Security Includes More Than Encryption
We’ve been led to believe that encryption is the ultimate safeguard, the digital bodyguard ensuring our messages stay as private as we wish. While encryption is an essential part of good security, it’s not the whole picture. Many people use Signal, with its end-to-end encryption, hoping it’s the gold standard for secure communication. But encryption alone doesn’t guarantee complete safety. It’s just the starting point of a solid defense—many other factors must be considered. One of these is traffic analysis, which, unlike encryption, can compromise your privacy without needing to break a sweat.
The news today included a story in The Atlantic, written by the editor Jeffery Goldberg, The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans – The Atlantic. The reporter was sent a link to a secret Signal group that included members at the highest level in the Trump administration. And holy shit, he was included in discussions of war planning that never should have taken place on an unclassified app on regular phones in insecure areas.
Encryption: The Starter Pack for Privacy
First things first, encryption is essential. It scrambles your messages into a bunch of meaningless gibberish so that only the recipient with the right key can decode them. If someone intercepts the data in transit, they get nothing but a headache. Signal does this well—no complaints there. It’s why the app is so highly regarded among privacy advocates. But here’s the problem: encryption is only part of the equation. It’s the front door. But there are plenty of windows, and sometimes those windows are left wide open.
Traffic Analysis: Not as Glamorous, but Just as Dangerous
Now, let’s talk about something less sexy than encryption: traffic analysis. This is the part where things get a little creepy. Even if the content of your communication is locked up tight, there’s still a wealth of information in the metadata. That’s the data about when you’re talking, who you’re talking to, and how often you’re talking. You’d be surprised what a determined attacker can piece together from that alone. It’s like standing in the middle of a crowded room, holding a private conversation with someone—but everyone around you can hear exactly who you’re talking to, when you’re talking, and how often you talk. They just can’t hear what you’re saying.
And that’s where Signal, despite all its encryption, stumbles. Signal encrypts the messages, yes, but the metadata—the who, the when, the how often—is still floating around in the ether, vulnerable to analysis. This gives attackers enough to build a pretty clear picture of who you’re communicating with and what you’re up to. Even if they can’t read the conversation, they can see the map.
Signal’s Weak Spot: Centralized Servers and Timing Patterns
Signal’s design isn’t built to mask all the metadata. It’s a nice enough setup, but it relies on centralized servers to route messages. So, while your messages might be encrypted, someone still has a bird’s-eye view of who’s talking to whom. If they’re paying attention to the right signals (pun intended), they can see when messages are sent, how frequently they’re sent, and even guess at what those messages are about based on timing and volume.
Add in the fact that Signal doesn’t fully anonymize users’ IP addresses or obfuscate the timing of communications, and now you’ve got a little window for attackers to peer through. It’s a little like putting a sticky note on your laptop screen that says, “Yes, I’m online right now. No, I’m not doing anything suspicious. Maybe.”
Lack of Participant Verification
One of the other overlooked vulnerabilities in Signal is how easy it is to add someone to a conversation without really knowing who they are. Unlike some more cautious platforms, Signal doesn’t require much in the way of identity verification to add new people to a chat. If you have someone’s phone number, you can add them to the group without any real proof of their identity. This opens the door to potential impersonation or even simple miscommunication. A well-meaning friend might accidentally add a stranger, or worse, someone could fake their identity to slip into a private conversation. While the encryption keeps the messages safe, it doesn’t protect you from the chaos of unwelcome or unverified participants showing up in your chats. It’s a vulnerability that’s easy to overlook but hard to ignore once you realize how simple it is for someone to be accidently added in.
The Defense: Not Just Encryption, But Real Security
So, what do we do about this? The simple answer: stop treating encryption like a magic bullet and start thinking about the full picture. Security’s a bit more complicated than just slapping an encryption layer on top of everything and calling it a day.
- Metadata Obfuscation: Mask the metadata. If you’re worried about traffic analysis, consider using tools that confuse attackers—dummy messages, traffic padding, or randomized delays. It’s not foolproof, but it makes the whole thing a lot messier for someone trying to analyze it.
- Decentralized Systems: If you want to make it harder for anyone to monitor your communications, stop routing everything through a single server. Distributed systems, like those used by Tor, let you route your messages through a series of nodes, making it a lot harder to figure out who’s communicating with whom. The more you spread it out, the less likely someone can get a clear view of what’s going on.
- Use Tor or a VPN: Even if your messages are encrypted, your IP address is still a dead giveaway. The solution? Use Tor or a VPN to mask your location and make it harder to trace you. It’s not a perfect fix, but it makes a difference.
- Onion Routing & Mixnets: Ever heard of onion routing? It’s how Tor works, and it’s designed to obscure your traffic in a way that makes it impossible to figure out where it’s coming from or where it’s going. Mixnets do something similar, scrambling messages to make it harder to tell who’s communicating with whom. It’s overkill for some, but for those serious about privacy, it’s worth considering.
- Participant Verification: There should be a way to control who invites members to a chat. Other apps like Element have someone who controls the chat group. That member is responsible for allowing entry and can remove members. All members can see who can participate in the chat. Also, Signal allows someone to send a QR code to the primary device to start an encrypted conversation, similar to being invited.
The Bottom Line: More Than Just Encryption
Look, I get it, Signal’s great, and encryption is essential. But in the real world, it’s not enough to focus on one aspect of security and call it a day. If you really want to keep your communications private, you have to think beyond encryption. Metadata is just as revealing as the content of your messages, and traffic analysis can expose a lot more than you’d think. So, if you’re serious about security, it’s time to get smart about the bigger picture. Because at the end of the day, someone out there is always watching, waiting for the smallest crack in your armor. And in the world of digital communication, there are a lot of cracks.
Read More
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans – The Atlantic
Top Trump officials accidentally texted U.S. war plans to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg | PBS News
Live updates: Top US officials shared Yemen war plans in Signal chat with journalist – BBC News
The Atlantic editor details moment he realized he was included in Yemen group chat – ABC News
The Pentagon Sent Out a Warning Against Using Signal Right Before Yemen Group Chat Fiasco
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