this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Hegseth had an unsecured internet line set up in his office to connect to Signal, AP sources say (apnews.com)
submitted 1 day ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/usa@midwest.social
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer.

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[–] xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

i believe neither… i am skeptical….

i DO believe the signal leaks, and this is kinda plausible, but it feels a lot more far fetched….

if the SecDef order the Pentagon be open to the public and that they allow anyone to walk in and look around, i think people would say “no” and there’d be a whole thing about stopping that.

… installing an unsecured internet connection seems about the same level of absurd to me….

could be true, but i don’t completely believe it… and the AP has been wrong many times before…

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

There's being skeptical, then there's being contrarian for the sake of it.

if the SecDef order the Pentagon be open to the public and that they allow anyone to walk in and look around, i think people would say “no” and there’d be a whole thing about stopping that.

Who do you imagine would be the one to say "no"? The military is required to follow the orders of the civilian leadership, which at the moment is Pete Hegseth. The only person who could say "no" would be Donald Trump. But that's not going to happen, they don't even want reporters in the press room of the Pentagon these days.

I think you've just become accustomed to there being competent civilian leadership of the military, so you can't imagine these scenarios as being possible. Yeah under a competent SecDef these things are impossible, because someone competent would never even consider discussing war plans over civilian communication channels, or at the very least listen to the advice of experts if they suggested it. Dude is an idiot, but that idiot is the person in charge. Being competent doesn't overrule the chain of command. Expertise in subjects like network security (or anything else) doesn't overrule Hegseth's position.

When people said putting an undisciplined Fox News personality in charge of the military was an extremely bad idea, this is why.