PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Little Joe on March 25, 2025, 09:57:21 AM
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I never know what to believe when I hear it on the news, and at the moment I don't have the time to research it.
Can someone summarize what is known so far?
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Disinformation?
Who the heck would use chat to discuss war plans? (are we back in the days of the hildabeast and emails?)
anyone stupid enough to text or email classified information on an unclassified system should be fired immediately.
Anyone stupid enough to setup a secured system that allows leakage from a classified system to an unsecure system should be fired.
eta: ok, maybe not fired.... in the real world a security violation results in disiplinary action... keep doing it and you're gone.
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it's interesting that democrats are NOW interested in security.
Maybe they learned something about security leaks from clinton, obama, and the moron?
<slap> what am I thinking?
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Here is what Grok says:
Signal is a messaging app designed for secure, private communication, widely recognized for its end-to-end encryption. This means that messages and calls are scrambled in a way that only the sender and recipient can decipher them—no third party, including Signal itself, can access the content. It’s an open-source platform, so its code is publicly available for experts to inspect, and it collects minimal user data, making it a go-to for privacy-conscious users like activists, journalists, and even government officials. The app supports text, group chats, voice and video calls, and features like disappearing messages, which delete after a set time.
In the context of the recent controversy—or "bruhaha"—Signal was the platform where top Trump administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, were discussing sensitive military plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The uproar stems from two issues: first, they were using Signal, a commercial app, instead of secure government channels meant for such discussions, which raised eyebrows about protocol and legality under laws like the Presidential Records Act and Federal Records Act. These laws mandate that official communications, especially about military operations, be conducted on approved systems and preserved—Signal’s disappearing messages complicate that. Second, and more jaw-dropping, they accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to the group chat. Goldberg got a front-row seat to operational details—like targets and timing—hours before the strikes happened on March 15, 2025, and later published it all.
The White House has confirmed the chat “appears to be authentic,” and they’re investigating how Goldberg’s number got in there. Hegseth denied sharing “war plans,” but the incident has sparked bipartisan outrage, with calls for investigations over national security risks and accusations of incompetence. Signal’s security isn’t the issue—it’s more about human error and the choice to use an app not designed for classified government work, especially when it led to a journalist crashing the party.
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I'm comfortable with the use of a secure channel to talk about relatively secure things. Classified things were not discussed as far as I know. But why the frick would a far left rabidly anti-trump reporter for a far left rabidly anti-trump publication (The Atlantic) be part of it? He was the origin of the "suckers and losers" hoax.
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On the other hand, maybe this was intentional. Troll a known nutbag to go all hyper, then lock everything down tight so there's no possibility of a leak. Do that without a cause and it might raise objections. Do it now, and you're a hero. Playing chess while the opposition fails at tic-tac-toe.
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On the other hand, maybe this was intentional. Troll a known nutbag to go all hyper, then lock everything down tight so there's no possibility of a leak. Do that without a cause and it might raise objections. Do it now, and you're a hero. Playing chess while the opposition fails at tic-tac-toe.
That exact scenario crossed my mind.
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Someone called into Mark Davis' talk show. The military approves of some things being done on Signal. I do not know if that is true.
I think some low level staffer included Jeffery Goldberg as a FU to the administration. It should be easy to find out who did it.
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Someone called into Mark Davis' talk show. The military approves of some things being done on Signal. I do not know if that is true.
I think some low level staffer included Jeffery Goldberg as a FU to the administration. It should be easy to find out who did it.
Right. This was a human mistake (or deliberate act). The channel itself was secure. Somehow that person got added to the group chat (text, whatever). The dangers of group chat/text is a HUGE deal in my work and personal life.
I guess you can add email to that. I recently committed a big faux pas myself when a coworker forwarded me an email as an attachment containing data I needed and I opened the attachment, analyzed the data and then “replied” thinking I was replying to the coworker but I was replying to the client who had sent the coworker the email. Stupid me didn’t look at the “to” address before I hit send.
Fortunately what I said was nothing bad and no harm no foul. It was fixed with a simple, “Sorry, meant to send that to (the coworker).” But it scared the you know what out of me. I doubt I’ll make that mistake again.
Some similar mistake happened here or it was deliberate like you said, a low level staffer in which case I would think literal treason. Alerting an enemy via a media outlet about upcoming attack plans? Or maybe they sometimes use secure channels to give reporters legit info and they accidentally just used the wrong chat group that had included Goldberg in a past conversation. Either way they need to get to the bottom of what happened.
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It also crossed my mind that it was deliberate dis-information:
Hegseth: Hey guys, we are going to bomb the Southern port at 0400.
At 0400: Northern Port is blasted to oblivion.
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This was posted this morning on a local radio show FB page. Don't know whether to believe it is real or not. Thoughts?
(http://www.pilotspin.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=8148.0;attach=4674)
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Team Update
From: Secretary P. Hegseth
As per our previous discussion, all recipients of this communication have been identified as TRAITOR / SPY
Your inclusion in this group confirms your status as between undesirable and to enemy status.
Please enjoy your final moments before our more sophisticated guidance system delivers a payload to your exact location rendering you no longer viable.
P.S. Have a nice day😎
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Much ado about nothing.
The communist are desperate to take down the administration. The citizens are rejecting their ideas as they have nothing to offer except control.
Give it a few more days and we will learn how the scumbag got into their secure chat and what laws he broke doing it.
Right now it's just all noise to detract.
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I'm waiting for the full story to come out. Right now the left is all screaming for everyone on the communication to resign. The right thing would be for the twatwaffle to announce to the group that he was included in error and is leaving. But no... anything to discredit the administration.
I don't know what to think at this point. The situation doesn't look good, but it doesn't look bad, either.
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Have watched quite a few video clips about this. Some leftie Congress critter named Jamie Raskin is saying that “we are being governed by incompetents who will start World War 3 with a butt dial.”
Of course it doesn’t rise to that, but widely-broadcast lies like this clench my stomach. It’s ruined my whole morning.
The simple truth remains:
The left is intent on destruction and division. They will lie and attack anyone to get power. When they have power they destroy and divide. And they keep lying to keep power. They literally hate anything good, beautiful and true.
President Trump is a real leader, and is trying to fix what the left has wrecked and to set the stage for a glorious American future.
I must believe that we will win. I’m just tired of past years of this fear that the leftist devils will destroy us, and now the current prospect of more years fearing their resurgence. They’re even buffing up AOC to look intelligent. She’s just Harris 2.0 and look how many voted for her.
God help us.
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I'll limit my comments to technical aspects of Signal.
The end-to-end encryption of Signal is based on TLS. I have direct working knowledge of TLS 1.2 (no longer the latest version) because I developed a test suite to verify proper implementation of the stack for iwl.com (https://www.facebook.com/iwldotcom/posts/read-our-latest-case-study-to-see-maxwell-pro-tls-test-suite-helped-access-compa/903832199685089/ (https://www.facebook.com/iwldotcom/posts/read-our-latest-case-study-to-see-maxwell-pro-tls-test-suite-helped-access-compa/903832199685089/)) After I retired they ceased selling it because TLS 1.3 had come out but they were hesitant to invest in an updated version without at least one serious prospect.
Anyway, in my professional opinion TLS 1.2 and later versions are quite secure when properly implemented and used (application programmers screw up, though: you have to remember to actually make the function calls to validate the supplied authentication certificates - some apps fail to do that.) I do not know much about end point authentication used by Signal (that is, verifying the entity on the other end is who they claim to be) but if it is similar to TLS it is fairly secure, but with the usual caveats.
I do know that ultimately using any secure communication app on a mass-market device like an iPhone or Android is immediately compromised or at least suspect by co-existing on the same machine as other third party apps. Has that Angry Birds game you play been checked to make sure it doesn't try to hack its way out of the secure sandbox within which the operating system has allowed it to run? While rare, mistakes are still made by operating system developers. Here's a flaw that was recently fixed in iOS:
https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/online-security/apple-just-released-emergency-security-update-for-flaw-used-in-extremely-sophisticated-attacks-update-your-iphone-ipad-and-mac-right-now (https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/online-security/apple-just-released-emergency-security-update-for-flaw-used-in-extremely-sophisticated-attacks-update-your-iphone-ipad-and-mac-right-now)
Ideally a secure comm device should be a black box that does just that one thing and nothing else. It should be as impervious as possible when (not if) it physically falls into the hands of malevolent actors. Obviously a smart phone is none of the above.
All that said, it is my understanding that the most common security breach isn't due to a technical flaw, but fooling the targeted user.
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If communist democrats are screaming about one thing, look in the opposite direction. They are covering something else up.
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I think some low level staffer included Jeffery Goldberg as a FU to the administration. It should be easy to find out who did it.
That would seem the most probable theory. Most likely in Mike Waltz's staff. I can't think of any motive for a foreign government to give up inside access to WH cabinet comms just to embarrass the WH. Big loss for no gain. Political enemies inside the US have little use for those communications per se but the mere proof of access is gold when it comes to embarrassing WH.
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It does seem most probable that someone on the inside did this. And picked the farthest left, most vitriolic Trump hater with a mouthpiece to give access to.
They have to identify the perpetrator, or it will happen again.
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It does seem most probable that someone on the inside did this. And picked the farthest left, most vitriolic Trump hater with a mouthpiece to give access to.
They have to identify the perpetrator, or it will happen again.
His last name is Wong and his wife worked in the Obama and Biden administration and she had something to do with U6 prosecutions. Make sense now ? ::)
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https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1904904102917570900https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1904904102917570900
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https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1904904102917570900https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1904904102917570900
That page doesn't seem to exist any more. At least for me.
His name is Alex Wong.
This from NYT:
Michael Waltz
Team – establishing a principles group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.
Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.
4:28 p.m.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/25/us/signal-group-chat-text-annotations.html
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That page doesn't seem to exist any more. At least for me.
His name is Alex Wong.
This from NYT:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/25/us/signal-group-chat-text-annotations.html
What does “best staff POC” mean? I don’t have time to read the whole thing, going out the door.
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What does “best staff POC” mean? I don’t have time to read the whole thing, going out the door.
Point of contact
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What does “best staff POC” mean? I don’t have time to read the whole thing, going out the door.
If a leftist was saying that, it would mean "best staff Person of Color".
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Did anyone pick up on the fact that the guy in charge of picking a team to investigate this is himself one of the prime suspects? (or at least his wife is).
To me, that is dumber than the mistake itself. It reminds me of Watergate and Nixon. The crime was bad, but could have been handled. Instead they tried to cover it up, which was worse and brought down the President and "all his men".
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Point of contact
Didn’t even think of that. Because of “POC” in my face all the time meaning People of Color.
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I’m getting the impression that someone is giving someone else just enough rope to hang themselves.
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https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1905628829730652318