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> 404 Media journalist Joseph Cox published a story pointing out that Waltz was not using the official Signal app, but rather "an obscure and unofficial version
by voytec 1y ago
> 404 Media journalist Joseph Cox published a story pointing out that Waltz was not using the official Signal app, but rather "an obscure and unofficial version of Signal that is designed to archive messages"
Wow. And that's while their entire point of using Signal is to have conversations scrapped after a week to leave no no traces of criminal activity.
- tedunangst 1y agoI don't think it follows that they selected the archiving messenger because they wanted disappearing messages. The whole disappearing messages thing was just internet speculation.
- mingus88 1y agoThis TM SGNL app is compatible with legit Signal clients and servers. It’s also possible that they are using this app to archive chats that other parties _believe_ to be disappeared. In other words, set your chats to disappear in 5 minutes and convince your target to dish some sensitive info. They think it’s off the record, but it’s instantly archived
- nine_k 1y agoThe counterparty should be naive or stupid to think that whatever they send has no chance to be recorded forever. They should always assume otherwise. The only interesting use case of disappearing messages is that messages one receives will disappear securely, even if they forget about receiving such messages, or have no access to the device at the time.
- doctorpangloss 1y agoNaive or stupid? No way, not the counterparties of alcoholic media personalities.
- ceejayoz 1y agoWhether it was for that purpose or not, the messages did wind up disappearing. The CIA admitted it in a court filing. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/us/politics/cia-director-leaked-chat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/us/politics/cia-director-...
- an0malous 1y agoNo it was reported by the journalist who was in the chat. > Waltz set some of the messages in the Signal group to disappear after one week https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-a...
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- duxup 1y agoDistantly reminds me of the Nixon tapes ... what could go wrong? I wonder what the people he communicated with knew / thought?
- Mbwagava 1y agoYou can turn off message disappearance with the app store app so this seems like a red herring.
- jasonfarnon 1y agoMaybe they wanted to use Signal to thwart eavesdropping but they had to modify it in order to comply with govt record retention requirements?
- motohagiography 1y agothis appears to be the most concise answer. TM SGNL provides interop with Signal users in the field, but also includes FOIA archiving. who manages the archiving service is a general government problem, and less of one for Signal or appointees. NSA should have been operating the archiving service and not a foreign country imo.
- khaki54 1y agoDo you think they are using the message archiving version so that they can meet organizational message retention requirements? Maybe they are using signal to ensure they have e2e encrypted messaging on their devices?
- crooked-v 1y agoThere are already government e2e apps. The only reason to use something else is to have selective auto-deletion and/or to use personal devices for official classified data.
- ceejayoz 1y agoAnother reason: all of the folks on that group chat have legitimate reasons to have contacts on their phone that would be outside government apps. Foreign leadership. Journalists. Etc. Signal is likely to be one of the main ways of communicating with those.
- wmf 1y agoUsing separate apps for government and external communication might have prevented the recent scandal.
- snovv_crash 1y agoIt wouldn't actually. The contact in his phone (incorrectly added by Apple AI from a forwarded email) would be the same regardless which app he was using. Instead, Signal (and this forked version) would have to do its own independent contact management, maybe based on in-person scanning of QR codes plus web-of-trust.
- radlad 1y agoThe contact (a journalist) wouldn't be reachable on a government messaging app.
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- 7bit 1y agoWhat? The point of Signal is not message scraping, but a good E2E encryption. Message scraping is just one feature the app provides that you can turn of if you wish.
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