I never thought I would say this, but I’d like to thank U.S. national security officials for proving that I am not, in fact, the most inept user of current technologies, though my TikTok account may suggest otherwise.
Surely by now you know the details of this situation, but if you missed it, let me review the key facts: top officials of American national security forces used a chat platform called Signal to discuss sensitive and classified information regarding military strikes against Yemen’s Houthis. It included exact times of warplane launches, targets and strike plans.
Signal is a publicly available encrypted communications app, but it is by no means worthy of top security clearance. Signal texts can easily be intercepted by an unlocked or compromised phone, just like my Apple 16.
Wait, it gets better. The chat group “accidentally” included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine. How anybody adds anyone to a group chat by accident is beyond my understanding, but that’s the situation. (won’t the conspiracy theorists love this?). I wish I was there to see that editor look at his phone and see those messages pop up.
This is serious. People died. More people could have died. These buffoons could have killed their own military people by sharing classified details on an unsanctioned group chat. Don’t they watch shows like Jack Ryan, Homeland or The Diplomat? At the very least, have they never heard of burner phones? Sheesh.
All this kerfuffle reminds me of the time I accidentally sent a local government official a BBM from my Blackberry device (hands up if you miss your Blackberry – me too) requesting an interview. The BBM message had an embarrassing typo: “I would like to as* you some questions.” My “ask” quickly somehow became a reference to one’s posterior. I didn’t catch it before hitting send.
This gentleman, who had a buoyant sense of humour, was very quick to reply with a meeting date and a little joke about my editing skills. Apologies only made it worse, making him laugh more. I will never forget having to walk into his office the next day to conduct a professional interview. He was still chuckling about it. It turned out to be a great interview.
Mutual respect.
Mutual humour.
Professional etiquette resumed.
We’ve all either been on the receiving end of a scathing reply-all email that was not intended to be sent to all, or worse, we’ve sent the reply-all to everyone and then had to do that awkward walk of shame to the water cooler, or worse, the human resources office. I’ve seen that play out in almost every job I’ve ever had and I’ve had many.
So, the next time my son makes that long exhale sound when I ask him a tech question, or I hand my daughter my phone to help me with TikTok, I am not going to feel so stupid.
Truth is stranger than fiction and we are living in strange times. Keep your sense of humour. And remember, encryption is good but screen shots will always trump what gets shared.
Keep your reply-alls sacred and your friendships secure.
