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For years, U.S.<\/span> officials villainized end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like Signal as the domain of criminals and terrorists and a threat to national security.<\/p>\n As fallout over a Signal group chat about Yemen war plans ricocheted through Washington, however, CIA Director John Ratcliffe revealed at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday that the app is approved for official communication and even comes installed on agency computers.<\/p>\n One longtime critic of government attacks on secure messaging said it was a sign that everybody else should follow suit.<\/p>\n \u201cFor everyday Americans, this seems like an inadvertent but strong endorsement of the cybersecurity and privacy value that Signal represents \u2014 assuming you actually know who you\u2019re adding to the given chats,\u201d said Sean Vitka, executive director of the progressive group Demand Progress.<\/p>\n The highly sensitive discussion over whether and when to attack Houthis in Yemen included two members of the panel at Tuesday\u2019s hearing, according to a blockbuster report <\/a>Monday from The Atlantic\u2019s Jeffrey Goldberg.<\/p>\n There was particular irony to an FBI director\u2019s presence on the panel next to members of the thread. For years, successive FBI chiefs Chris Wray and James Comey had lambasted<\/a> end-to-end encryption<\/a>. The FBI popularized<\/a> the idea that terrorists and drug cartels were \u201cgoing dark<\/a>\u201d on law enforcement, and that the government needed to step in to do something about it.<\/p>\n The FBI\u2019s favored solution<\/a> was to create a back door in the apps that would allow the government to snoop on conversations \u2014 but only with proper authority, the FBI said.<\/p>\n In a 2014 speech, then-FBI Director Comey said<\/a> that the \u201cpost-Snowden pendulum has swung too far\u201d in favor of privacy. Without creating a back door, he added, \u201chomicide cases could be stalled, suspects could walk free, and child exploitation victims might not be identified or recovered.\u201d<\/p>\n The FBI never made much progress in Congress toward securing a back door. Across the pond, attacks on end-to-end encryption are ongoing, with the United Kingdom reportedly ordering Apple in secret to create one. France\u2019s National Assembly last week voted down a backdoor mandate<\/a> sought by the country\u2019s Interior Ministry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The FBI\u2019s official position became increasingly tenuous last year when revelations about \u201cSalt Typhoon\u201d hackers made clear that unencrypted communications were highly vulnerable to foreign adversaries.<\/p>\n The hackers, who were allegedly affiliated with the Chinese government, targeted phones used by Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the Kamala Harris campaign, according to reports, and in some cases were able to scoop up the content of text conversations.<\/p>\n By December, the FBI was still promoting back doors under the banner of what it calls \u201cresponsibly managed\u201d encryption. At the same time, however, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was advising end-to-end encrypted messaging apps such as Signal as a defense against Chinese hackers.<\/p>\n Signal<\/a>, which is based on an open-source protocol and operated by a nonprofit foundation, is designed to reduce to a minimum<\/a> the amount of information that the app can access. Only the users involved in a conversation have decryption keys, making it impossible for the Signal Foundation to view unencrypted conversations. The foundation also cannot see metadata such as a user\u2019s contacts.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Ratcliffe revealed that the government has adopted Signal at the highest echelons.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the first things that happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was Signal was loaded onto my computer at the CIA.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cOne of the first things that happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was Signal was loaded onto my computer at the CIA, as it is for most CIA officers,\u201d Ratcliffe said.<\/p>\n The practice began during President Joe Biden\u2019s administration and had the official approval of CIA records management officials, Ratcliffe said, as long as \u201cany decisions that are made are also recorded through formal channels.\u201d<\/p>\n Critics of government secrecy were immediately alarmed that government officials might be trying to evade leaving records subject to the Freedom of Information Act or the Presidential Records Act<\/a> by using private devices with disappearing messages.<\/p>\n Despite the high level of protection that end-to-end encryption provides in transit, however, the group chat also raised serious security issues. Even secure messaging apps cannot solve the problem of hackers who have compromised the device running them. Nor can they keep information secret in the event of human error \u2014 say, inadvertently adding a journalist<\/a> to a sensitive discussion of military strikes.<\/p>\n Under questioning from Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard refused to say whether she used a personal or government-issued phone for her part of the conversation.<\/p>\n Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., also asked Ratcliffe whether he was aware that Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff, another member of the group chat, was on a trip in Moscow during the conversation,<\/a> raising more concerns.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\u201cGoing Dark\u201d<\/h2>\n
The CIA Seal of Approval<\/h2>\n
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