Thursday, Reuters published a photo depicting then-national national security adviser Mike Waltz checking his phone at a cabinet meeting held by President Trump at the White House. If a portion of the image capturing the Waltz screen is enlarged, it seems to be showing him using end-to-end encrypted messaging to pass the application signal. However, if you look closely, the on-screen notification is called "TM SGNL". At the time, at the White House cabinet meeting Wednesday, Waltz apparently used an Israeli-made app called Telemessage Signal to post messages with people who appeared to be top U.S. officials, including JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard.
After a senior Trump administration used signal information to coordinate a March military strike in Yemen, accidentally included the Atlantic editors in a group chat - the "Signal Gate" scandal highlighted issues involving violations of the traditional government's "operational security" protocol and compliance issues. At the center of the collapse was Waltz, who was ousted by Trump on Thursday as U.S. national security adviser. Waltz created the "Houthi PC Group" chat and was a member of the addition of top Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. "I take full responsibility. I set up a group," Walz told Fox News in late March. He added at the time: “We already have the best technical thinking to study this situation.”
The signal gate has nothing to do with the signal. The app works fine and is only used for incredibly sensitive discussions for inappropriate time that should have been on special, hardened federal devices and software platforms. However, if you are going to violate the protocol, the signals are a good place to (relatively stated) because the application is designed so only the sender and receiver of messages in group chat can read them. The app is built to collect as little information as possible about its users and their employees. This means that if U.S. government officials chat on the app, spies or malicious hackers can only access their communications by directly damaging participants’ devices, this challenge may be overcome, but at least limits possible access points. However, using applications such as Telemessage signals, presumably in order to comply with data retention requirements, opens up many other avenues for adversaries to access messages.
"I don't even know where to start," said Jake Williams, NSA Hacker and vice president of R&D at Hunter Strategy. "Someone thought that the federal government is using Israeli technology to use extremely sensitive data for archival purposes. You just know that someone is grabbing a copy of that data. Even if Telemessage is reluctant to give up, they have become one of the biggest national targets there."
Telemessage was founded in Israel in 1999 by former IDF technicians and depleted the country until it was acquired by US-based digital communications company Smarth last year. The service creates duplications of communication applications equipped with the "Mobile Archives" tool to record and store messages sent through the application.
Telemessage says on its website: "Capture, archive and monitor mobile communications: SMS, MMS, voice calls, WhatsApp, WeChat, telegraph and signals." For signals, it adds "record and capture signal calls, text, multimedia, and files on company distribution and employee BYOD phones." (BYOD means bringing your own device.) In other words, basically any mainstream consumer device has a telecom version of the signal. Using telematics signals, users can "maintain all signal application functions and functionality as well as signal encryption", the company said, adding that the application provides "end-to-end encryption from mobile phones to company profiles." However, the existence of "company profiles" undermines the privacy and security of end-to-end encryption solutions.