Jeffrey Goldberg on the Group Chat That Broke the Internet
22 comments
·March 26, 2025legitster
piva00
Will never know if this quote has actually been said but the message always rings true when I look at American politics:
> “Every young person who wants to break into DC-politics hope it’s West Wing, fear it’s House of Cards and find out it’s Veep”
comrade1234
The binaries for signal that come down from the apple/google stores are different than when built from the source code yourself. As much as a 5MB difference. So who knows if it’s even secure in the first place.
treyd
Do we know what's included in the Google releases. I'm assuming it's for notifications and some related packages.
ashoeafoot
Back..ehm.. low energy communications framework..doored
ChrisArchitect
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43462783
dave333
Reminds me of the Enron guys labelling themselves the smartest guys in the room right before they went bust.
hnpolicestate
Why wouldn't the United States employ DARPA or the NSA to create a non-commercial mobile communications platform for high ranking government employees? Is signal in bed with the government? I must not be technical enough to understand the reasoning.
ooterness
They did. They are legally required to use those systems, which also make it easy to archive the official government records that are also legally required. Every government employee has annual training emphasizing these legal requirements.
The problem is these officials chose not to use the secure systems, because they don't want those records to exist.
krapp
>Why wouldn't the United States employ DARPA or the NSA to create a non-commercial mobile communications platform for high ranking government employees?
Because high ranking government employees don't want to be told they can't use whatever they're already familiar with for whatever they want, and they would rather heaven and earth move to accommodate them than be inconvenienced. Even if it exists, which is probably does, you can't force such people to use it, they'll just have you fired and maybe have the program axed for good measure.
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chilmers
[flagged]
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legitster
Definitely up there in the pantheon of modern insipid phrases.
It's also just not a good use of the phrase. "Breaking the internet" is somewhat dismissive and implies that something was viral and hacked its way into feeds. But in this case the story was incredibly newsworthy. In this case, it would have been better to call it a "bombshell" to borrow older, insipid phrases.
brookst
I’m with you, unless it’s preceded by “Ralph”
jgrahamc
Ha ha. No, you are not. I posted the same sentiment at the same time as you. It's utterly stupid.
mc32
He’s making most of his 15 minutes. He’s now walking back the “war plans” characterization of the chat.
Yes these intel guys and gals certainly should be spanked to improve their operatsec. That’s inexcusable, but this guy is squeezing the most he can out of the story.
Signal is an approved app. The prior admin also used it for non classified discussions.
Whoever invited that putz accidentally into the chat needs to be fired.
piva00
Goddamn, just stop blaming the journalists, this guy is editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, he doesn't need his 15 minutes of fame. And even if you still want to believe he's making most of his 15 minutes of fame, the scoop just landed on his lap, he is doing his fucking job...
I cannot comprehend what kind of twist a mind has gone through to believe a journalist doing exactly their job is being an attention whore, bringing attention to a uniquely important scoop is the whole point of journalism.
hw-guy
The same kind of people who condemned Woodward and Bernstein for investigating and reporting on Watergate.
legitster
This is such a ridiculous moving of the goalposts.
Imagine during WWII somebody accidentally forwarded plans about Operation Overlord to the press before D-Day. The response wouldn't be "oh, well it didn't include details on specific targets".
apical_dendrite
Please explain how he is 'walking back the “war plans” characterization of the chat'.
The transcript that's linked here says the exact opposite multiple times.
> But this level of specificity—actual planning for an ongoing operation, the sharing of intelligence and information about strikes—that is clearly not what Signal’s intended for.
> Harris: So details like the number of aircraft that are involved, the kinds of munitions that are being dropped, specific times—
> Rosin: That was on the chain?
> Harris: Specific targets on the ground, um, you know, intelligence-related matters relating to the strike and to the targets, names of individuals—of U.S. officials—who should not have been put in an unclassified chain because of their status as intelligence officers. You know, you can kind of, like, you can—there’s probably six or seven different kinds of information that are arguably implicated under the rules and the law for how you’re supposed to handle this stuff.
The relatability of this story is what gives it legs.
Everyone likes to imagine this kind of stuff is done by operators acting in American interests with a steady hand on the wheel. But it turns out decisions about life and death are being made using shallow analysis by a list of unqualified political insiders with the level of care given to organizing a fantasy football league.
I can't think of a better parable about technology. We have removed massive barriers and instilled ease of use. We have also created complacency and instilled recklessness. Add in the political elements and this is a seminal 21st century moment.