U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
And… This is over our highly compromised cell tower communications? Not through an app like signal? Not through some proprietary military app? We really just SMSing war plans…?
For real???
…
…what?!? This makes no sense. It is both Malice and incompetence.
Edit: okay there is mention of an invite to a signal group chat but it’s unclear about the original message…
Edit2: y’all seriously lack basic reading comprehension skills and are out here telling me to read the article is adorable.
Oh I did read it. Twice, actually. Wild how reading comprehension works, right? The article mentions Signal for some of the messages, but it’s pretty fuzzy on how the whole mess started. That’s literally what I was pointing out. But hey, let me know what you find after your first read.
On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz.
Next paragraph:
I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter.
Next paragraph:
Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”
Paints a a pretty clear picture. Author got a signal connection request, which he accepted. The article intuits that no communication between the author and the signal user ID’d as Michael Waltz between the connection request and the author’s addition to the signal group.
Nothing I have read is ambiguous in how the communication occurred, so I’m at a loss at what you’re seeing that says differently.
You’re reading into the article more than it actually says. Yes, it notes a connection request on Signal and later a group chat invite - but it never explicitly states that the connection request was the first contact. If that were clear, the article would have just said “the first message came through Signal.” It didn’t.
The sequence is vague enough to raise the question. If you think that ambiguity is settled by implication, cool - but don’t conflate inference with certainty.
Your claim: communication occurred between the author and at last one or more of the individuals noted in the article over unencrypted methods.
Your clam is debunked by the article simply with the quotes I set out in my previous message. Comments about first message being signal or not is not relevant to the meat of the article, namely that the group of individuals listed were communicating about classified/top secret information on the Signal app and had (likely inadvertently) added the journalist
Addressing your comments about stated facts:
All connection requests to connect via signal happen through signal.
The connection request must be the first contact, no messages can be transmitted before the connection request is approved.
The only thing missing here is weather or not the author received any messaging in the 2 day lapse between the connection request and the notice that he was being added to the signal chat group. While possible that they did communicate with the individual identified as Michael Waltz, it has no bearing on the content of the article nor the assumption you made about unencrypted communications being held.
I recommend getting familiar with the software being used (signal in this case). While I appreciate pedantic individuals like yourself that get into the details and phrasing of messaging in order to discern the truth or intent of the author, that has to be tempered with a larger understanding in general.
I think the people downvoting you are a little confused. Not only SMS but even direct phone calls can be intercepted and the owner would never be any the wiser, because the network for phones called SS7 and the access points, the “global titles”, are so widespread around the globe that anybody and their grandmother can get one, imitate your Sim card’s unique identifier “IMSI”, and get your calls and texts routed to them. (If they have a spare $10,000 anyways)
This is why many communication options these days advertise that they are encrypted.
The article says they were later added to a Signal group chat. It doesn’t clearly state how the initial messages were sent. So yeah, maybe give it another read and level up that reading comprehension XP while you’re at it, instead of casting stones making yourself look silly.
And… This is over our highly compromised cell tower communications? Not through an app like signal? Not through some proprietary military app? We really just SMSing war plans…?
For real???
…
…what?!? This makes no sense. It is both Malice and incompetence.
Edit: okay there is mention of an invite to a signal group chat but it’s unclear about the original message…
Edit2: y’all seriously lack basic reading comprehension skills and are out here telling me to read the article is adorable.
The irony of misreading an article then accusing other people of lacking reading comprehension.
You’re an absolute moron.
You should probably read the article before commenting on it.
Oh I did read it. Twice, actually. Wild how reading comprehension works, right? The article mentions Signal for some of the messages, but it’s pretty fuzzy on how the whole mess started. That’s literally what I was pointing out. But hey, let me know what you find after your first read.
Well try a third time
It’s not fuzzy at all. He was accidentally invited to a group chat. They thought he was someone else.
If you’ve ever used signal, the detail in the article would be more than enough to understand the sequence of events.
Paragraph 6, first sentence:
Next paragraph:
Next paragraph:
Paints a a pretty clear picture. Author got a signal connection request, which he accepted. The article intuits that no communication between the author and the signal user ID’d as Michael Waltz between the connection request and the author’s addition to the signal group.
Nothing I have read is ambiguous in how the communication occurred, so I’m at a loss at what you’re seeing that says differently.
You’re reading into the article more than it actually says. Yes, it notes a connection request on Signal and later a group chat invite - but it never explicitly states that the connection request was the first contact. If that were clear, the article would have just said “the first message came through Signal.” It didn’t.
The sequence is vague enough to raise the question. If you think that ambiguity is settled by implication, cool - but don’t conflate inference with certainty.
Your claim: communication occurred between the author and at last one or more of the individuals noted in the article over unencrypted methods.
Your clam is debunked by the article simply with the quotes I set out in my previous message. Comments about first message being signal or not is not relevant to the meat of the article, namely that the group of individuals listed were communicating about classified/top secret information on the Signal app and had (likely inadvertently) added the journalist
Addressing your comments about stated facts:
All connection requests to connect via signal happen through signal. The connection request must be the first contact, no messages can be transmitted before the connection request is approved.
The only thing missing here is weather or not the author received any messaging in the 2 day lapse between the connection request and the notice that he was being added to the signal chat group. While possible that they did communicate with the individual identified as Michael Waltz, it has no bearing on the content of the article nor the assumption you made about unencrypted communications being held.
I recommend getting familiar with the software being used (signal in this case). While I appreciate pedantic individuals like yourself that get into the details and phrasing of messaging in order to discern the truth or intent of the author, that has to be tempered with a larger understanding in general.
See https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007459591-Signal-Profiles-and-Message-Requests#message_requests for information about signal and message requests.
I think the people downvoting you are a little confused. Not only SMS but even direct phone calls can be intercepted and the owner would never be any the wiser, because the network for phones called SS7 and the access points, the “global titles”, are so widespread around the globe that anybody and their grandmother can get one, imitate your Sim card’s unique identifier “IMSI”, and get your calls and texts routed to them. (If they have a spare $10,000 anyways)
This is why many communication options these days advertise that they are encrypted.
Yep. And anyone whose been to DEFCON knows a guy who knows a guy with SS7 access.
the people downvoting read the article and saw that the messages were sent from Signal
deleted by creator
The article says they were later added to a Signal group chat. It doesn’t clearly state how the initial messages were sent. So yeah, maybe give it another read and level up that reading comprehension XP while you’re at it, instead of casting stones making yourself look silly.
What initial messages?
Like Signal. You know, the app they were using, as was mentioned in the article, multiple times. You did read the article, right?
I know nothing about Signal, nor do I care to, but thank you for informing me.
The article states they were later invited to a signal group chat. It is not clear from the article how the first messages were sent.
Maybe read the article yourself.
Are you assuming there were any messages prior to the group chat?
I think this guy is trying to fight everybody on this thread