Until now, Signal was mostly known among Silicon Valley geeks and global dissidents for leaving few digital traces. It was lightly used among federal bureaucrats until they embraced it after Trump’s return to office as a tactic to shield communications, according to interviews with more than two dozen government workers — most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation — and people they have consulted for advice.
These new government users have corresponded with a jolt in the popularity of Signal, which is operated by a nonprofit. The app has been downloaded more than 2.7 million times in the United States so far this year, a 36 percent increase from the same period in 2024, according to estimates from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
The changes mark a cultural transformation for federal government officials, employees and the public they serve: Adopting Signal and other surveillance-dodging tactics of spies and billionaires comes at the potential loss of a real-time history of the Trump administration.
Lauren Harper, who leads efforts for a more transparent federal government at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said Americans will never have a full accounting of the policies made in their interests when officials and workers communicate in private channels that are closed off to U.S. citizens.
When you have “secrecy on each side,” Harper said, “the public has no way to understand what is happening inside the government.”
...
Among rank-and-file federal workers, the knowledge that their email messages, memos and other official work could be made public someday has long made them conscious of what they say. But in interviews, some federal workers said the Trump administration has reshaped their communications.
Rapid changes and the slashing of the federal workforce have made them desperate to share information with colleagues and counterparts elsewhere in the government. And more than ever, some workers say they worry that digital water cooler talk or questions about agency layoffs, return-to-office mandates and administration policies could be perceived as disloyal.
...
Some federal workers said they’re not using apps like Signal to conduct official government business. Rather, the app, accessed on personal phones, is one of the few remaining places where they feel they cannot be monitored in communications with family, members of the press and co-workers, according to the State Department worker and other federal employees.
When workers were asked last month to summarize five of their significant accomplishments from the past week, the State Department worker said Signal messages flew as colleagues tried to figure out whether and how to reply. Information that the agency’s leadership shares with employees tends to be overwhelmingly glowing, she said, and workers pass around more critical news articles on Signal.
My gov team uses Signal. But not for sharing classified info or even CUI. It's just way easier to communicate things like "Hey team, don't forget: I'm off tomorrow," or "I feel like shit, I'm not...
My gov team uses Signal. But not for sharing classified info or even CUI. It's just way easier to communicate things like "Hey team, don't forget: I'm off tomorrow," or "I feel like shit, I'm not coming in today," along with cat/dog pics. We can't have Teams on our phones (like I had at my previous private sector job), and I don't always have my work laptop with me. In fact, my work computer stays at work now with 5 days/wk RTO. So I never have it with me outside of work. So Signal is the place for that kinda stuff.
During the workday, we are making an effort to use Teams for actual work-related things. But when we're spread across the building and people are away from the desks...sometimes Signal is still used.
That said, for sure, there's def some anti-admin/Musk snark that gets posted in Signal. I have an IRL friend who works for the DOD who I chat with everyday on Teams. But anytime it feels like the conversation is headed towards talking about something the admin wouldn't like, we switch to Discord DMs. Before the inauguration, it was NBD. But now? No way in hell I'm leaving any evidence that I'm not on the admin's side.
Signal has always been semi-tolerated in the military, especially among Special Forces. A lot of commanders are willing to accept the risk in order to accomplish the mission. This is a really big...
Signal has always been semi-tolerated in the military, especially among Special Forces. A lot of commanders are willing to accept the risk in order to accomplish the mission.
This is a really big deal, but honestly not for the reasons a lot of people think it is, and it's also really not surprising. I don't know if WHCA serves all of these people but I'm sure doing everything to connect them to each other is terrible, to the point that I'm honestly not mad about senior USG officials using Signal to discuss a pending strike on the Houthis. There are many things about this that do upset me, but that one fact is really not that big of a deal to me. It's basically everything else about it that is problematic.
I would suspect that it is extremely common as a C, but probably relatively common as an A. I would probably make it a C for ops in the field, assuming we're restricted to cell phones.
I would suspect that it is extremely common as a C, but probably relatively common as an A. I would probably make it a C for ops in the field, assuming we're restricted to cell phones.
What a ridiculous way to try and demonize encryption. That the communication itself is encrypted has nothing to do with it whatsoever. Government issued devices should still be archived, signal or...
When you have “secrecy on each side,” Harper said, “the public has no way to understand what is happening inside the government.”
What a ridiculous way to try and demonize encryption.
That the communication itself is encrypted has nothing to do with it whatsoever. Government issued devices should still be archived, signal or not. Which is entirely feasible.
Call me crazy - and I say this as an outspoken privacy advocate, strong supporter of encryption, and professional security consultant - but I don't believe that official government communication...
Call me crazy - and I say this as an outspoken privacy advocate, strong supporter of encryption, and professional security consultant - but I don't believe that official government communication should be end-to-end encrypted with keys that never leave physical devices.
This is one of those cases where transparency is important, and there should not be an expectation of privacy. At least not in an interpersonal sense. I'm not saying all government communication should be public, and I'm definitely not saying it should be unencrypted, but it does need to be recoverable and auditable by actors uninvolved in the actual communication.
So to that point, Signal is absolutely the wrong tool to use for official government communication.
It feels like there's a massive disconnect between the personal sense of security and the overall security of the system. But to be fair, it's clear that in the US government right now, the system...
It feels like there's a massive disconnect between the personal sense of security and the overall security of the system. But to be fair, it's clear that in the US government right now, the system is agressively at odds with itself and the people that administer it, so I can understand the need to keep things off record and to cover tracks.
And even without toxic governments, I'm sure personal IM apps are a major problem in most every organization around the world. Everywhere I've worked, people defaulted to WhatsApp or Telegram for casual correspondence, even with Slack or Teams right there. And very often some sensitive data would make its way into the chat next to personal groups. While it was obviously against policy, enforcement is near impossible at large enough scale.
But regardless, the recent event illustrated exactly why consumer off-the-shelf software is not suitable for high level government correspondence. Seriously, this is the crowd frothing at the mouth about remote work and government spending. You'd think they could make time to be in the same room to discuss untold millions in military spending and ending lives.
I think that's fair, however I dislike the way in which Signal is portrayed throughout the article. Laymen don't know the ins and outs of encryption, or why this particular e2e configuration would...
I think that's fair, however I dislike the way in which Signal is portrayed throughout the article. Laymen don't know the ins and outs of encryption, or why this particular e2e configuration would be less than ideal.
Wholly agree there's a better way to handle this. (I'd actually like more developments in this area)
Messages sent over Signal aren’t getting archived, though. If they were then the government could read them. Avoiding this is why some government workers have switched to Signal.
Messages sent over Signal aren’t getting archived, though. If they were then the government could read them. Avoiding this is why some government workers have switched to Signal.
What do you mean? Employers who are using Google Chat (for example) can enforce company-wide document retention policies. Signal has nothing like that, as far as I know.
What do you mean? Employers who are using Google Chat (for example) can enforce company-wide document retention policies. Signal has nothing like that, as far as I know.
But they can't force people to not use Signal. The US government has rules regarding what people are allowed to use to communicate in order to enforce retention rules. That doesn't mean you can't...
But they can't force people to not use Signal. The US government has rules regarding what people are allowed to use to communicate in order to enforce retention rules. That doesn't mean you can't just go and use Signal because you feel like it, just like how Google employees can use Signal if they feel like it. Except it's even easier for Google employees to use Signal because it's not a federal offense for them to bring their cell phones into their workplaces.
No, but in an effective government, rule breakers would be punished. Normally it would be pretty difficult to prove something like use of Signal for official government communication, but...
No, but in an effective government, rule breakers would be punished. Normally it would be pretty difficult to prove something like use of Signal for official government communication, but...
You're bringing up two disparate points here. First, yes, they should be in trouble for using Signal to discuss classified things. BUT they have a month to forward records that cannot be...
You're bringing up two disparate points here. First, yes, they should be in trouble for using Signal to discuss classified things.
BUT they have a month to forward records that cannot be automatically catalogued. You can't stop people from using platforms for multiple reasons—any conversation could become a record if just one person mentions something official. Plus there are literally as many official systems and solutions as there are people in that chat. Each of these people heads a department or agency that will have their own contracts and policies determining what they should use internally to communicate with their agencies (perhaps SecDef would Teams if he wanted to chat with a random sergeant or the SecState would use Google Workspace to chat with a random staffer, and that's before covering usage policies).
I suspect that WHCA, OMB, or maybe the NSC staff may provide comms capabilities that they can all use to communicate with each other, but the policies governing that communication would simply be presidential policy. These people have a million devices and rules governing their communications. It would be incredibly easy to make a simple mistake—but this goes far beyond that.
So you can't really stop these people in any meaningful way from using various communication methods. Ideally, when they hand their devices to their staffs at night, they will make all the necessary records. These people absolutely are not the only ones with access to their devices or accounts and most of what "they" send may be from staffers...unless they are using separate personally procured devices to circumvent the rules (and let's be realistic about that one).
Okay, I see what you mean. It still seems like Signal's UI is worse than other chat systems for official correspondence. Whether or not a chat is "off the record" or not should be a toggle. (It's...
Okay, I see what you mean. It still seems like Signal's UI is worse than other chat systems for official correspondence. Whether or not a chat is "off the record" or not should be a toggle.
(It's not Signal's fault because it was never designed for this. It's inappropriate use.)
Yes, as an app designed to be secure, it's pretty awful at making it easy for other people to read your messages. I really just don't get why no company or part of the government has forked Signal...
Yes, as an app designed to be secure, it's pretty awful at making it easy for other people to read your messages. I really just don't get why no company or part of the government has forked Signal so that messages can be properly archived. There would be a lot of money in that. A lot of these organizations have come to the realization over the past few years that their only compliant option is basically to block all messaging services (including (and especially) SMS) and to just mandate employees use Teams for everything.
But if these guys don't all have one shared domain they can use, Teams will really suck.
I've been using Signal for a few years now and most of my friend group has switched as well. My personal opinion is that this sort of real time communication should be ephemeral (this is optional)...
I've been using Signal for a few years now and most of my friend group has switched as well. My personal opinion is that this sort of real time communication should be ephemeral (this is optional) and 4 weeks has been more than enough for us. It has the features I need, and most of the features I want.
Some of the things I don't like:
Can't send multiple binary files in a single message (can send images)
Can't enable/disable read receipts on a per contact basis
I don't send many videos, but the ones I did send I always thought did a better job than mms. It didn't try to downgrade the size/resolution or tell me to use a 3rd party service because it was...
I don't send many videos, but the ones I did send I always thought did a better job than mms. It didn't try to downgrade the size/resolution or tell me to use a 3rd party service because it was too large. What issue did you run into?
I simply can’t send large videos (roughly 3 minutes seems to be the cutoff on my iPhone), it’s not possible. This was particularly irritating for competitions since matches can be as long as 6...
I simply can’t send large videos (roughly 3 minutes seems to be the cutoff on my iPhone), it’s not possible. This was particularly irritating for competitions since matches can be as long as 6 minutes, so any matches that went the distance couldn’t be sent to the team signal chat from my phone without first fiddling with them on a desktop, or uploading to a Google album. We have since switched to WhatsApp for that and it was been a good experience.
WhatsApp compresses and strips the hell out of any media you put through it. It'll work and happily send long videos, but it'll look like 2007 YouTube. That's not always a problem of course, but...
WhatsApp compresses and strips the hell out of any media you put through it. It'll work and happily send long videos, but it'll look like 2007 YouTube.
That's not always a problem of course, but it's important to know that it comes out the other end like it went through a mincer.
From the article:
...
...
My gov team uses Signal. But not for sharing classified info or even CUI. It's just way easier to communicate things like "Hey team, don't forget: I'm off tomorrow," or "I feel like shit, I'm not coming in today," along with cat/dog pics. We can't have Teams on our phones (like I had at my previous private sector job), and I don't always have my work laptop with me. In fact, my work computer stays at work now with 5 days/wk RTO. So I never have it with me outside of work. So Signal is the place for that kinda stuff.
During the workday, we are making an effort to use Teams for actual work-related things. But when we're spread across the building and people are away from the desks...sometimes Signal is still used.
That said, for sure, there's def some anti-admin/Musk snark that gets posted in Signal. I have an IRL friend who works for the DOD who I chat with everyday on Teams. But anytime it feels like the conversation is headed towards talking about something the admin wouldn't like, we switch to Discord DMs. Before the inauguration, it was NBD. But now? No way in hell I'm leaving any evidence that I'm not on the admin's side.
Signal has always been semi-tolerated in the military, especially among Special Forces. A lot of commanders are willing to accept the risk in order to accomplish the mission.
This is a really big deal, but honestly not for the reasons a lot of people think it is, and it's also really not surprising. I don't know if WHCA serves all of these people but I'm sure doing everything to connect them to each other is terrible, to the point that I'm honestly not mad about senior USG officials using Signal to discuss a pending strike on the Houthis. There are many things about this that do upset me, but that one fact is really not that big of a deal to me. It's basically everything else about it that is problematic.
A whole lotta PACE plans have "Signal" on them somewhere.
I would suspect that it is extremely common as a C, but probably relatively common as an A. I would probably make it a C for ops in the field, assuming we're restricted to cell phones.
What a ridiculous way to try and demonize encryption.
That the communication itself is encrypted has nothing to do with it whatsoever. Government issued devices should still be archived, signal or not. Which is entirely feasible.
Call me crazy - and I say this as an outspoken privacy advocate, strong supporter of encryption, and professional security consultant - but I don't believe that official government communication should be end-to-end encrypted with keys that never leave physical devices.
This is one of those cases where transparency is important, and there should not be an expectation of privacy. At least not in an interpersonal sense. I'm not saying all government communication should be public, and I'm definitely not saying it should be unencrypted, but it does need to be recoverable and auditable by actors uninvolved in the actual communication.
So to that point, Signal is absolutely the wrong tool to use for official government communication.
It feels like there's a massive disconnect between the personal sense of security and the overall security of the system. But to be fair, it's clear that in the US government right now, the system is agressively at odds with itself and the people that administer it, so I can understand the need to keep things off record and to cover tracks.
And even without toxic governments, I'm sure personal IM apps are a major problem in most every organization around the world. Everywhere I've worked, people defaulted to WhatsApp or Telegram for casual correspondence, even with Slack or Teams right there. And very often some sensitive data would make its way into the chat next to personal groups. While it was obviously against policy, enforcement is near impossible at large enough scale.
But regardless, the recent event illustrated exactly why consumer off-the-shelf software is not suitable for high level government correspondence. Seriously, this is the crowd frothing at the mouth about remote work and government spending. You'd think they could make time to be in the same room to discuss untold millions in military spending and ending lives.
I think that's fair, however I dislike the way in which Signal is portrayed throughout the article. Laymen don't know the ins and outs of encryption, or why this particular e2e configuration would be less than ideal.
Wholly agree there's a better way to handle this. (I'd actually like more developments in this area)
Messages sent over Signal aren’t getting archived, though. If they were then the government could read them. Avoiding this is why some government workers have switched to Signal.
That's not a Signal problem, per se.
What do you mean? Employers who are using Google Chat (for example) can enforce company-wide document retention policies. Signal has nothing like that, as far as I know.
But they can't force people to not use Signal. The US government has rules regarding what people are allowed to use to communicate in order to enforce retention rules. That doesn't mean you can't just go and use Signal because you feel like it, just like how Google employees can use Signal if they feel like it. Except it's even easier for Google employees to use Signal because it's not a federal offense for them to bring their cell phones into their workplaces.
No, but in an effective government, rule breakers would be punished. Normally it would be pretty difficult to prove something like use of Signal for official government communication, but...
You're bringing up two disparate points here. First, yes, they should be in trouble for using Signal to discuss classified things.
BUT they have a month to forward records that cannot be automatically catalogued. You can't stop people from using platforms for multiple reasons—any conversation could become a record if just one person mentions something official. Plus there are literally as many official systems and solutions as there are people in that chat. Each of these people heads a department or agency that will have their own contracts and policies determining what they should use internally to communicate with their agencies (perhaps SecDef would Teams if he wanted to chat with a random sergeant or the SecState would use Google Workspace to chat with a random staffer, and that's before covering usage policies).
I suspect that WHCA, OMB, or maybe the NSC staff may provide comms capabilities that they can all use to communicate with each other, but the policies governing that communication would simply be presidential policy. These people have a million devices and rules governing their communications. It would be incredibly easy to make a simple mistake—but this goes far beyond that.
So you can't really stop these people in any meaningful way from using various communication methods. Ideally, when they hand their devices to their staffs at night, they will make all the necessary records. These people absolutely are not the only ones with access to their devices or accounts and most of what "they" send may be from staffers...unless they are using separate personally procured devices to circumvent the rules (and let's be realistic about that one).
Okay, I see what you mean. It still seems like Signal's UI is worse than other chat systems for official correspondence. Whether or not a chat is "off the record" or not should be a toggle.
(It's not Signal's fault because it was never designed for this. It's inappropriate use.)
Yes, as an app designed to be secure, it's pretty awful at making it easy for other people to read your messages. I really just don't get why no company or part of the government has forked Signal so that messages can be properly archived. There would be a lot of money in that. A lot of these organizations have come to the realization over the past few years that their only compliant option is basically to block all messaging services (including (and especially) SMS) and to just mandate employees use Teams for everything.
But if these guys don't all have one shared domain they can use, Teams will really suck.
Slack and Discord are pretty popular, too. Companies that have standardized on Gmail can use Gmail Chat internally.
Mirror: https://archive.is/rdsFV
I've been using Signal for a few years now and most of my friend group has switched as well. My personal opinion is that this sort of real time communication should be ephemeral (this is optional) and 4 weeks has been more than enough for us. It has the features I need, and most of the features I want.
Some of the things I don't like:
Can't send multiple binary files in a single message (can send images)
Can't enable/disable read receipts on a per contact basis
Video sharing is also awful for anything but very short messages.
I don't send many videos, but the ones I did send I always thought did a better job than mms. It didn't try to downgrade the size/resolution or tell me to use a 3rd party service because it was too large. What issue did you run into?
I simply can’t send large videos (roughly 3 minutes seems to be the cutoff on my iPhone), it’s not possible. This was particularly irritating for competitions since matches can be as long as 6 minutes, so any matches that went the distance couldn’t be sent to the team signal chat from my phone without first fiddling with them on a desktop, or uploading to a Google album. We have since switched to WhatsApp for that and it was been a good experience.
WhatsApp compresses and strips the hell out of any media you put through it. It'll work and happily send long videos, but it'll look like 2007 YouTube.
That's not always a problem of course, but it's important to know that it comes out the other end like it went through a mincer.