In my day job, I have to keep an eye on financial regulations and the compliance regimes such as those of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Switzerland’s FINMA, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, and more.
A few years ago, regulators such as the SEC dropped the hammer on bankers and other financial sector folk for using private chat apps such as WhatsApp in ways deemed unacceptable: “The Securities and Exchange Commission has punished some of the biggest names in banking including Citi, Bank of America and JPMorgan with fines totalling more than $2bn since 2021, amid concerns that a boom in services such as WhatsApp, iMessage and WeChat could be letting market abuse go unchecked.”
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this – this ought to be a matter between the staff of these firms and their employers, in my view – the regulatory authorities come down hard on people using these apps in ways that are seen, however mistakenly, to put certain things (such as record-keeping of important conversations) at risk.
And yet as you know, dear reader, we have seen examples in recent days from US government figures communicating via Apps such as Signal to discuss the pros and cons of military action. It has caused a stink for various reasons, but for me, I am struck by how few people have commented on the very different treatment of those who work in finance, and those who hold positions of power and where lives are at stake. In the UK, a while back, it turned out the government of Boris Johnson was using WhatsApp extensively, with inevitably poor results. This has led to extensive commentary.
I think this gets me to a wider point. Wherever I look, I see a breakdown in trust in our institutions, public and private. The extent to which this is deserved is contested, but at the root of much of it is that those who set the rules and call for them appear not to abide by them: Political and NGO big cheeses flying in private jets to discuss catastrophic global warming, for example, or the cases of alleged two-tier justice that have been such a mark of the UK government in recent months.
I am the only person I know who is NOT on these mobile telephone chat groups.
Johnathan Pearce has a point – it is all very well saying that no secret information was revealed (and it was not) – but it is bad practice to discuss important matters (political as well as financial) in this way.
And Johnathan Pearce also has a point about the general decline of probity in institutions.
Jetting off to discuss the evils of carbon dioxide emissions is indeed absurd – as the jetting is releasing lots of carbon dioxide.
And, perhaps worst of all, the decline of the courts and the legal system.
American conservatives have long known that the courts and justice system are deeply political – but British conservatives (including myself) had a basic faith in the system.
The system might be slow and expensive – but at least it was just, this is what we believed. And we tended to dismiss the warnings, years ago now, of Katie Hopkins and others.
These days hardly anyone trusts the “justice system” – and that is a tragedy, a horrible tragedy.
I’m not 100% sure I understand your concern. I think there are three possible concerns:
1. That the chat took place on Signal, a commercial application.
2. That the reporter got invited to the chat
3. That there is some sort of violation of the Presidential records act.
Signal is a very secure application, I see no reason to think the government could do better. It is definitely a concern that the reporter got invited and I sure as hell would like to know why. It is possible that it was just a mistake, but it seems more likely that it was some sort of deliberate sabotage. I have no data to say one way or the other, but just looking at the circumstances it would be a shocking coincidence if it was accidental. It might have been, but that would be one hell of an unlikely event.
As to the Presidential records act, I don’t know enough about the requirements. Does it require EVERY conversation a President and his cabinet has to be recorded? That seems unlikely, but I’m not a lawyer.
What this story is really about is a storm in a teacup that has been magnified to epic proportions because Trump’s opposition has nothing else that they can leverage. The whole thing will be forgotten soon enough. And if you want to understand why I suggest you watch this video which is a 30 minute interview of the Doge leadership explaining what they are doing. What they are doing is, as far as I can see, the very last hope for the west to prevent it collapsing in on itself. I have been deeply concerned for the end of the West for decades and I have expressed that here many, many times. What this video and a number of other important things Trump is doing, is the first glimmer of hope I have seen that the west will not collapse under the weight of its own decadence. Not that I think it is certain, but, as one of the Doge boys say, at least it isn’t zero, perhaps for the first time in thirty years. Doge is not enough in itself, but it is part of a larger puzzle. (This Gold Card Visa is another unbelievably important part that has been completely buried in the press.)
But for the left what it represents is the end of their thirty year project to destroy western values and replace it with a tyrannical sort of socialism. So they are going to take every mosquito bite and try to make it into Ebola to stop this righteous project from moving forward. And this Signal thing is just the most microscopic example of such a thing.
I know everyone is hating on Elon. On the left for undermining their precious but corrupt institutions, and on the right for trying to stop the Ukraine war and for the matter of sanctions. But those dozen men on that stage in that video, mostly very rich successful guys who have put their lives on hold, and put themselves at grave risk because of the lunatic left, they are all heroes, as if they were striding ashore on Omaha beach. There is a decent chance they will save the west and the ideas of freedom and representative democracy so that it lives on for my children and grandchildren.
Anyone who has read my comments here would never call my a Pollyanna, but what has been going on in the Trump administration has left my jaw on the floor. I don’t particularly like Trump as a person, but what he and his team have done has changed my mind.
It’s important to understand just what the Signal episode entailed. Here’s the best explanation I’ve seen:
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/the-signal-i-was-waiting-for?r=n1v0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
Edward Snowdon has long used Signal, which is the most convincing testimony that it is very secure. This affair is one of human stupidity not technically vulnerability 🤪
I seem to recall Hillary Clinton keeping classified documents on a private mail server – and yet she was excused.
It seems that we are living in the Two Tier times.
On this specific example – it appears that the person from the (leftist and dishonest) Atlantic magazine was invited on to the group by a member of staff, on the staff of the National Security Adviser, – a member of staff who had served in the previous Administration.
If (if) true this is a reminder of the importance of clearing out the staff – no one who served in the previous Administration should now be in government as, obviously, their loyalty can not be counted upon. If regulations do not allow such a clear out – then give up talking about “democracy” because if (if) the elected government can not even hire and fire the staff, then democracy-does-not-exist.
“What about the military?”
That is indeed a terrible problem – for example, how can military officers who before January 20th were passionately pushing DEI, now serve an Administration that totally rejects it?
There are no “common values” no “unifying principles”.
Someone who is loyal to one side can not, by definition, be loyal to the other side.
In the United Kingdom the problem is, supposedly, solved by officials being loyal to “The Crown” rather than to the elected government of the day – but what does this mean?
Does it mean loyal to the person of the monarch – following the opinions of said monarch? Or does it mean “The Crown” as an empty abstraction?
Talk of “common values” or “unifying principles” is even less helpful here than it is in the United States.
The United States at least has the Bill of Rights – although Progressives are opposed to it, in the United Kingdom there is no statement of basic principles.
If I was a deep state, possibly military, careerist anxious to spike the wheels of Hegseth & co I might see Jeffrey Goldberg as the ideal candidate to inveigle into a sensitive meeting safe in the knowledge that he would use his position at The Atlantic to cause the desired mayhem and embarrassment.
There must be numerous well-placed holdovers from previous administrations with precisely this viewpoint, the only question is how high up.
You do have to wonder if it’s wise for the Trump administration to make use of technology that may very well have been back-doored by the Biden administration.
Sad that such things have to be taken into consideration, but here we are.
Do they also critise people to the same extent for using the telephone, for using the postal service? People communicate with other people, it is a fundamental defining characteristic of humans. For “kids today”, typing into WhatsApp is just as automatic and natural as people in the 1960s picking up the telephone, and similarly the expectatation that you wouldn’t is perceived as absurd, demented, or peverse.
@DiscoveredJoys
The Hillary Clinton e-mail server. It was nt just a private email server. It was a naked email server with every single i.p port open for the first few months. That internet wifi router/modem you got from your ISP – its has not only dozens of really dangerous ports turned off by default but a whole bunch of port ranges are monitored by them to watch for suspicious traffic. Her server was butt naked. No wonder TLA’s from at least 5 different foreign powers not only compromised her server but also used it as the jump off for compromising State Dept comms networks and most WH ones too.
And that was not the most serous security breach of the Obama Administration. That honor goes to Katherine Archuleta (Obama’s Presidential campaign manager) who when head of the OMB was directly responsible through criminal negligence for the Chinese getting all 22 million SF-86 files. The background checks for everyone who has security clearance in the US.
For that act of pure treason she should have been jailed for the rest of her life, Instead she was shuffled off to a very very lucrative Democratic Party NGO organization job. Because the law does not apply to Democratic Party politicians Or donors. Or operatives.
@bobbyb, FWIW, Signal is an open source app, which means every security researcher in the world, including all those at Fort Meade, have looked at code for the application and examined it carefully for vulnerabilities. The fact that it is still being used tells me there aren’t any, or any known ones. Which means it is certainly one of the securest pieces of communication software on the planet. Compare that to what the bozos who work for our government could come up with. FFS they couldn’t even put a a web site for Obamacare for a billion dollars that should have cost a million dollars.
@Fraser Orr, it makes me nervous to discover that Katherine Maher, embattled progressive head of NPR and formerly head of Wikipedia, is on Signal’s Board of Directors.
And, lousy websites or no, it also makes me nervous that the CIA and other agencies, which have proven to have been working against Trump in the past, also have some of the world’s best hackers in their employ.
When it comes to “we’re safe!”, I’m a glass half-empty kind of guy.
I can tell you from experience that the sobering reality is that politicians everywhere are prone to this sort of thing – though admittedly it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch than the current US administration.
“All those closed, classified intranets are just so tedious to use! Let’s just get together on WhatsApp instead. No one will know but us!“
@bobby b
@Fraser Orr, it makes me nervous to discover that Katherine Maher, embattled progressive head of NPR and formerly head of Wikipedia, is on Signal’s Board of Directors.
Your skepticism is understandable, but I guarantee you that Katherine Maher knows nothing of the tech stuff. FWIW, I watched her testimony before congress and I thought it was interesting. She was defending an impossibly terrible record, but given how bad the record was I actually think she conducted herself quite skillfully. I mean she still came out looking terrible, but the lipstick on the pig was applied with the skill of a Versace model.
The fact that the code is open source means that every security researcher in the world, many hostile to the USA and many just trying to make a name for themselves have looked at this code in excruciating detail. The risk is that what you see when you download the Signal app is not the same code. However, there are digital signatures which can validate the provenance of the code and are effectively unhackable. So I’d have to examine a few other details but I have a lot of confidence in the security of the code itself.
FWIW, the biggest risk in most security systems is the human element. It is far easier for me to manipulate you to get access to your password and credentials than it is to put an exploit directly into a codebase like this. I knew a guy who did this for a living. One thing he’d do is dress up as a fire marshal and go to a bank to perform an emergency safety inspection. Then he’d wander round the facility looking for people who had their passwords on sticky notes on their screens or under their keyboards. The fire department did NOT like this. However with some newer two factor and multifactor authentication these sorts of things are quite a bit harder to hack.
And, lousy websites or no, it also makes me nervous that the CIA and other agencies, which have proven to have been working against Trump in the past, also have some of the world’s best hackers in their employ.
What makes you think the world’s best hackers work for the CIA or NSA? The CIA and NSA are just other government agencies and they suffer the same issues as any government agency of incompetence, terrible incentives, seniority over talent, DEI and so forth. They have some good people for sure, and many of them are brave patriots, but there are a lot of incompetent paper pushers, office politic climb the greasy pole types and lots of people who spend more time drinking coffee than tracking down terrorists. And there are lots of extremely talented people in the private and academic sectors too, and unfortunately a lot who work in the criminal sector. the NSA and CIA compensate for incompetence with large piles of money.
I mean FFS it took them ten years to find Bin Laden, who spent most of his time living in places where they had unreliable electricity, he had to shit in a bucket, a place occupied by our own military and offered a $25million dollar reward on his head. The goal of the second Gulf was was, in effect, to find him and kill him. It took them ten years and 10 trillion dollars. I’m not sure “best” is a word I’d apply to these people.
Regarding “no classified information was disclosed”, consider these questions:
1. Shouldn’t the government’s default position on such conversations be that they are treated as classified until someone carefully reviews the content to be sure?
2. Which is more valuable to an adversary, the minutiae of what was discussed in that chat or the insight into the power structure (who is top dog) and how each principal thinks, what motivates them? That kind of intel used to be the target of our deepest cover agents…at least according to the spy novels I read!
It is absolutely true that the minions have to obey the rules whereas certain National Security Advisors can sneak a classified document out of the National Archives, in his pants (shred that report in the “special shredder”!), and never be called to account!
@Paul Marks it would be wild if Alex Wong deliberately invited the Atlantic journalist into the chat because this wouldn’t be just some political dirty trick he could walk away from. I suspect this would result in serious criminal liability and I doubt there are many people that would stick their neck out like this.
Ben – Alex Wong’s wife is one of the people who persecuted the J6ers.
And what does Mr Wong have to worry about? Dems do not get sent to prison for political offenses – regardless of what they do.
How many were sent to prison for the massive rigging of the 2020 Presidential election?
Dems do not get sent to prison for political offenses – regardless of what they do.
Kevin Clinesmith being a rather obvious example.
Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, 38, pleaded guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a false statement offense stemming from his altering of an email in connection with the submission of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) application, announced John H. Durham, Special Attorney to the Attorney General.
He pleaded guilty to an offence carrying a terms of up to five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
He was actually sentenced to 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service.
Yes John – and they normally do not even come to trial – as the establishment (including the media) closes ranks and denies any crime has been committed.
90 years ago, as long ago as that, they found they could steal, by threat of violence (which makes it worse), all monetary gold (all the real money) and break, by threat of violence, all contracts – public and private.
If they can get away with that, and they did get away with that, they can, perhaps (perhaps), get away with anything.
Including, perhaps (perhaps), mass murder.