Court Docs Show FBI Can Intercept Encrypted Messages From ‘Signal’ App
Court Docs Show FBI Can Intercept Encrypted Messages From ‘Signal’ App
BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, FEB 12, 2021 - 23:00 Authored by Shane Trejo via Big League Politics (emphasis ours),
Recent
court documents have
indicated that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) possesses a tool allowing them to access encrypted messages on the Signal
app.
Signal
has rapidly gained in popularity as Silicon Valley monopolists have grown more
openly hostile to free speech, but the platform may be vulnerable to
backdoors that undermine the privacy protections provided through the encrypted
messaging service.
According to documents filed
by the Department of Justice and first obtained by Forbes, Signal’s
encrypted messages can be intercepted from iPhone devices when those Apple
devices are in a mode called “partial AFU,” which means “after first
unlock.”
When phones are in partial
AFU mode, Signal messages can be seized by federal authorities and other
potentially hostile interests. GrayKey and Cellebrite are the tools typically
used by the FBI to gain this sensitive information, an expert has explained.
“It
uses some very advanced approach using hardware vulnerabilities,”
said Vladimir Katalov, who founded the Russian forensics company ElcomSoft,
believing that GrayKey was used by federal authorities to crack Signal.
This
vulnerability within the Signal app may not be a design flaw, but rather a
deliberate backdoor to allow authorities to access private messages. The app was initially funded with backing from the deep state, after
all.
Big League Politics has
reported about the rise of Telegram, a pro-privacy app that is
Signal’s most direct competitor:
The
New York Times is prodding Telegram to censor right-wing voices and hamper the
platform’s amazing growth as mainstream social media platforms
enact Draconian censorship.
The
notorious fake news rag published an article on
Tuesday imploring Telegram to do more to stop so-called “far-right conspiracy
theorists, racists and violent insurrectionists” from using the app to
communicate.
“There’s a real push and pull between the
people that are using Telegram — and messengers like it — for good, and the
people who are using them to undermine democracy,”
said Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation analyst at the globalist Wilson Center.
“We
see the same openness and sense of connection that is used by democratic
activists opportunistically exploited by extremists,” she added…
“Telegram
has never yielded to pressure from officials who wanted us to perform political
censorship,” Durov wrote several years ago.
Durov,
a Russian-born libertarian, has run into trouble with the Kremlin over
Telegram, but the Russian government has come around on the platform and now
regularly use it. Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United
Nations, even urged former President Donald Trump to get on the platform after
he was banned by Big Tech.
“Seems like you don’t enjoy freedom of
speech in your own country any more!” Mr.
Polyanskiy wrote.
Although
Trump is not currently on the platform, his son, Donald Trump Jr., has joined
Telegram and already commands a massive following on the pro-free speech app.
Telegram
may be a better option than Signal for individuals hoping to safeguard their
rights, considering Signal’s vulnerabilities and deep state ties.
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