Genuine question: I get that there’s usually an expected/different process, and (obvs) the ability to add the wrong person is a problem (!) but is there a fundamental practical reason that their using Signal is/was a problem?
The reason that there's an "expected" process is because the people who were hired to think deeply about security got together and, for a bunch of reasons including "(obvs) the ability to add the wrong person is a problem", decided that the process should be something other than Signal. I'm not sure if we know all of the reasons they made that decision, but I think we can infer a few:
- all communication must be stored for legal purposes
- all communication must be on secure government hardware
- the entire security infrastructure must be operated by the government
Thanks for your interesting reply. Some of this is what I was getting at with "fundamental" and "practical":
> all communication must be on secure government hardware
> the entire security infrastructure must be operated by the government
...only matter practically, if the Government hardware and infrastructure are guaranteed to be more secure than the alternative, also considering the fallibilty of the users. And while I appreciate that iPhones and Signal likely aren't infallible, I'm not sure we know what level of absolute trust to place on Government-supplied hardware or infrastructure provided by whoever got the contract?
Signal is end-to-end encrypted. One end is the Signal app on your phone. The other end is the Signal app on their phone. The Signal app is developed by people, using computers. Both of those things can be compromised, neither of them are under the perview of the U.S. security agencies.
I would put the market value of a backdoor into all Senior White House communications as certainly >$10B, and probably >$100B, limited only by how long the buyer believed it would be a reliable source of intel. (it may be better to offer it as a subscription service.)
At that point everything should be assumed to be compromised until demonstrated to a reasonable degree of confidence that it's probably safe. A random install from an app store is not that.
> I would put the market value of a backdoor into all Senior White House communications as certainly >$10B, and probably >$100B, limited only by how long the buyer believed it would be a reliable source of intel. (it may be better to offer it as a subscription service.)
Yes - how much would Russia, China, or Iran - and US allies - pay to know what the US is planning? What secrets the US has - strengths and weaknesses. It could be existential for their countries. They even could cash in on market-moving information, and even if they wouldn't pay $100B, so could investors.
But I don't know if I'd try the subscription model with state intelligence agencies. It exposes you indefinitely, rather than take the money and disappear; they won't like you having access to the valuable information; they can just take what you have; they are very dangerous.
