bayarearefugee 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
  > 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_ 2y ago
    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.