It’s almost as if they never actually cared about the server but rather were just using it to score points. Not at all like, you know, absolutely everything else.
HUNTER BIDENS LAPTOP
:surprised-pikachu:
It’s almost like libs don’t actually care about this recent leak but are also just using it to score points.
The lack of self-awareness is stunning.
Ah, I knew there was a good reason I have you tagged as ‘fucking moron’
Which lemmy app does that?
The Voyager app supports blocking.
Boost does.
Well damn, I was looking for a method to do it on PC lol.
Now I have him tagged as Fucking Moron too.
Thanks for the tip!
Update: wow, this is really helpful!
Just block them.
At Bluesky it’s been astoundingly effective for getting the fucking morons to find somewhere else to waste their time.
I disagree with blocking them. Call them out on it once and then don’t engage with any further responses
I appreciate your advice :)
People do care about the leaaks, but also how ironically this situation is compared to the ‘but what about her emails’ situation in the past.
imagine getting banned from c/noncredibledefense, how pathetic do you have to be for that to happen
I laughed way too hard at this. Its only been a month or two since I switched to Lemmy and already I’m getting the injokes.
I don’t run a magazine so I couldn’t report it but I was included on a top secret Signal group chat where administration officials talked about how long you should wait after Trump or Elon absolutely explodes a White House bathroom. A friend at OSHA accidentally added me.
The younger staffers were given a map of nearby Starbucks locations because sometimes, it would take hours for the West Wing loos to be re-certified as a safe workplace environment. And if the inspector forgot his Geiger counter, forget it. Bathrooms were off limits that day.
Also the disappearing texts are a concern. There’s not much mention of that. And now you have to wonder, how many other conversations have been held there, and with who?
Disappearing texts?
Similar to WhatsApp you can set limits on how long to keep a message
Yeah the main point of using signal to get around the presidential records act, which is very illegal
And FOI. It’s sketchy AF.
The party of double standards, everyone.
So you support prosecuting both dems and republicans for these fuck ups?
Quick! Change the subject!
If they didn’t have double standards they’d have no standards at all.
Kind of like “If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all!”
They accidentally added a random guy to a Signal group. Not quite the same as classified documents on a self-hosted email server. I’ve heard US military uses Signal quite officially.
This should, of course, raise concerns that if they like Signal - they might want to self-host it, the client and the server are FOSS. They might even consider paying Signal the company to help them.
Dod specifically disallows Signal by name https://dodcio.defense.gov/Portals/0/Documents/Library/Memo-UseOfUnclassMobileApps.pdf
OK, humans err. And also make mistakes, like being so confident on something they don’t know for sure.
If it’s specifically disallowed, then some people should be locked up.
Like all the people on that signal group chat that work for the government?
Yes.
JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Wasn’t the server an actual private server she had setup whereas this is a corporate app that is supposedly private if they are not lying and accessing the data. I mean this is way wore unless they put up a server to run the chat software.
Also, while using the app, there is zero accountability for who told who to do what within the government. FOIA is useless for any conversation happening within that app, self hosted or not.
Yep, OPSEC is definitely a major issue here. But the other problem is like you mention, zero accountability. Additionally, if they delete the chat, there is no way to reobtain the data for historical archive purposes, which is another law violation.
It doesn’t matter what kind of server you’re using. Highly classified information has rules and regulations. Some stuff can only be talked about in certain buildings because the buildings were built to block listening devices.
This is a major fuck up that could have gotten American soldiers killed. Everyone involved should be in prison.
Everyone involved should be in prison.
I’m not sure we could prove this was knowing and willful. The Russian recipient of the messages is the most suspicious angle of attack.
I hope you saw the transcripts of the messages today. Do you want to retract your statement?
I saw arrogant and stupid.
I didn’t see knowing and willful.
The first message may have been by mistake. Every single message after that was knowing and willful. This isn’t a message between friends. These were highly classified communications between top admin officials. They are aware of the law and policies regarding classified information and willfully engaged in communications on an unsecured platform. Any person could have stopped it after the first message.
The law requires people to knowingly and willfully release confidential information.
Just using unsecured platforms for communications is not illegal (otherwise Hillary would have been prosecuted).
Are you suggesting they didn’t know Signal wasn’t an approved platform for sensitive government communication and willfully used it anyway?
Is approval of a communications platform legally required, or just best practice? You can guess what the Republicans will argue.
Hillary got off for not knowingly leaking documents, so will these guys.
It’s been proven that Signal doesn’t have chats or chat metadata in court but this is still a gross violation of OPSEC and all manner of federal law, which I’m not even qualified to talk about. In either case this is hundreds of times worse than the Clinton email server.
I don’t think anything can be proven unless you have admin rights to the server at all times. signals are encrypted every time they are sent encrypted. can it be turned off with a flag? does it run in dev without it for troubleshooting and if so is it impossible to enable in prod.
okay, so self host it if that is part of your concern/threat model. the Signal server code is open to the public, you can see and download it here.
exactly. if they had self hosted then it would be closer to equivalent to hilaries email but if it was using signal as written but then there is the foia issue which was still possible with hilarys email server, but not under a self hosted signal if not altered.
The server can’t decrypt it if it doesn’t have the keys to do so. It can be proven that private keys never leave the local device. It can also be proven that the proper public keys are being provided, and that the local device alerts on public key changes with a partner are announced.
Of course, nobody as part of the linked article did any of that verification, but still, a server doesn’t need to be trusted to be functional.
I think we are more talking about can the server decrypt the data. Not that the data is encrypted.
In the case of signal, it is provable that it cannot. They do not hold the keys to decrypt. The closest risk is the server injecting a new public key into the conversation, which the Signal app will warn about.
Yeah I just don’t get this. How does a person added to a chat get keys then?
Signal does hold the public keys for every user. But having the public key doesn’t let you decrypt anything. You need the private key to decrypt data encrypted with the public key. So in a chat example, if you and I exchange public keys, I can encrypt the message using your public key, but only you can decrypt it, using your private key.
Signal does run the key exchange, which means they could hand a user the wrong public key, a public key which they have the private key for, instead of the other person’s. That is a threat model for this type of communications, however, signal users can see the key thumbprints of their fellow chat participants and verify them manually. And once a chat has begun, any changes to that key alerts all parties in the chat so they know a change has happened. The new key wont have access to any previous or pending messages, only new ones after the change took place.
Doesn’t matter. Signal desktop app can sync messages and be installed on compromised computers. One of the guys in the chat was in Russia visiting Putin. It would be trivial to sync the account to the app installed on compromised machines and basically become an invisible backdoor into every secure communication for that user. I have no doubt one of the users in the chat is setup like this.
Oh, I’m not defending these dumb-asses doing illegal things to avoid systems setup to safeguard American and its people. They absolutely could have synced things to compromised devices. Just that Signal, themselves, couldn’t do that.
It’s almost like excusing neoliberals for breaking the law just normalizes republicans doing it…
And they’re a lot stupider, so when they do it there’s more likely to be negative consequences.
The solution is higher standards and holding someone responsible even when they have the right letter by their name.
Letting neoliberals be as shitty as they want hasn’t been working out for 30 years since they tried to convince us a president lying about sexually taking advantage of interns in the oval office and then lying about it under oath to Congress was a “nothingburger” to use their own vernacular.
All lowering Dem standards does, is make us look like hypocrites. And that depresses turnout, which lets fascists into office.
a president lying about sexually taking advantage of interns in the oval office
I think the intern was willing and the problem was with lies.
Anyway, sometimes you have to release the steam even in the oval office.
Clinton is an unpleasant person (being best buddies with the current president before the latter’s brain rot due to neurosyphilis became irreversible, for example), but why the hell fscking someone there is a bigger deal than, for example, just ordering murders overseas or legally starting this whole mass surveillance thing?
I think the intern
Was an intern…
And he was the fucking president.
Think of a scenario where anyone in management at a company can have “sexual relations” with an intern in their office and it can be described as “willing”.
Now, despite what Biden spent four years saying, understand that a US president is more powerful and has more of an effect on their interns careers and lives than some random CEO.
For fucks sake, it’s 2025, do you really understand how the implict and explicit power dynamic prevented consent at least during working hours.
You think she did what she did with a guy 3 times her age because he was charismatic? It’s because he was the president.
Just…
I feel like I’m rambling but there’s so many obvious ways this was problematic, and you’re still just fucking ok with it?
but why the hell fscking someone there is a bigger deal than, for example, just ordering murders overseas or legally starting this whole mass surveillance thing?
That was never the big deal, it was wrong and fucked up…
But the big deal was Bill lying under oath to Congress about it, and Dem politicians and voters closed ranks and said it didn’t matter.
The coverup, not the crime.
That was the beginning of the end of the two party system. Only one party had any integrity and we gave it away to protect Bill Clinton and neoliberalism.
I guess this was all 30 years ago, and a lot of people weren’t old enough to remember it happening, but it was also too recent to be in history books yet.
There’s not really an excuse to not learn about it now, political literacy literally saves lives. We need more informed voters.
This is a deeply off topic whataboutism that only serves to distract from how horrible the trump administration is. You are benefitting the conservatives.
It is dead center on topic…
Neoliberals violating rules, regulations, and laws just normalizes it. And then it’s harder to hold Republicans accountable
I’m saying:
We need to hold everyone to a higher standard
Because if the only standard is letter by your name, fascists win elections.
If we run a dem candidate who meets the standards of Dem voters, we get a good president.
The more you condone lower the bar for Dems, the less votes Dems get
Haven’t you noticed yet?
I agree about that.
You think she did what she did with a guy 3 times her age because he was charismatic? It’s because he was the president.
Generally you would be right, but it seems Clinton really did have the kind of charisma to attract women almost unnaturally, long before he became the guy 3 times her age and a president.
I feel like I’m rambling but there’s so many obvious ways this was problematic, and you’re still just fucking ok with it?
No, just everything is relative, and some bad things are solved at the expense of other bad things.
But the big deal was Bill lying under oath to Congress about it, and Dem politicians and voters closed ranks and said it didn’t matter.
That’s what I said.
There’s not really an excuse to not learn about it now, political literacy literally saves lives. We need more informed voters.
LOL, I live in a country where most of the populace doesn’t understand what was wrong with mass repressions. They think some bad rich people were the majority of victims, and not typical Ukrainian and Siberian farmers. And of course they don’t understand that the government is not the property of its employees and politicians in power.
You have a long way to fall to reach that. But all those idiots were sufficiently informed. They chose to believe something worse.
The important thing is that in this trying time, you have managed to remind us to only ever criticize Democrats. Thank you, comrade.
I’m all for accountability and yes there should have been repercussions for Hilary Clinton for using a private email server but in 2016 Republicans used the emails as a cudgel to keep scoring points and drag out investigation after investigation and hearing after hearing to keep the buttery males in the news cycle and keep constant attention on smearing her and making her seem like the incompetent evil mastermind behind benghazi and the pizza parlor and the adrenochrome.
We go high. They go low. And when they go low, they win elections.
Lock. Them. Up.
It’s almost like that party has no values and sees everything only through the lens of political leverage.
Conservative hypocrisy knows no bounds. They will only be outraged at what their talking heads tell them to be outraged at.
I’m so tired of America letting the worst pieces of shit get away with anything. One side breaks the speed limit by 2mph and they’re euthanized. The other side rapes and kills all of Asia, and nothing happens.
The two sides you’re talking about is the rich vs the poor.
The rich get to do what they want because no one holds them accountable. The people that should be holding them accountable are corrupted by the endless money that the rich have.
The “people” could change this over night but the rich have us all divided.
If you want real change stop hating your neighbor and start banding together. That will never happen tho because the rich are winning this war.
Are you seriously trying to convince us that these fucking Nazis are our allies? If I were in a room with Bill Gates and a dirt poor Nazi and had a gun with one bullet, I’d shoot the Nazi.
No class solidarity with bigots. They do not get a seat at the table.
Are you seriously trying to tell me that these Nazis didn’t come about BECAUSE of rich people?
If so I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Don’t care. No solidarity with Nazis. No making friends, no compromise, no collaberating. Ever.
Congratulations on being daft.
lock them up!
The takeaway is that Signal is a bloody good app to use.
Sounds like it’s pretty easy to add the wrong people to your chat.
It’s no different from many other chat apps. Select the contacts you want in the group.
There’s no issue with the app, it’s actually among the most secure. The issue is the meatbag behind the thumbs selecting who to put in the chat.
I’ve never had any issues by adding the wrong people to a group, personally 🙂.
People are usually the weakest link.
Oops I buttdialed top secret information
Is that the takeaway?
For the reporter it was.
An app that multiple intelligence agencies have likely cracked
The app is likely secure.
The personal phones they installed this app on, however…
🧈 👨 s
Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a tv
