Having trouble with Signal? You’re not alone.

Signal is having some technical difficulties, according to Reuters via their Chief Operating Officer.
“We have been adding new servers and extra capacity at a record pace every single day this week, but today exceeded even our most optimistic projections.”
Reuters attributes this to changes in terms of service with WhatsApp, a common messaging service, but I contend there’s more to the story. Much more.
It was showcased two days ago via the Guardian that Zello, a common peer-to-peer messaging service for cell phone users, was being used during the Capitol Hill invasion last week. The App, which has been subject to major data breaches in the recent past, exposing users’ personal information, has been called on the carpet for its role in embarrassing the halls of power. The App itself requires cell service to function- in this era anyone advocating the use of a cell phone over off-grid means of communication is either an idiot or setting you up for failure. Especially those who should know better. Maybe the CIA taught them different. I digress. If there’s any doubt, there is no doubt.
Many people are making the jump to Signal due to its ease of use, but also due to its flexibility. As I’ve discussed on Radio Contra, the app itself can be downloaded and installed absent any Google interference– on a wifi-only tablet it enables communications absent any of the ways our favorite entitled tax sponges like to track people.
Make no mistake- Signal is not perfect and one of its imperfections is being showcased right now. On top of that, it requires a phone number to register, which in turn announces to everyone in your contact list that you also have the app- which is a major liability. But as every tool has its use, so does Signal. If you’re going to use it, having a spare phone number from My Sudo helps. And remember to sanitize your tracks- set the messaging to delete after a specific number of minutes, which occurs on both ends.
Finally, do the damn work and learn a lesson or two- quit using cell phones when it matters. That’s the first avenue of approach for the security forces. The path of least resistance is going to get your nuts crushed, and quit making excuses for people who won’t take the time to learn to do it right.

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About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

20 Comments

  1. Partly Cloudy January 15, 2021 at 21:02

    Been on Signal, Parler and GAB for a while. GAB is having issues as well with a 4K % increase in new accounts!

  2. vyt1az January 15, 2021 at 21:23

    Very good points. I’ve been using Signal for ~6yrs and this is the first time I’ve ever seen them have an outage.
    From the tweets I saw they’ve had a 500% increase in users over several days and unlike systems built on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, their services don’t auto-scale. These guys self host and have to add servers manually.
    Not announcing who’s on Signal is actually a trickier software issue than would seem at first glance. If you don’t do that, you have no clue who you can message, and no clue if messaging them will work without revealing that they’re using the app.
    Same as having no SOI and sending out a call over the radio with no clue if anyone is on that frequency or will respond.
    FYI – they’ve got plans to get rid of the phone number requirement; the PIN number is an initial step in that direction.

  3. Johnny Paratrooper January 15, 2021 at 21:33

    Jack, or Twitter Fame, is a secret investor in Signal.
    Word on the street is that his twitter servers host routed transmissions for “Persons of Interest”.
    You would probably know more about this than myself. But that’s what I heard from another source.

    • vyt1az January 15, 2021 at 21:59

      Investor? They’re a non-profit. Major donor? Maybe. They’ve also received grants from the US Gov. So has Tor.
      All of their source code is online for anyone to read and use. I personally know InfoSec folks that I trust who have raved about the security model of Signal for years.
      The only downside of Signal is the centralized servers as we’ve seen today. IF “they” compromised the servers or source code somehow, they’ve done a phenomenal job of hiding it in plain sight.

  4. wwes January 15, 2021 at 22:20

    I haven’t tried yet to set up Signal, so I don’t know if it would work in this case, but I have used the random number and random email generators online more than once to receive verification texts when signing up for different things. Would that possibly work when signing up for Signal, or do you need a number that you have continued access to?

    • NC Scout January 16, 2021 at 07:52

      Go for that other option I gave you. ;)

      • SOG January 16, 2021 at 09:20

        time for some tactical carrier pigeon courses :(

  5. Mike January 16, 2021 at 08:25

    Hey NC Scout. I’ve been using KeyBase for a while. It’s another free end-to-end encrypted messenger app. However, my friends and I have been careful regardless about what we send through it, we don’t know exactly how secure it is. What’s your take on KeyBase? Do you have any experience with it?

    • NC Scout January 16, 2021 at 08:53

      I haven’t used it.

    • vyt1az January 16, 2021 at 09:48

      Theoretically their system sounds solid and decentralized messaging infrastructure is the future. There are a few problems going against them:
      1. Their TOS and Privacy Policy have a lot of lawery weasel language: https://keybase.io/docs/terms https://keybase.io/docs/privacypolicy
      2. They’re owned by Zoom (via acquisition). Zoom has a horrific track record of security flaws along with admitting to leaving backdoors for LE to use
      So they may be legit for now, but who knows what Zoom is going to do to them in the future. If you hear about staff quitting KeyBase, Zoom has probably compromised it. This is what happened with WhatsApp once FB bought them.
      I wouldn’t personally put it on my phone or tablet. I probably would risk it on a properly set up desktop.
      Permitted they had none of my personal info including any of my non-VPN IP addresses, I’d risk using it on a Linux VM running on a system with a VPN. It would be fairly hard to ID you even if they did have security issues.

      • Bill Jones January 16, 2021 at 16:21

        Some keybase staff tipped off 3d gun printers that keybase will shut them down on 01/20.
        Keybase is gone as an option. Have to roll your own. It’s the only way!

        • vyt1az January 16, 2021 at 22:14

          Wow, I missed that one. Thanks for sharing.
          One of the first rules of coding cyber security products is to never roll your own crypto. Almost anything good in cyber security is out in the open so that a proper security audit can be done on the code.
          Securing a tech product and checking for flaws / exploits takes an order of magnitude more time than coding the product itself.

    • PPM January 16, 2021 at 11:09

      Keybase is owned by Zoom (that is, the CCP). Before they bought it, it was pretty well regarded, but the technical people I know are worried that it is compromised now.

  6. Arthur Sido January 16, 2021 at 08:40

    I really don’t understand how people in 2021 are still carrying tracking devices around when they are doing something that might have some blowback. It isn’t like we have known for years that it is simple for the government to trace everywhere you have been if you have your smart phone with you. Leave the dang thing at home.

    • NC Scout January 16, 2021 at 08:53

      Because they’ve never reaped the consequences.

  7. Andrew0311 January 16, 2021 at 13:25

    Maybe patriots should consider NOT using Signal…
    https://yasha.substack.com/p/signal-is-a-government-op-85e

    • vyt1az January 17, 2021 at 00:05

      A yes, Yasha Levin, where very argument about privacy tech boils down to: ‘It’s illegitimate because a Government grant funded it!’
      He’s looking at the world through a straw.
      The government spent $518,000 in federal grants to study how cocaine affects the sexual behavior of Japanese quails. It doesn’t have a good reputation for where / how / why your tax money is spent
      Here’s another possibility on why the US Gov. funds encryption products: Because they’re wholly incompetent at making them and they benefit from the public / industry scrutiny because they need to use the product themselves.
      Spy agencies in the last 10 years have been compromised by their own backdoors. There’s a vested interest in that not happening again.
      Either way, there are plenty of methods to get at a person using Signal without compromising the App. Side channel attacks, Malware on your OS, convincing Apple / Google to inject a compromised version of the App to your specific device, etc.
      Use the Linux version and build from the public source code if you’d like.

      • Andrew0311 January 18, 2021 at 20:25

        Ok, the guy may be too paranoid when it comes to his skepticisms of govt-funded tech…but what if it’s true? I don’t know if he is correct or not, but I think it may be something to consider and I don’t think it’s wise to just dismiss it a priori without any investigation. Just saying.

  8. LimaSierra08 January 16, 2021 at 18:44

    Prior to the Signal outage, I’ve been working on setting up a IRC / Jabber / Email server on the internet that only allows access via Encrypted VPN tunnel (IPSec & SSTP w/ SSL key certificates). Downside is, you must be connected to the VPN server to access the services, but all the traffic is encrypted to the server.
    Jabber / XMPP is up & working currently, if anyone is interested.

  9. Homer January 19, 2021 at 02:38

    What is your opinion of the safety and security of Wickr Me?

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