Signal, a popular messaging app, was in the spotlight this week after reports that senior Trump administration officials used the tool to plan wars and implemented the war plans with journalists in their messaging groups.
Launched in 2014 and with hundreds of millions of users, the app is popular among journalists, activists, privacy experts and politicians.
However, the use of the app by government officials has resulted in intelligence report violations that have been committed outside of safe government channels, usually used for classified, highly sensitive war plans. The incident raises questions about the security of the signal and why government officials were using it. (In general, federal officials are not permitted to install signals on government-issued devices.)
Here's what you need to know.
What is the signal used for?
Signals are encrypted messaging applications used to communicate securely. Encrypt messages from end-to-end. This means that what the user says is encrypted on the device and not decrypted until it reaches the recipient. This method protects everyone, whether it's an Internet service provider, a hacker, or the signal itself, from being intercepted and messages being intercepted and read during transit.
Users can also set signal messages to be configured after a certain amount of time. Users who want to clear messages can turn on the settings feature for each individual chat.
Who owns the signal?
The signal is owned by an independent, nonprofit organization in the United States called the Signals Foundation. Funded by user contributions and grants.
The foundation was launched in 2018 with a $50 million donation from Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, another messaging platform purchased by Facebook in 2014. Acton left WhatsApp and launched the Signal Foundation after a dispute with Facebook, known as Meta.
Acton joined Moxie Marlinspike, the cryptographer who designed the signal security system, to create the Signal Foundation. The foundation is structured to prevent signals from having an incentive to sell user data.
“There are many big reasons why it's on the traffic light,” wrote Merlin Spike, who resigned from the foundation's board in 2022, in a post on X on Monday. “Please include the opportunity to randomly add the Vice President of the United States to group chats to coordinate sensitive military operations. Don't sleep on this opportunity.”
Is the signal safe?
yes. Signals are widely considered the most secure messaging app on the market due to encryption technology and other means designed to protect user data.
The underlying encryption technology is open source. This means that the code is public and allows technicians outside of nonprofits to look into it and identify the defect. This technology is licensed and used by other services such as WhatsApp.
That encryption technology was important when signals became targets of foreign hackers. Russia attempted to investigate when Ukrainians were using signals, and in February Google researchers said that Russian hackers had tried to hijack user signal accounts. The second attack was effective, but it worked by suppressing users to add Rogue devices to the signal account rather than breaking the encryption of the signal.
“Phishing attacks on people using popular applications and websites are a fact of life on the internet,” said Jun Harada, a spokesman for Signals. “After learning that signal users are targeting and how they are targeted, we introduced additional safeguards and in-app warnings to protect people from victims of phishing attacks.”
In the event of a security breach, the signal is designed to hold as little user data as possible, thus releasing minimal information. Unlike other messaging services, the company does not store user contacts or other identification data. This data shows how people used the service.
That doesn't mean that the signal is the ideal service for communicating war plans. If your device is compromised, you can read signal messages. Government-approved communications systems can prevent officials from incorrectly including journalists in war planning debates.
Are signals safe for text messages?
Yes, generally, users should be careful to review new contacts, just as they could on other social platforms.
And when adding people to a group chat, they may want to take the extra time to make sure they include the right contacts.
