U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz.
Next paragraph:
I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter.
Next paragraph:
Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”
Paints a a pretty clear picture. Author got a signal connection request, which he accepted. The article intuits that no communication between the author and the signal user ID’d as Michael Waltz between the connection request and the author’s addition to the signal group.
Nothing I have read is ambiguous in how the communication occurred, so I’m at a loss at what you’re seeing that says differently.
You’re reading into the article more than it actually says. Yes, it notes a connection request on Signal and later a group chat invite - but it never explicitly states that the connection request was the first contact. If that were clear, the article would have just said “the first message came through Signal.” It didn’t.
The sequence is vague enough to raise the question. If you think that ambiguity is settled by implication, cool - but don’t conflate inference with certainty.
Your claim: communication occurred between the author and at last one or more of the individuals noted in the article over unencrypted methods.
Your clam is debunked by the article simply with the quotes I set out in my previous message. Comments about first message being signal or not is not relevant to the meat of the article, namely that the group of individuals listed were communicating about classified/top secret information on the Signal app and had (likely inadvertently) added the journalist
Addressing your comments about stated facts:
All connection requests to connect via signal happen through signal.
The connection request must be the first contact, no messages can be transmitted before the connection request is approved.
The only thing missing here is weather or not the author received any messaging in the 2 day lapse between the connection request and the notice that he was being added to the signal chat group. While possible that they did communicate with the individual identified as Michael Waltz, it has no bearing on the content of the article nor the assumption you made about unencrypted communications being held.
I recommend getting familiar with the software being used (signal in this case). While I appreciate pedantic individuals like yourself that get into the details and phrasing of messaging in order to discern the truth or intent of the author, that has to be tempered with a larger understanding in general.
Paragraph 6, first sentence:
Next paragraph:
Next paragraph:
Paints a a pretty clear picture. Author got a signal connection request, which he accepted. The article intuits that no communication between the author and the signal user ID’d as Michael Waltz between the connection request and the author’s addition to the signal group.
Nothing I have read is ambiguous in how the communication occurred, so I’m at a loss at what you’re seeing that says differently.
You’re reading into the article more than it actually says. Yes, it notes a connection request on Signal and later a group chat invite - but it never explicitly states that the connection request was the first contact. If that were clear, the article would have just said “the first message came through Signal.” It didn’t.
The sequence is vague enough to raise the question. If you think that ambiguity is settled by implication, cool - but don’t conflate inference with certainty.
Your claim: communication occurred between the author and at last one or more of the individuals noted in the article over unencrypted methods.
Your clam is debunked by the article simply with the quotes I set out in my previous message. Comments about first message being signal or not is not relevant to the meat of the article, namely that the group of individuals listed were communicating about classified/top secret information on the Signal app and had (likely inadvertently) added the journalist
Addressing your comments about stated facts:
All connection requests to connect via signal happen through signal. The connection request must be the first contact, no messages can be transmitted before the connection request is approved.
The only thing missing here is weather or not the author received any messaging in the 2 day lapse between the connection request and the notice that he was being added to the signal chat group. While possible that they did communicate with the individual identified as Michael Waltz, it has no bearing on the content of the article nor the assumption you made about unencrypted communications being held.
I recommend getting familiar with the software being used (signal in this case). While I appreciate pedantic individuals like yourself that get into the details and phrasing of messaging in order to discern the truth or intent of the author, that has to be tempered with a larger understanding in general.
See https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007459591-Signal-Profiles-and-Message-Requests#message_requests for information about signal and message requests.