this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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A photograph of Trump administration official Mike Waltz's phone shows him using an unofficial version of Signal designed to archive messages during a cabinet meeting.

Mike Waltz, who was until Thursday U.S. National Security Advisor, has inadvertently revealed he is using an obscure and unofficial version of Signal that is designed to archive messages, raising questions about what classification of information officials are discussing on the app and how that data is being secured, 404 Media has found.

On Thursday Reuters published a photograph of Waltz checking his mobile phone during a cabinet meeting held by Donald Trump.

The screen appears to show messages from various top level government officials, including JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, and Marco Rubio.

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[–] sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works 247 points 1 day ago (7 children)

The "TM SGNL PIN" message is displayed on an unofficial — and less secure — version of Signal created by a company called TeleMessage, which makes clones of popular messaging apps, but enables the ability to archive messages

https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-waltz-photographed-using-signal-messaging-app-during-cabinet-meeting-2025-5?op=1

TeleMessage is an Israeli software company based in Petah Tikva, Israel. Founded in 1999 by Guy Levit and Gil Shapira, it provides secure enterprise messaging, mobile communications archiving and high-volume text messaging services.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeleMessage

Let that sink in

[–] LePoisson@lemmy.world 121 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hello foreign intelligence agencies, would you like an easy way to intercept and read classified communications? Maybe just buy it off Mossad? JFC what is this clown show. Why are our intelligence officials even using off the shelf, or even modified, software solutions for communications? Shouldn't we have some secure messaging app and protocols developed here?

Am I missing something here or is it really this dumb?

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 38 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

They are going out of their way to use an Israeli platform to discuss top secret government business on. Seems pretty obvious why. They are taking instructions from ~~Israel~~ Russia!

[–] LePoisson@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean it's probably both but I would bet my life that Trump is actually a Russian agent. You don't grab a whole pile of classified documents and bring them to your home in a location secured worse than the door to a bedroom and not proceed to give those away.

Now, direct involvement and level of control - idk but he must be "on their payroll" so to speak.

Who knows they're a whole den of corruption, I wouldn't be surprised to learn some of Trump's staff are selling state secrets.

[–] 800XL@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

Most of that shit went to Saudi Arabia for the 2 billion paid to Jared Kushner's company years ago.

[–] Trimatrix@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Isn’t Israel known for its tech firms making phone security bypass tech (I.E. NSO Group and their Pegasus SW?)

[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007321231-Archiving-or-unarchiving-chats

Am I just being dense or does stock Signal already have this feature?

You can also export the entirety of your Signal chats and decrypt them on a computer with an open source tool.

I also thought they were using Signal specifically to avoid FOIA, which requires government officials to archive their messages.

So it is possible government officials are using disappearing messages in Signal (which is illegal for multiple reasons), which will give a reason to use a third party app, not that this specific app should be trusted in any way.

[–] sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My understanding is that Archiving chats would be keeping a copy of these chats accessible elsewhere for archiving purposes and not directly related to the archiving feature you've mentioned.

Signal does support chat backup which is close enough but its encrypted and its complicated to make one (for security reasons) and I am not sure its possible to view the encrypted chats without going through the process of restoring the backup.

There are third party, open source tools to view encrypted Signal backups if you have the key to decrypt them.

[–] Texas_Hangover@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Petah Tikva.

Sounds like a Klingon insult.

[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Petak-T'kva!

/ stab

It translates to "you have Play-Doh on your forehead".

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't understand, signal is open source, why would they need to purchase an unofficial fork from a foreign company? Isn't that an huge security issue?

And what's the point of using end to end encryption if the app has been hacked to send messages to a remote server anyway

[–] sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 day ago

Signal is lacking a certain feature "Archiving messages" . This company used Signal's open source code to add this feature and offer the whole thing as a "Signal plus" product.

Assuming best intentions, Waltz wanted Signal but also wanted the ability to archive messages so he opted for the software provided by this company instead of the original.

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

well that is how you become Israel's and Russia's bitch and sell your own country so they don't reveal the dirt that they found about you

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Preloaded with Pegasus at your disposal lmao

[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Holy mother of fuck