by Jason Snell
White House: iOS helpfully added Atlantic editor to Signal chat
How did the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg get added to that Signal group about military action in Yemen? It might have been a helpful suggestion from iOS. Hugo Lowell of The Guardian writes:
According to the White House, the number was erroneously saved during a “contact suggestion update” by [National Security Adviser Mike] Waltz’s iPhone, which one person described as the function where an iPhone algorithm adds a previously unknown number to an existing contact that it detects may be related.
The White House claims that during the campaign, Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes was forwarded an email from Goldberg requesting a comment for a story, and that Hughes texted Goldberg’s email (including his contact info) to Waltz. The presence of contact info in a text message then led iOS to infer that Hughes was sending his contact information to Waltz, which it then helpfully suggested adding to a new or existing contact.
I’ve seen a lot of people doubt this report and suggest that Waltz was secretly leaking stuff to Goldberg and that’s why he was in his iPhone to be added to the Signal chat, but the explanation that it was an unthinking “tap yes to add” tap that led to a ticking time bomb in Waltz’s contacts file rings true to me.
It doesn’t really change anything about using insecure smartphones and an external messaging platform to discuss military plans in advance, rather than the approved secure government pathways for those communications, but it does seem like a plausible explanation for how Goldberg got added to the Signal group.