In detail, the filtration happened after the National Security Minister, Michael Waltzadded to the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic By mistake to the group where the sensitive information about the air attacks planned by USA. The US military operation resulted in missile launching on the Yemenite capital, Saná, that left dozens of dead on March 16.
What is Signal, the platform used by Donald Trump to share war plans with Yemen
Although, initially, the official explanations of the White House point to a human error by Waltz In the filtration of the messages, in the last hours the application was relevant through which the senior officials communicated. Now: What is really signal and how does your safety work?
Signal is a messaging application, as WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram. The platform arose in 2010, under another name, and after merging with other apps arose – in 2015 – under its current denomination.
At present, Signal has between 40 and 70 million monthly userswhich catalogs it as a smaller company compared to large messaging services (WhatsApp, for example, has more than 3,000 million users).
Despite the filtration, Signal differs from its competitors for being one of the platforms that offer more security to its users. In detail, its end -to -end encryption (E2EE) enable only to sender and recipient To read the messages. Not even the application itself can read the conversations between users.
In addition, the application software is open source. This means that anyone can explore it and offer changes and/or comments to improve safety and operation and that there are no vulnerabilities that Cybercriminals can explode.
The application belongs to the Signal Foundation, a non -profit organization based in the US that depends on donations and not advertising income. After filtration, one of the company’s director, Meredith Whittaker, said: “Signal is the gold standard in private communications.”
Despite security, Data expert, Caro Robson, affirmed to the BBC that it is “Very, very unusual” That senior government security officials use this platform to share extreme sensitivity information. “In general, a very safe, operated government system and government propertywith very high levels of encryption, “he explained.
The nature of the application itself aroused another important debate within American society. Is that Signal – like so many other messaging applications – allows its users to configure the messages so that they disappear after a certain period, Something that Goldberg said that it happened with the conversations he agreed.
This can violate the laws on record maintenanceunless the users of the application forward their messages to a Official Government account.
The background of Signal in the United States
Despite the hard criticism against Trump, Waltz and company, the truth is that this It is not the first time that US officials use this application. In detail, during the presidency of Joe Biden (2021-2025), some officials were able to download Signal on the phones provided by the White House.
However, during the Democrat’s management, officials were ordered Use the application in moderation and never share information classified in it. In addition, the Pentagon regulations They establish that messaging applications “They are not authorized to access, transmit or process non -public information from the Department of Defense“The CNN chain reported.
John Wheeler from Wheelhouse Advisors, a cybersecurity consultant, explained to the BBC that using Signal to communicate sensitive messages of this nature is always risky. “Something so delicate should require Very strict communication protocols. I was very surprised to use this type of solution, “the consultant concluded.
Source: Ambito
