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TM SGNL, the obscure unofficial Signal app Mike Waltz uses to text with Trmp officials
https://micahflee.com/tm-sgnl-the-obscure-unofficial-signal-app-mike-waltz-uses-to-text-with-trump-officials/Extra credit: Source code for the unofficial Signal app used by Trump officials (interesting)
https://micahflee.com/heres-the-source-code-for-the-unofficial-signal-app-used-by-trump-officials/
There is a ton of information here that's really important and pertinent, so read the two Micah Lee articles.
Yesterday, a Reuters photographer captured a photo of the freshly-ousted former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz checking his Signal messages during a Trump cabinet meeting. If you're not familiar with Waltz, he's most well known for inviting The Atlantic's editor-in-chief to secret Trump administration war crimes Signal group. They discussed, and executed, bombing an urban apartment building full of civilians to kill a single man.
404 Media journalist Joseph Cox published a story pointing out that Waltz was not using the official Signal app, but rather "an obscure and unofficial version of Signal that is designed to archive messages" called TM SGNL.
link: https://www.404media.co/mike-waltz-accidentally-reveals-obscure-app-the-government-is-using-to-archive-signal-messages/
https://archive.ph/Vso5r
This app uses Signal's servers, making it possible for Waltz to send end-to-end encrypted messages to normal Signal users, like Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic, for example. However unlike the Signal end of the encrypted conversation, the TM SGNL end automatically archives a copy of the plaintext messages (even ones with disappearing messages) somewhere else that may or may not be secure.
Summary of concerns: (screenshot)
Read more at the link above: https://micahflee.com/tm-sgnl-the-obscure-unofficial-signal-app-mike-waltz-uses-to-text-with-trump-officials/
From the source code article:
The website, and the source code itself, also makes it clear that this code is licensed under GPLv3. This means that TeleMessage has granted me (and everyone else) the right to access the code, analyze it, modify it, and do whatever else we want with it, so long as we publish any derivative work under the same license.
Considering the incredibly newsworthiness of this – the most powerful officials in Trump's authoritarian government are using this (essentially backdoored) version of Signal to discuss classified information and plan war crimes – I decided to publish mirrors of this source code on GitHub to make it easy for anyone to access.
Considering the incredibly newsworthiness of this – the most powerful officials in Trump's authoritarian government are using this (essentially backdoored) version of Signal to discuss classified information and plan war crimes – I decided to publish mirrors of this source code on GitHub to make it easy for anyone to access.
LOTS of info on the TM SGNL app, including those sources he dropped off at github.
App's author is telemessage.com
The source code contains hardcoded credentials and other vulnerabilities.
