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Ironically having a giant security breach happen in a security focused messaging app was good advertising.
Of course in this instance the breach was not because of the app, which is a good thing I guess.
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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"When something is made idiot-proof, they will just make better idiots."
Gestures broadly at the federal government
Gestures narrowly at oval office and cabinet.
On Signal you can verify user identify, and you should absolutely do it if were to discuss national security maters.
This is not a hidden feature, I think it's designed to prevent man in the middle attack. It also work against the "oops I accidentally added a journalist to my conversation no one should know of", which is so dumb that no one saw this coming 😅
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It's not a security breach per se. Someone accidentally added a journalist to the group. Signal is still as safe as it's ever been.
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Good. It's the only encrypted channel I trust right now.
I'd consider using them if I didn't need to use a phone number to register. My friends and family stick with Briar as a result.
Hey man, if you can convince anyone to use Briar, do that. I have better luck getting people to use Signal because it's way more popular and easier to sign up. And if I want to know if someone uses it, I can find out instantly.
Convenience vs security
Yes and no, Signal is more convenient but convenience doesn't play into a scenario where I have no way to message someone on a given platform. And most people aren't interested in a conversation about which messengers they're using.
Security vs having someone to message.
I've tried to get everyone I know on Signal, so far my mom is the only one who uses it and that's only when she accidentally taps the wrong icon when she intended to send me an SMS.
And then there's my stepsister who complains about not being able to have a unified chat because she and family are apple while most of the rest of us are android. Signal Diane, it's a cross app platform that solves your problem.....but no it's not apple so it won't work......🤬
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Everyone hoping to get accidentally added to a government group chat.
So who exactly is downloading the app as a result of this latest government scandal? I'm going to guess it's the maga crowd because they are this as an endorsement from their new king. But hopefully I'm wrong and it's a broad sweep of different users from across the political spectrum.
Why should it matter if the new users are all magas or not?
You wouldn't want the Signal brand to become linked to it.
"I'm on Signal, would you like to chat there?"
"What, on the MAGA Nazi app, are you joking? Of course I'm not talking to you there!"
Ideally you want a broad spectrum of people.
I know it shouldn't make a difference and people should base their views strictly on the technical and usability aspects of the app, but real life doesn't work that way. Perceptions matter.
It's not just perception, it's mindless tribalism and it's a form of bigotry in itself. It's no better than doing things to "own the libs" or whatever.
And the irony, some express this attitude on lemmy, which unlike signal is an actual platform, not a chat app, and with tankie roots to top it off.
It is what it is, I suppose.
I wouldn't go as far as saying it's bigotry to dislike Nazis, but you do you mate.
TBH this is why I've never used Telegram.
Telegram is a great piracy app tbh.
Sure, but that was before almost every app was a Nazi app.
people who react like that are giving them power
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It just about always comes down to user error. The White House trusting Signal is very indicative of the effectiveness of the app's underlying protocols and the organization's commitment to privacy. This is definitely huge publicity and I hope Signal endures the limelight.
LOL what kinda bullshit comment is this?
The people in the White House are idiots. They choose Signal because they're either dumb/negligent -or- because they have been intentionally avoiding record preservation requirements.
Signal is a solid app for sure, but these dipshits didn't choose it for being the right tool for the job here, as it certainly is not.
-or- because they have been intentionally avoiding record preservation requirements.
It's this one
dipshits didn't choose it for being the right tool for the job here, as it certainly is not.
It was, actually. If they weren't dipshits it wouldn't have been a problem.
Signal, on your personal device, is fine for personal use. It is absolutely not fine for classified communication as the VP or head of DoD, as there are billions of dollars dedicated to compromising your phone.
The encryption doesn’t mean shit if they breach an endpoint or account.
If it was strictly personal chat, yeah, no problem, but they just have to assume the messages are being read by other nations.
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It's not the right tool for their job but still a good tool for the laws they were trying to break...
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The white house trusting signal is nice, but using it to circumvent official communication tools which document messages for the archives is not the way it should be used - they used the "disappearing messages"-feature as well. This usage is more in line with criminal organizations like the mafia or yakuza.
I believe some people have been ordered to archive the chat so that it can be presented to Congress in the future. Trouble is, looking at the screenshots it's already gone as they had the message lifetime set to a week.
I wonder if this will be seen as destroying evidence .
i'm pretty sure that there are laws regarding required archival, but laws seem optional for this administration.
There very much are law requiring archival, but now it's been ordered in the hearings as well. This makes it much more obvious that it's a problem.