Speaker 1: It's Night with Dan Ray. I'm telling you easy Boston's video.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. For the last couple of days, all
Speaker 2: of us have learned about an app called Signal. It
Speaker 2: was used by leaders of the Trump administration in advance
Speaker 2: of the military attacks on Yemen on Saturday, actually a
Speaker 2: few days even before, on Saturday, March fifteenth, and it
Speaker 2: came to everyone's attention because a journalist by the name
Speaker 2: of Jeff Goldberg, who's the editor in chief of The
Speaker 2: Atlantic magazine. I assume, and I guess you should never assume,
Speaker 2: but inadvertently included on that chat. And so trying to
Speaker 2: figure this out and trying to explain it to all
Speaker 2: of you, some of whom have never probably downloaded an app,
Speaker 2: I decided today to reach out to a wonderful guy
Speaker 2: named Hiawatha Bray, who you know from the Boston Globe,
Speaker 2: because there's nobody in the world who I think would
Speaker 2: probably know more about this and also could explain to
Speaker 2: us exactly what it is and what the implications of
Speaker 2: this whole set of circumstances are than Hiawatha Bray. So
Speaker 2: let me welcome Hiawatha Bray back to Nightside. Hiawatha. Thanks
Speaker 2: so much for being available tonight. How are you my friend?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: It was either this or watch another episode of the
Speaker 4: Law and Order Marathon, so I talked to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, thank you. Of course it could have been
Speaker 2: a Bruin's hockey game and those they're on in six
Speaker 2: game losing streak, so those, yeah, that's start. It would know.
Speaker 2: It's not a good time to start, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: So first of all, let me let me start off
Speaker 2: with just a couple of basic questions. Uh, I had
Speaker 2: never I'm going to admit I had never heard of
Speaker 2: this app before the last few days. I do not
Speaker 2: have anywhere near the expertise that you have, but I'm
Speaker 2: kind of starting to find out. This has been around,
Speaker 2: like for ten or fifteen years. Is that true?
Speaker 4: Yes, that is absolutely right. It was created. It is
Speaker 4: actually a product that was created by a nonprofit. It
Speaker 4: is open source. Anyone can get at the software. It's
Speaker 4: open so that the code can be inspected by people,
Speaker 4: and the whole idea was to create a messaging platform
Speaker 4: that was very secure and at the same time very
Speaker 4: easy to use. It features a technology that actually a
Speaker 4: lot of us use every day, but often our chats
Speaker 4: don't have it. It's called end to end encryption. That
Speaker 4: means that the moment you put something into signal and
Speaker 4: send it to somebody else's signal, for the entire path,
Speaker 4: it's encrypted. Like sometimes it used to be you would
Speaker 4: go to a web page and the data was not
Speaker 4: encrypted as it went over the Internet, and if somebody
Speaker 4: was listening in, they could get that. Nowadays, most major
Speaker 4: websites also use end to end encryption, but a lot
Speaker 4: of chat services like on your phone, do not. That's
Speaker 4: finally starting to change. But signal is one of the
Speaker 4: things that started that. You chat on signal, it's all encrypted.
Speaker 4: Nobody so far as I know, has ever cracked a
Speaker 4: signal message. They've never gotten in. But what happens if
Speaker 4: somebody is led in accidentally. That's what happened in this
Speaker 4: case for some reason. It apparently it was Mike Waltz,
Speaker 4: who is what is He's a national security advisor. There
Speaker 4: are so many of these guys tied in here. He
Speaker 4: was a national security advisor, and somehow he had the
Speaker 4: journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who is the editor in chief of
Speaker 4: the Atlantic, among the people he has listed in his directory.
Speaker 4: So apparently he's communicated with him before on signal and
Speaker 4: he accidentally hooked him up to this chat. And here's
Speaker 4: this guy. He is one of the he's an editor
Speaker 4: in chief for one of the nations leading magazine, Lo
Speaker 4: the Waly an excellent magazine. I recommend it to everybody
Speaker 4: if you want articles on every conceivable subject from every
Speaker 4: conceivable point of view, liberal, conservative, all kinds of different
Speaker 4: points of view.
Speaker 3: It's really good.
Speaker 2: And he's probably sure to say that Jeffrey Goldberg is
Speaker 2: not a huge fan from what I've read.
Speaker 4: About Donald to Oh, no, not at all. Yes, fine, right,
Speaker 4: but it's not his fault. I mean, he's just sitting
Speaker 4: there and he starts getting these messages and it includes
Speaker 4: this thread of messages that include a bunch of the
Speaker 4: National security team talking about these air strikes, and he
Speaker 4: knew he shouldn't be getting it. But I guess he,
Speaker 4: like any good journalists, realized this is not something that
Speaker 4: I should be receiving, and that very fact is a
Speaker 4: news story. So I'm going to just keep collecting this information.
Speaker 4: And of course you know what happened.
Speaker 2: I think initially how it was he wasn't sure if
Speaker 2: he was being pranked.
Speaker 4: That's right. He first thought it was some kind of
Speaker 4: a gag, and then he kept reading and reading, and
Speaker 4: he decided this must be for real. And then they
Speaker 4: started sending detailed information about this air strike against the
Speaker 4: Hooties that they carried out a few days ago, and
Speaker 4: he realized this was for real and that the information
Speaker 4: he was getting was coming. In fact, he realized it
Speaker 4: was for real the air strikes happened because two hours
Speaker 4: before the air strike happened was when he was reading
Speaker 4: these texts, and then two hours later all the stuff
Speaker 4: that had been in the text had happened, and he realized,
Speaker 4: my goodness, this is real. He saved it all, did
Speaker 4: an article for The Atlantic, but deliberately. In that first
Speaker 4: article he said, I'm not going to tell you all
Speaker 4: the military stuff because it could be dangerous. It could
Speaker 4: expose American military forces to some risk. And the next thing,
Speaker 4: you know, people in the Trump administrations are saying, oh,
Speaker 4: he's lying, he's lying, this didn't happen. And then he said, fine,
Speaker 4: do you want me to release this stuff since it's
Speaker 4: not real, And basically they ended up agreeing to let
Speaker 4: him release it. I think he redacted one thing that
Speaker 4: they said might be sensitive, and then he released it
Speaker 4: all and it confirmed what he was saying. And they
Speaker 4: had two hours before the attack. They gave the names
Speaker 4: of the kinds of planes they were going to hit,
Speaker 4: the kinds of planes that were going to send on
Speaker 4: the mission. They gave the names of like the types
Speaker 4: of missiles they were going to fire. They talked about
Speaker 4: having some guy understood valence they specifically wanted to kill,
Speaker 4: which meant that they are giving up the fact that
Speaker 4: we have assets there that are tracking these people visually.
Speaker 4: All of that stuff was in these messages two hours
Speaker 4: before it happened. If it at leaked to a bad guy,
Speaker 4: it could have been very bad.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, we talked about this last night,
Speaker 2: and they were looking for this specific guy. They knew
Speaker 2: where he was headed. He was apparently headed to his
Speaker 2: girlfriend's apartment, that's right, And once they knew that he
Speaker 2: was in the girlfriend's apartment, they hit the building. So
Speaker 2: it was a building and they said the building is down,
Speaker 2: and they knew at that point that this guy was
Speaker 2: the guy they wanted to get, who apparently was the
Speaker 2: one of the heavy directors of the Hoody Missiles program,
Speaker 2: which was firing all the missiles at shipping going through
Speaker 2: near Yemen.
Speaker 4: So taking no position on whether or not I'm not
Speaker 4: taking any political positions here, but I must say, if
Speaker 4: you stop to think about it, it does kind of make
Speaker 4: you proud to be an American in a way. They
Speaker 4: have really good intelligence. If they were following these guys,
Speaker 4: they had eyes on them and everything right, and you know,
Speaker 4: sometimes think hi, wata.
Speaker 2: I'll take the position, and my position is pretty clear.
Speaker 2: These guys are using Iranian assets to fire missiles at
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixty four times at US Navy ships
Speaker 2: and more than that at commercial vessels, which are causing
Speaker 2: a lot of companies to go as opposed to go
Speaker 2: up the Red Sea through the show.
Speaker 4: No, no, you're you're right. I just don't want to
Speaker 4: take political.
Speaker 2: You're a reporter, I'm a commentator. So there if I
Speaker 2: just wanted to make sure, and I think most Americans,
Speaker 2: even journalists, would say, you know, good, these guys were
Speaker 2: not really.
Speaker 4: Helpful, and let me go so far as to say
Speaker 4: that they will not be missed.
Speaker 2: Exactly, so they will not be missed, all right, so
Speaker 2: we know, let me do this. I want to take
Speaker 2: a quick break if it's okay with you, I promise.
Speaker 2: I can't you go at ten thirty. I want it now,
Speaker 2: since I think you have explained it remarkably clearly. I
Speaker 2: want to find out from you where the mistakes were made,
Speaker 2: and I because I want to be fair in my
Speaker 2: commentary on this, and I want my audience to understand.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And the first question I'm going to come back with
Speaker 2: is will be this? Was there a better app? And
Speaker 2: from what I've learned, this was a perfectly good app
Speaker 2: when properly used. What is there? I when I first.
Speaker 4: You and you would be wrong if.
Speaker 2: I expect I would be wrong.
Speaker 4: I got to tell you.
Speaker 2: I got to tell you this, Hiawatha. I wondered, why
Speaker 2: was there not a Department of Defense communications team running this?
Speaker 2: This this messaging app?
Speaker 4: Okay, we are approaching the truth.
Speaker 2: Well, well, I spent a little time in the in
Speaker 2: the military, so I no, I don't know. Leave me.
Speaker 2: I was in the military shortly after the Revolutionary.
Speaker 4: War with the string.
Speaker 2: You got it, you got it. So that's why I
Speaker 2: would think that you would have said, okay, let's call
Speaker 2: you know, DoD Coms, let something up. I got to
Speaker 2: assume that when when the President of United States, whether
Speaker 2: it's Donald Trump or whomever is talking to Vladimir Putin,
Speaker 2: they want something a little more secure than signal, or
Speaker 2: maybe not. We'll find out. We would hope, we would
Speaker 2: hope we'll find out for certain. From Hiawatha right after
Speaker 2: this quick break, I love your clarity. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for being here tonight. It's helping me and it's
Speaker 2: helping my audience. We'll be back on nights tick right
Speaker 2: after this.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2: This Hiawatha braid Uh tech expert, tech writer from the
Speaker 2: Boston Globe. You've read his columns in the in the
Speaker 2: Business page and elsewhere. So, Hiawatha, the question that I
Speaker 2: left you with was whether or not there would have
Speaker 2: been a better option for this group who were wanted
Speaker 2: to all be on the same page. As the attack
Speaker 2: on these Huti rebels in Yemen was going to take
Speaker 2: place on Saturday, early afternoon our time, but obviously probably
Speaker 2: after dark the time in Yemen. What should have they used?
Speaker 2: What should have they been thinking about to have avoided
Speaker 2: this problem?
Speaker 4: Well, the very fact that a person could be accidentally
Speaker 4: added to this message chain illustrates the problem. Okay, I've talked.
Speaker 4: I was talking to some people at a company in
Speaker 4: California called Greenhill Software. Most of us have never heard
Speaker 4: of them, but they specialized, among other things, in making
Speaker 4: highly secure military communications systems, and that is precisely the
Speaker 4: kind of thing that is supposed to be used for
Speaker 4: a job like this. Remember the election campaign, they found
Speaker 4: out that that Chines. Yeah, it's hard to forget. They
Speaker 4: found out that the Chinese were trying to hack Prump's
Speaker 4: Advance's cell phones. So Greenhill Software contacted them and offered
Speaker 4: them highly secure phones that were they claimed totally unhackable,
Speaker 4: and they used those phones throughout the rest of the campaign.
Speaker 4: Such phones are also provided to the US military. These
Speaker 4: phones are so secure precisely because they do not communicate
Speaker 4: with the public Internet at all. They do not run
Speaker 4: apps at all. They are designed to do one thing,
Speaker 4: and only one thing, conduct extremely secure military communications. They
Speaker 4: can do text, they can do voice, And in order
Speaker 4: to connect to this phone, you have to already be
Speaker 4: logged into the network. You have to have been identified,
Speaker 4: you have to have been proven to have a right
Speaker 4: to be on that network. This is the kind of
Speaker 4: technology that is used all the time for military communications.
Speaker 4: Technology exists, it's been around forever. That's what you use.
Speaker 4: You do not use signal.
Speaker 2: No, Okay, now that is as clear as a bell.
Speaker 2: So now my next question is I'm assuming that signal
Speaker 2: has been used by other political leaders in Washington. I
Speaker 2: know it's been used by senators and Senate aids and
Speaker 2: all of that. Did the Biden administration also use signal
Speaker 2: or was this age well.
Speaker 4: As I understand it, yeah, a lot of them had.
Speaker 4: Let me be clear about this. In December of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four, the uh oh, it's called SISA, the cybersecurity
Speaker 4: branch of the US Department of Commerce, actually recommended that
Speaker 4: high government officials ought to consider using signal for their
Speaker 4: everyday communications because it is indeed hard to crack. That's
Speaker 4: very different from using it for the you know, actual
Speaker 4: military command kind of activity. For everyday sort of you know,
Speaker 4: confidential stuff and by trying to keep it basically secure,
Speaker 4: signal is actually quite good for that.
Speaker 2: And just to be clear, signal wasn't cracked. It wasn't.
Speaker 2: This journalist did not somehow, you know, I don't think
Speaker 2: there's any journalists in the world maybe other than you
Speaker 2: would even attempt to do that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to
Speaker 4: you know, know know.
Speaker 2: How it works. It's like I wouldn't want to stand
Speaker 2: in and and and try to bat against the guy
Speaker 2: who's throwing a fastball ninety seven miles an hour. But
Speaker 2: I understand what what it would take. You know, it
Speaker 2: take you know, split second diming and eye hand coordination
Speaker 2: that I never had it, and if I ever had it,
Speaker 2: it's long gone now. So so what do you think
Speaker 2: will come out of this? Do you think that the
Speaker 2: Trump administration? They're not gonna I don't believe they're going
Speaker 2: to fire anyone, although they could. They could look at
Speaker 2: some of the comments that these principles made, which were,
Speaker 2: if not incorrect, they were misleading.
Speaker 4: Well, no, you know, I read a great column today
Speaker 4: by a guy who writes this publication called The Dispatch.
Speaker 4: Name is Johonna Goldberg, and he pointed out what he thinks,
Speaker 4: and he might be right, is the really most startling
Speaker 4: thing that came out of all this, And he compares
Speaker 4: it to The Godfather. The scene in The Godfather where
Speaker 4: Sonny interrupts while they're just trying to negotiate the drug
Speaker 4: deal and his father takes him aside and says, never
Speaker 4: tell anyone outside the family what you're thinking. That's what
Speaker 4: happened here, because the really interesting thing that came out
Speaker 4: was when Vance and which was the other one, started
Speaker 4: talking about how they couldn't stand the Europeans always sponging
Speaker 4: off the Americans. That I think it was Vance who
Speaker 4: agree with him?
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, yes, yes, absolutely, it was Vincent hegseth. Correct.
Speaker 4: Have you been looking at the European press? That has
Speaker 4: sent shockwaves across Europe? Everybody in Europe now recognizes and
Speaker 4: this is what Goldberg was pointing out. They were able
Speaker 4: to kid themselves and say, oh, they don't really hate
Speaker 4: us that much, they don't really distrust the Europeans that much.
Speaker 4: Now they're reading messages that were apparently intended to be secret,
Speaker 4: and their contempt for NATO and the European allies is
Speaker 4: just palpable. And how that is going to help us
Speaker 4: do business with Europe, I don't know. But it has
Speaker 4: really sent shock waves. And if you read the news,
Speaker 4: a lot of European leaders are horrified by this, not
Speaker 4: because of the secret military information, because these people are
Speaker 4: just standing there telling them we're sick of Europe. We're
Speaker 4: tired of having to clean up their messages, and we
Speaker 4: expect them to pay us if we finished. Did you
Speaker 4: see that part? We expect them to pay us if
Speaker 4: the United States feels with no disease.
Speaker 2: Well, they were what they were saying. What they were saying,
Speaker 2: Hi Walth was that if they wipe the hoovenes out
Speaker 2: here or they incapacitate the hoodies, which then allows the
Speaker 2: I think it's forty percent of europe ship goes through the.
Speaker 4: America's trade right and.
Speaker 2: Ours is like three percent. Okay, So the idea was
Speaker 2: that we're doing this one. They said that no European
Speaker 2: country and they're probably correct on this. No European country
Speaker 2: could have carried this attack out as effectively as we were.
Speaker 4: It's not probable, it's definite.
Speaker 2: They have done it right, And so what they're saying
Speaker 2: is we have provided a service. And they said, I
Speaker 2: hate that we have to do this, but they were
Speaker 2: going to do it anyway. So I was concerned about
Speaker 2: heg Seth was asked uh, and he was very clear,
Speaker 2: there was there was this, There were no war plans here,
Speaker 2: there was no information here. He he used different terminology
Speaker 2: within the military that that would would have been misleading
Speaker 2: and all. It was almost as if we weren't talking
Speaker 2: about any of this when we were on this we
Speaker 2: were talking the worst thing we were talking about was
Speaker 2: European soccer scores or something like that. I mean, it was,
Speaker 2: it was. It was just it was misleading.
Speaker 4: At a minimum, it was misleading, and it was very disturbing.
Speaker 4: And oh and of course I know, no, we're probably
Speaker 4: run out of time, but I want to squeeze in
Speaker 4: the one last point which I also mentioned, which is
Speaker 4: the fact that Signal, among its other features, is designed
Speaker 4: to make its messages disappear. Yes, there was an actual
Speaker 4: a report from the Defense Department's Inspector General where they
Speaker 4: were rebuked a Defense Department official for using Signal, and
Speaker 4: their reason was, this is the US government. You can't
Speaker 4: make your messages disappear. They're part of the public record.
Speaker 4: They're all supposed to be archived, yes, the way supposed
Speaker 4: to do that.
Speaker 2: By the way, as I understand that the person who
Speaker 2: is establishing the meeting, if you will, can determine if
Speaker 2: the messages disappear in five seconds, twenty seconds, or.
Speaker 4: Twenty days Rctually, I saw something If you look at
Speaker 4: the screenshot, it says message will be deleted in four weeks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, at this point there was a judge has
Speaker 2: ordered the Defense Department tonight, the judge has ordered that
Speaker 2: Hegseeth Walls and others not delete the hooty messages. It's
Speaker 2: the same time Judge Boseburg, who is a federal District
Speaker 2: court judge in Washington, DC. So the messages will be preserved,
Speaker 2: I respect.
Speaker 4: I don't think how many other things have they done
Speaker 4: using signal that I've been lost to history.
Speaker 2: Probably not their first use of this.
Speaker 4: I've read this, I need to confirm it. But you know,
Speaker 4: the whole controversy over Project twenty twenty five. I read
Speaker 4: today that there is apparently something to this effect. In
Speaker 4: Project twenty twenty five, they said the new administration should
Speaker 4: find alternative channels for conducting its communications that go outside
Speaker 4: of government channels.
Speaker 2: Project twenty five. Of those who don't know what it is,
Speaker 2: it was a group that was done by the Federalist
Speaker 2: Society which talked about.
Speaker 4: No, no, no. It was the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2: Heritage Foundation correct on that. I'm sorry to strike that
Speaker 2: Heritage Foundation, which was suggesting that if Donald Trump was
Speaker 2: elected president, he might be able to do ABC, D,
Speaker 2: E FG whatever, an alphabet of ideas. And and you
Speaker 2: know that that that's a possibility ability there. Obviously you
Speaker 2: raised that one. I think the I don't think Trump
Speaker 2: is going to fire anyone in this group. Uh. The
Speaker 2: person who should be fired, if anybody, would be the
Speaker 2: Aid of Waltz, because I'm assuming Waltz gave his his
Speaker 2: cell phone to the AID and said set it up.
Speaker 4: And because in it is quite possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so and it almost comes down to, you know,
Speaker 2: when you're hurrying and you're making a phone call to
Speaker 2: someone and I'm going to call Hiawatha, and I go
Speaker 2: to call Hiawatha, but I call the person on my
Speaker 2: contact list who's one above you or one below you?
Speaker 4: Yea and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right the other Hiawatha, right, uh and uh. And
Speaker 2: they'll say who who is this? Who are you looking
Speaker 2: for the bulk of them? Hiawatha bray, Well, you got
Speaker 2: the wrong Hiawatha and said, I apologize, innocent mistake, but
Speaker 2: that's probably what happened here.
Speaker 4: But you're not supposed to do military communications on devices
Speaker 4: that are even capable. That's the point I talked to
Speaker 4: the guy over at Harvard. Why am I going blank
Speaker 4: on his name? Bruce Schneier, brilliant guy. He's written multiple
Speaker 4: books on cybersecurity, and he says, that's the whole point.
Speaker 4: You use devices where a mistake like that cannot literally
Speaker 4: cannot be made, because the only people who can connect
Speaker 4: to the network are people who are supposed to be there.
Speaker 4: And we have those technologies. They exist, it's not that
Speaker 4: difficult to use them. For whatever reason they didn't.
Speaker 2: You've explained it so well, Hiawatha Bray. As always, it's
Speaker 2: it's late at night. I can't wait to read your
Speaker 2: next column on this.
Speaker 4: Are going to write about it anymore? Huh, I'm tired
Speaker 4: of this, but I may have to. We'll see.
Speaker 2: I hope you do. I hope you do always. I
Speaker 2: thank you for your time, and I thank you for here,
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you to you soon. Okay, when we
Speaker 2: get back, all right, thanks, we're gonna take a break
Speaker 2: for news. We'll let Hiawatha turn in for the night.
Speaker 2: But I still have some time, and I hope you
Speaker 2: have some interest in this story. And uh, look, this
Speaker 2: is this is a this is a mistake, okay, And
Speaker 2: whenever you have a mistake, it's always the They should
Speaker 2: have come out early and said, hey, we made a mistake,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna correct it. We're gonna rectify it, and
Speaker 2: we're going to change the protocol. In my opinion, when
Speaker 2: you sort of hunker down and hope that the storm's
Speaker 2: gonna blow over, it's all that's always the storm that
Speaker 2: doesn't blow over. Now again, I celebrate what was accomplished
Speaker 2: in the raid. But but the conversation in newspapers and
Speaker 2: on talk shows has been about everything but the now.
Speaker 2: I know we had some wild calls last night on
Speaker 2: night Side, and I'm going to open up the full
Speaker 2: lines tonight, uh and give you an opportunity to comment.
Speaker 2: I have a fairly direct tape on this. I have
Speaker 2: a much better I must tell you. I have cell phones,
Speaker 2: I use computers. I'm not the expert that Hiawatha Bray
Speaker 2: is period period, So I listened and learned from him.
Speaker 2: I had a conversation with a couple of colleagues of
Speaker 2: mind today which have helped me understand this. This is
Speaker 2: and well I'll talk about on the other side. Let
Speaker 2: me open up the phone lines. Let's get it going.
Speaker 2: Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten, thirty six, one
Speaker 2: seven ninety. Coming right back on night Side.
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's
Speaker 1: news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back. We're going to again talk about
Speaker 2: this signal experience. That again, the bottom line was there
Speaker 2: was a successful raid, but but we need to learn
Speaker 2: from this. I'm not sure that anyone is going to
Speaker 2: lose their job in the Trump administration over this. I
Speaker 2: think that Trump will be lolled to fire anyone. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure there's a fireable offense. To be really honest
Speaker 2: with you, I don't think there was an intention here
Speaker 2: to keep it secret from us, but there was. This
Speaker 2: was an administration that should have known that because of
Speaker 2: the National Archives Acts and the National the Office of
Speaker 2: the National Archives and record Keeping that that these these
Speaker 2: conversations need to be preserved. Yeah, the raid was successful.
Speaker 2: They accomplished what if they apparently needed to accomplish. And
Speaker 2: it sounds to me as if the hooties have been
Speaker 2: kind of put in a box, which would be good
Speaker 2: for the passage of commercial and military vessels in the
Speaker 2: Red Sea its Sewice Canal. But I've learned a lot
Speaker 2: about signal and by the way, you can have you
Speaker 2: can have a zoom call on signal, you can have
Speaker 2: a telephone call on signal. You can have just a
Speaker 2: phone call and with the transcription encrypted. So it's it's sophisticated.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of people in my business who
Speaker 2: have used it. Now again, uh, maybe maybe for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: they want to know what's going on. Maybe you've used it.
Speaker 2: I'd love to know what you've used it for. Again,
Speaker 2: there there are people, bad actors out there who are
Speaker 2: trying to get all of our information. I have all
Speaker 2: I can do to deal with the spammers. Who are
Speaker 2: you know that we joke about the Nigerian prince who
Speaker 2: wants to give you the million dollars. So anyway, let's
Speaker 2: just let's get right to it. Six point seven two
Speaker 2: five four ten thirty six one seven thirty. Paul's in Wakefield. Paul,
Speaker 2: you were next up. I hope you enjoyed the conversation
Speaker 2: with Hiawatha Bray. Okay, Paul may not be there, so Rob,
Speaker 2: why don't we put Paul on hold see what's going
Speaker 2: on with Paul. In the meantime, I'm going to go
Speaker 2: to Bill and Nadick. Bill, you are next on nightside. Welcome,
Speaker 2: Thank you. Okay, Billy, you're a speakerphone?
Speaker 4: Could I ask cell phone?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, please hold the cell phone close to the
Speaker 2: to your mouth and let's hear you. Sounded like you
Speaker 2: might have been on a speakerphone.
Speaker 4: Go right ahead, okay.
Speaker 5: I watched the show on TV UH and they asked
Speaker 5: only yesterday. And then there was a congresswoman named Houlahn
Speaker 5: and I don't know where she was from, but she
Speaker 5: was really good. She says it was me, a new congresswoman.
Speaker 5: She had a list of things she warned to talk about,
Speaker 5: but yeah, she didn't want to talk about anymore because
Speaker 5: she wanted to talk about the UH. The column was
Speaker 5: messed up, and she just started a conversation but by saying,
Speaker 5: you know, we had a lot of stories about this
Speaker 5: guy being having trouble with alcohol, and they said that
Speaker 5: he's off and now everything's all right. And one of
Speaker 5: the guys she was talking was saying, hey, hold on, man,
Speaker 5: you can't you can't talk.
Speaker 4: Like that here.
Speaker 5: We're not going to allow that. Well, she had a
Speaker 5: very good equation and she was very innocent, and I
Speaker 5: wish I don't know where she comes from, what stay,
Speaker 5: but she was really good.
Speaker 2: Hold, well, I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: If you're talking about a congress woman named Chrissy Hulahan,
Speaker 2: she's a American politician, former United States Air Force Office
Speaker 2: Sir member the Democratic Party, she represents the sixth Congressional
Speaker 2: district in Pennsylvania. If you're talking about alcohol, there was
Speaker 2: concerns early on that the Secretary of Defense now Secretary
Speaker 2: Pete Hegesath, in his past had had some problems with alcohol.
Speaker 2: He apparently took a pledge that he was not going
Speaker 2: to drink while serving as Secretary of Defense. I don't
Speaker 2: know how that has no to best of my knowledge,
Speaker 2: it has no relation to what we're talking about, which
Speaker 2: is whether or not the app let me finish, let
Speaker 2: me do this, let me do this, bill, if you'd
Speaker 2: permit me, let me finish my sentence, and then I'm
Speaker 2: going to give you the opportunity to speak. Okay, just
Speaker 2: give me the courtesy. I'll allow you to speak as well.
Speaker 2: And that is that there's no indication that any use
Speaker 2: of alcohol, never minded abuse of alcohol, has anything to
Speaker 2: do with the story. Go right ahead, Okay, fine, we
Speaker 2: lost them. That's fine. You know, Look, if you want
Speaker 2: to call and you want to have a conversation, I
Speaker 2: don't mind that. But if I'm making a point or
Speaker 2: you're making a point, it just to me seems impolite,
Speaker 2: at at at best impolite not to be able to
Speaker 2: have a conversation, all right. Six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty six one seven nine three one ten thirty.
Speaker 2: I had a lot of really difficult callers last night,
Speaker 2: and that is not what this show tends to be about.
Speaker 2: We we could have passionate exchanges, but there were people
Speaker 2: last night who just it was and by the way,
Speaker 2: people on both ends of the spectrum. Okay, it wasn't
Speaker 2: necessarily trumps supporters or Trump critics or Democrats or Republicans.
Speaker 2: I just, you know, I'd like to like to keep
Speaker 2: the program under control, because if we're just yelling and screaming,
Speaker 2: we're not going to make much progress. I have no
Speaker 2: idea what Bill was talking about. I have no idea
Speaker 2: what he was talking about. There's some reference to alcohol.
Speaker 2: That's I tried to make some sense of it, but
Speaker 2: I couldn't even allow me to make sense of it
Speaker 2: for him. We'll take a break. Six one seven, two
Speaker 2: five four, ten thirty six, one seven, nine three, one
Speaker 2: ten thirty What are the lessons that we can learn,
Speaker 2: that all of us can learn. I don't know how
Speaker 2: many of you have used signal before as a communication app.
Speaker 2: I've never used signal. If you have, I'd love to
Speaker 2: know your experience with it. According to Hiawatha Bray, our
Speaker 2: guest in the first half hour of this this Hour,
Speaker 2: and Hiawath's is an excellent guest, he talked about it
Speaker 2: being a good uh web, a good app. But he says,
Speaker 2: and he cited one out in California called Green Hills Software,
Speaker 2: which is what should have been used. You would think
Speaker 2: that the military, you would hope that the military would
Speaker 2: have been totally up to speed. It was not. We'll
Speaker 2: be back on Nightside right after.
Speaker 1: This Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: We're bringing up the quality of the call is right now,
Speaker 2: going to Audrey and Cambridge. Audrey, welcome to Nightside. How
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 6: I'm fine, Dan, how are you? You didn't have a
Speaker 6: heck of a time. I just saw the end of
Speaker 6: heard the end of the show last night. I'm like,
Speaker 6: oh my gosh, I don't know his patient's got to
Speaker 6: be running thin. But on this I worked, I did
Speaker 6: work for the Defense Apartment and I we were auditus.
Speaker 6: But the thing is, you know, some of us I
Speaker 6: had a security clearance, some some did very cute. But
Speaker 6: the point of my call is for this kind of
Speaker 6: a conversation to be set up. Why they didn't check,
Speaker 6: double check and check again to see who was on
Speaker 6: that line. That that's the thing that doesn't make I mean,
Speaker 6: that's the first thing you taught, you know, check, double check, trust,
Speaker 6: but verified, right, And I just think the head should
Speaker 6: roll on this one.
Speaker 4: I really do.
Speaker 2: So when you say head should roll, okay, that's the euphemism,
Speaker 2: what exactly do you who do you think should wow,
Speaker 2: should be be shown the door?
Speaker 6: Well, whoever set the call up?
Speaker 2: That's Mike Walls.
Speaker 6: Then I think, I mean, there's no excuse. So I
Speaker 6: just can't see any excuse of something this important. You know,
Speaker 6: they're saying, oh, well nothing, but but all the detail
Speaker 6: I mean of what the strike was going to entail
Speaker 6: by what I understand was, you know, transpired in this conversation.
Speaker 2: So I just okay, it's the The counter argument would be, okay,
Speaker 2: this was information which remained secure after the strike because
Speaker 2: the the journalist who was I assume inadvertently invited onto
Speaker 2: the line. I I you know, Jeffrey Goldberg is a
Speaker 2: big critic of Donald Trump. These were Trump's most loyal
Speaker 2: his Defense Secretary Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State Chelsea Gabbertt,
Speaker 2: all of his uh you know, international people were so
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody said it'd be a great idea
Speaker 2: to put Jeffrey Goldberg on here, So we don't think so. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he did not, Thank goodness. I don't know what
Speaker 2: he could have been able to do. He would have
Speaker 2: had to have called the hoodies, and I don't think
Speaker 2: anyone would be crazy enough to do that and said, hey,
Speaker 2: you guys are going to get hit in about two hours.
Speaker 2: If I get if I were you, i'd get out
Speaker 2: of town.
Speaker 6: I mean, right, And did you think did you say?
Speaker 6: Did you mention that he thought it was kind of
Speaker 6: a joke? He didn't, he.
Speaker 2: Is he I saw that he wrote he thought that
Speaker 2: he was being prank, that that it was someone who
Speaker 2: was pulling and he realized he only realized when the
Speaker 2: actual news was saying that that the US is hitting
Speaker 2: hitting Yemen. I mean it was anticipated the Biden administration
Speaker 2: has hit them before. I don't know if this was
Speaker 2: the first time. It's not a surprise like we're all
Speaker 2: of a sudden attacking some country. Switzerland. They've been a
Speaker 2: pain of the neck for a long time. So so
Speaker 2: you think the head should roll? Okay, let's see what without.
Speaker 6: What others said, Dan, But what can I tell you?
Speaker 2: That's okay? Audrey? I loved your call. I mean that seriously.
Speaker 2: Thank you you've said you've said a new standard here.
Speaker 3: Okay, thanks, Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Okay, we had luck with Ardurye. Let me go to
Speaker 2: Heidi and Wellesley. Hi, Heidi, how are you tonight?
Speaker 7: Well, it's actually not he it's actually Patty.
Speaker 2: But Patty, Oh how did Rob? How did you get
Speaker 2: Heidi out of Patty? Patty is one of my favorite callers. Patty?
Speaker 3: How are you? Peace?
Speaker 8: Love and honor for you?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 8: And I would never ever call your show with anger,
Speaker 8: but text you noticed in this community or in this
Speaker 8: world right now, there are heightened feelings of anger, fear,
Speaker 8: blah blah blah.
Speaker 7: Yes, and so there's also the factor that everybody wants
Speaker 7: to be right.
Speaker 8: And I don't know what.
Speaker 7: Is the big deal about being wrong? Why does everyone
Speaker 7: have to be right? But let me tell you about
Speaker 7: that little thread of the text. Yes, there's no such
Speaker 7: thing as a mistake. Everything happens for a reason. So
Speaker 7: the guy was on the thread, right, We've all put
Speaker 7: different people on threads. It just shows that everyone is
Speaker 7: so in another planet that mistakes happen so much, and
Speaker 7: it's just a tragedy where we are at now. Would
Speaker 7: you agree?
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I do think that all of
Speaker 2: us need to kind of dial it back a little bit.
Speaker 2: They probably threw that call together a little bit more quickly.
Speaker 2: There should have been double checks. They should have been
Speaker 2: doing it through, you know, a professional Department of Defense
Speaker 2: communications team. It shouldn't have been done at this point.
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty clear if they made a mistake
Speaker 2: by putting it on signal. Now they could have put
Speaker 2: had her on signal, and maybe if no mistake was made,
Speaker 2: but guess what, we're all human beings, Mistakes can be made.
Speaker 2: It should have been done through a more secure site.
Speaker 2: Although signal is from everyone I've talked to today, a
Speaker 2: pretty secure site in terms of encryption.
Speaker 7: Done.
Speaker 8: Have you ever heard of this?
Speaker 7: Quotes or whatever?
Speaker 4: Measure twice.
Speaker 7: How one yes done?
Speaker 2: Absolutely A stitch in time saves nine is another one
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 4: Hey got it?
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I haven't heard your voice since
Speaker 2: too long and I love you voice. You know that
Speaker 2: we will talk soon. Thank you so much.
Speaker 7: Just what do you want to hear? Your secret?
Speaker 3: Do?
Speaker 7: I love you?
Speaker 4: Do?
Speaker 7: You are the and you are the best?
Speaker 3: Perfect.
Speaker 2: It's not a secret anymore, but I feel the same
Speaker 2: way to it you, Patty. Thank you so much.
Speaker 7: Okay, one day, one day we'll meet Don in person. Okay,
Speaker 7: abe show tonight and we all love you and I'm
Speaker 7: speaking for all your fun. You are the best.
Speaker 2: Thanks Patty, I'm blushing. Thank you so much. Okay, thanks,
Speaker 2: bye bye bye bye bye. Okay, uh, David san Antonio, Dave,
Speaker 2: I only got a couple of minutes left, but I
Speaker 2: know you make the most of it. Go ahead, Dave.
Speaker 3: I just think to them, have a lot of noise
Speaker 3: is being made over nothing. I mean I it wasn't
Speaker 3: top secret, it wasn't anything like that. And the fact
Speaker 3: that it's out is because a little journalists. They Goldberg,
Speaker 3: he couldn't keep his mouth shut. Well, first of all.
Speaker 2: That's not what journalists do. Dave. You, first of all,
Speaker 2: that's not what journalists do. I mean, he was he
Speaker 2: was inadvertently put on the call. I don't think people
Speaker 2: would have put him on intentionally, do you.
Speaker 3: He's just as an American desire. Why do you just
Speaker 3: keep his mouth shut?
Speaker 2: Well, that's not what journalists do, David. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: sure that if there was a conservative journalist, then Goldberg
Speaker 2: has staked out of position. He's very critical of the
Speaker 2: Trump campaign. Maybe I would hope that if he had
Speaker 2: been on a call with an administration that was more
Speaker 2: supportive of he would have done the same thing that
Speaker 2: he as a journalist, but that he didn't have to.
Speaker 2: He could have kept it quiet, but that's his choice.
Speaker 2: I can't second guess his choice.
Speaker 3: You have kept it, He kept it quiet. Nothing, no
Speaker 3: noise about this at all. The fact is it was
Speaker 3: a very successful campaign. He really done it in over there,
Speaker 3: and uh, they're they're they're shaking in their boots and
Speaker 3: doing things that uh, you know.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of the hooties aren't even in there anymore, Dave.
Speaker 2: A lot of the hooties aren't even in their boots anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I.
Speaker 2: Got you in before the news. But here comes the
Speaker 2: news and we both got to get out of the way.
Speaker 2: I'll talk soon. I'll give you more time next year.
Speaker 2: A good night, Dan, my friend, take it take, take
Speaker 2: it easy. You guys have the numbers. I'm not even
Speaker 2: gonna repeat them. Fill up the lines. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk to this, about this until midnight, coming back on
Speaker 2: night Side.