Signal, a popular messaging app, this week arrived in the spotlight according to which several high officials of the Trump administration had used the tool to conduct war planning, inadvertently included a journalist in the message group.
The app, which was started in 2014 and has hundreds of millions of users, is popular between journalists, activists, privacy and politicians, anyone who wants to guarantee their communications with encryption.
But the use of the app by the government officials led to a violation of the intelligence that took place outside the safe government channels that would normally be used for the planning of the classified and highly sensitive war. The accident raised questions about Signal’s security and why the government officials were using it. (Federal officials are generally not authorized to install the signal on their devices issued by the government.)
Here’s what to know.
What is the signal for?
The signal is an application of encrypted messaging that is used to communicate safely. Encrypted messages from one end to the other, which means that what a user says is encrypted on the user’s device and is not decrypted until he reaches the recipient. This method protects the message from being intercepted and read by anyone, including internet service providers, hackers or signals, while it is in transit.
Users can also set signature messages to disappear after a certain period of time. Travelers who wish to disappear their messages can activate the function in the settings for each of their individual chats.
Who owns the signal?
The signal is owned by an independent non -profit organization in the United States called Signal Foundation. It is financed by donations by its users and subsidies.
The Foundation was started in 2018 with a donation of $ 50 million by Brian Acton, a WhatsApp co-founder, another messaging platform, which Facebook purchased in 2014. Mr. Acton left WhatsApp to start the Signal Foundation after the disputes with Facebook, which is now known as a destination, on the plans to make money from its messaging service.
Acton joined Moxie Marlinspike, a cryptographer who designed the Signal security system, to create the Signal Foundation. The Foundation is structured to prevent the signal from ever having an incentive to sell user data.
“There are so many excellent reasons to be on reporting,” wrote Marlinspiike, who shaken the Foundation’s Board of Directors in 2022, in a post on X Monday. “Now includes the opportunity for the Vice -President of the United States of America to add a randomly to a group chat for the coordination of sensitive military operations. Don’t sleep on this opportunity.”
Is the signal safe?
YES. The signal is widely considered as the safest messaging app on the market, due to its encryption technology and other measures designed to protect user data.
His underlying encryption technology is open source, which means that the code is made public and allows technologists outside the non -profit to examine it and identify the defects. Technology is also authorized and used by other services, such as WhatsApp.
That encryption technology was the key when the signal was a target of foreign hackers. Russia attempted to supervise the Ukrainians use the signal and, in February, Google researchers said that Russian hackers tried to divert users’ signal accounts. While the second attack was effective, it worked by cutting out users to add rogue devices to their signal accounts, not breaking Signal’s encryption.
“Phishing attacks against people who use popular applications and websites are a fact of life on the Internet,” said Jun Harada, a signal spokesperson. “Once I learned that the reporting users were targeted and how they were targeted, we introduced further guarantees and in-app warnings to help protect people from the fall of the victim of phishing attacks.”
In case of security violation, the signal is designed to keep the smallest possible number of user data, so that minimal information is exposed. Unlike other messaging services, the company does not store users’ contacts or other identification data that could indicate how a person used the service.
This does not mean that the signal is the ideal service to communicate war plans. If a user’s device is compromised, his signal messages could be read and the use of a communication system approved by the government could prevent officials of inadvertently, including a journalist in a war planning discussion.
Is the signal safe for text messages?
Yes, in general, although users should be careful to veterinate new contacts, just as they could on any other social platform.
And when they add people to group chats, they may want to take an extra moment to make sure they have included the right contacts.