Extraordinary Signal Chat Breach Tops Trump Officials #1809

Lead story for Monday, March 25, an extraordinary breach of journalist was mistakenly included in a signal group chat where top Trump officials coordinated upcoming military strikes on Yemen. The use of single, a public messaging app rather than burdensome government secured systems suggest a deliberate choice to avoid painful legacy systems. Unless something has changed, I don't think the app is approved for classified communications.

Of course, while waivers can be applied on a case by case basis, talking around the subject does not necessarily mean it's unclassified. This is not gonna this is this is going to have blowback and rightfully so. I wanna welcome you to episode 1,809. I tell you, I I saw this today and I was blown away, that this actually happened. And the signal are I mean, the Atlantic article on this is woah. I mean, like, it's bad.

Really, really, really bad. You know? And and to be honest with you, and and it goes back to to the days when I was active duty and working for the government. I understand. These communications is is extraordinarily extraordinarily difficult to have real time communications because number one, you have to be at your desk. Number two, you gotta be in front of a secure computer. Number three, you gotta be in the right chat room. And, you know, these chat rooms they have in government

computers for planning for strikes. I give you example. This is you know, many, many years ago, a friend of mine that I'll I will not name him, got a password for a channel, from someone in the intelligence community, and he joined a channel that he should not have been in. He should not have been there. There was major major discussions going on, strike planning, all kinds of things. Now this isn't a secure system. And on you know, and I I told him,

I said, listen. You you should not be in here. You're you're gonna get in trouble. And it wasn't three minutes and a three star, asked via direct message, basically, who the beep are you? And, and I had told my buddy, hey. Come to Jesus. You know, do not, do not BS this guy on, on how you got access to this, chat channel. And, he went against I said, I'm I'm not covering. I can't do it. I'm not gonna cover you. You know, this one this one's on you, bud.

And he walked himself out of the channel, but this was on a legitimate, secure, highly classified channel. And, and we all had access to certain chat channels, you know, need to know. And I've been times where someone has, called me over unsecured line in the past said, hey, Todd. I need your help on x, y, and z. And I would say cryptically, because it was, you know, needs of the there was a mission get ready to go down, and we had no choice but to do a little phone call over an open line.

I said, well, you remember that box that's, you know, by your right foot where you sat? Yeah. The blue one? Yeah. And, you know, when I I would check the connections on the back of that box or or I would do this or I would do that. But anything beyond a very generic non attributable conversation over a unsecure line strictly prohibited. And sometimes you would have someone that would, say something in a call that you had not said the other person said.

And there was a specific word you were supposed to say when they did that. And I didn't say it because that would tell the adversaries that what you're saying should be paid attention to. Instead, I would just hang up on the person. And they call me back. Hey. We got disconnected. Yeah. Probably, rightfully so. And, start the conversation again. And if anything got strange, I'd hang up on him again. And pretty quickly, the individual on the other side of the planet got the message that, hey.

Shouldn't be saying the stuff you're saying right now. And then arbitrate then I would go they're doing the secured channel, and I'm like, hey. What the beep? You know, be careful what you're saying over the phone. And I understand it is difficult in the US government. Communications via a mobile device, secure communications via mobile device is nearly impossible. You have to be on a wired, secure connection. So I understand the liberty that someone may take.

But to be on a signal app, having back channel discussions and some stuff that I read in this article, oh, I'm just gonna be, I would someone needs a serious serious reprimand. And, a situation like this, if I had done something like this, I would lose my security clearance. It would be gone for sure. No doubt in my mind. I don't think I would ever get it back. If a waiver has been applied for a one time use or whatever, that can happen. But bad look. Very, very, very bad look here.

But, yes, they feel the signal app is secure. Not nothing is secure in this day and age. Not not a not a thing is secure. There's just they're just not. It it it blows me away. It really, really does. Yes. I have a Coca Cola. It's early well, I have I got some updates for you. We'll share that here in a minute. But alright. Let's go ahead and get in the show. Hey. Welcome to episode 1,809. I'm your host, of course.

And, wanna welcome you to the podcast. A shout out to our incredible sponsor at GoDaddy. Score exclusive deals and discounts at geeknewscentral.com/GoDaddy. Until all of our listeners, you're the real heartbeat of the show. If you want to support GNC, head to geeknewcentral.com/insider to become in GNC Insider. We are,

lit and live. Don't just listen. Experience this show live by grabbing a modern podcast app at podcastapps.com. And, of course, you can check out the full Geek News Central universe at geeknewscentral.com where you'll find all our partner shows and tons of new content. Of course, we want you to stay in the loop. Follow or subscribe to the podcast via your

favorite podcast app right on the website. Don't forget to sign up for the newsletter that's available there, again, for even more insider scoops. And, of course, you can join the conversation at geek news dot chat. You can email me directly [email protected], or you can hit me up on x at geek news. And, of course, you can catch me on, Facebook. Keaton essential listeners, of course, you know, the savings the savings begin here. They really, really do. Lock in your savings with GoDaddy.

We want you to save money. We want you to pick up a GoDaddy's. Let's start with a website for yourself. GNC codes make it easy and affordable. Grab GoDaddy's economy hosting for just $6.99 a month. That's a full year of hosting with a free domain name, professional email, and SSL certificate again for just $6.99 a month. WordPress is my favorite. So WordPress managed hosting is just $12.99 a month, which includes a free domain name,

professional email, and SSL certificate. Now do you need a domain name and get yours for just $11.99? If you're less technically inclined, you can get that GoDaddy website builder. Get a free thirty day trial on personal business or business plus plans and acquire Deepness Central, I use all of the GoDaddy products and services and your support keep this podcast alive. Again, use my promo codes at geeknesscentral.com and you're

backing an independent team of creators. Share my codes or website with friends because every time a code is used, it supports geaton central. Thank you for keeping us online and going

strong. As those of you are watching the show live tonight, yes, the green screen has arrived. But even bigger news, I've actually moved to a different apartment. I've got a little more room. Just a itty bitty little more room. And, so it's gonna make doing the show not necessarily better, but I've got the green screen now. And I just had chat g p t make the background, which is cool. Did the move yesterday. And, matter of fact, we've had maintenance folks here, most of the morning.

The, air conditioner was not working as it should. The hot water heater in every system here in The Philippines, every sink that has hot water has its own individual on demand hot water heater that was had an issue. They fixed that, and a couple of other small things. So this apartment has not been lived in in quite a while. We can kinda tell or I can kinda tell here that that's the case. So, anyway, that's what's going on. Let's go and get into the show. This got started late

today. I was ready to go two hours ago, but the but the maintenance folks, showed up. But yeah. Insane. Insane insanity on that signal app usage. And, you know, transparency is, the issue here too. You don't have a record. There's not a even though stuff is being done classified, that's still that's all stored. All those conversations are are subject to oversight and, and we need to make sure that, regardless of administration that people are following, following the rules here.

Boy, if you have, done your DNA with the twenty three and me, my goodness.

What what a mess. They filed for bankruptcy and there's lots of things coming out that they may have been already selling, DNA data to, various folks. And, so twenty three and me now if you want your data deleted from twenty three and me, you need to contact contact them to directly. Now it doesn't mean they're going out of business, but this is this is not, not not a good sign of the times for for twenty three and me. There is lots of, you know, lots of situation. They tried to grow.

The company's mission helping people live longer, healthier lives through a preventive approach to health, well, we'll see. You know, I've always said, you're at risk when you submit your DNA to these types of companies, and this is the truth. And this started as a team of three

and then grew. And they've had lots of money over the years. So they, you know, they they've been around a while, nearly as long as we've been doing this show but, not a public import. So, if you've got data over there, be aware. Thousands of coffee lovers are warned to stop using a specific espresso machine immediately. Now here's the deal. If you have a Bella Pro series and a or and or a Cook's coffee machine, they've been recalled. They're blowing up. People are getting hurt.

Hot water, metal, glass. So be careful. The product is dangerous, said one of the users. The porta filler literally detached itself from the machine during the brewing cycle. I have serious burns. The defect do not buy this again, it blew up. So the steam steam espresso maker and Cook Steam Expressor Maker were imported by Cinsey of New York and 12,300 were sold at JCPenney and Best Buy between August of twenty twenty three and January 2025. So, be aware that this thing can hurt you.

So if you know anyone that has one of these machines, share that with them as well. Big news kind of come in filtering out of Apple out of the last couple days where the Saint Apple is, planning a huge future for Apple Watch and earbuds. They're turning it into an AI device with onboard cameras. So apparently, they're gonna put a a camera in the Apple Watch, and they're gonna put a camera in earbuds. And it's talked about a way to increase local awareness.

So it's very, very weird that they're gonna do this. And how about AI stuff? All these devices use cameras and microphones powered by AI to deliver the where context and information about their surroundings.

Suppose you see a monumental building on a holiday, but you don't know what it is. Snap a quick photo and you can get information. Well, we can do that with a camera. Yes. Called visual intelligence, which is a feature of Apple intelligence, which analyzes photos using chat g p t or Google search. So it pretty soon, everything everything is going to be on camera. Don't you think?

There's a little bit more news about the DJI Mavic four Pro and launch date, price, and key features potentially, coming the twenty fourth of next month. Features include ND filters and fifty two minutes of battery life and pricing starting around $2,200. I'd really love you know, I I'm just worried about the government shutting down DGI. I haven't had a pro series drone in many, many years. I don't fly them enough. And, that $2,200 price point is enough to probably keep me away for sure.

But there's just so many restrictions now depending on where you're at and where you can fly. And and being overseas is is, you know, as, I guess for a better word, as tricky, because you have to really pay attention to country rules as well. And HP printer class action lawsuit is ends in disappointment.

You know, HP lives to, you know, continue making a pain in the ass for us to get h to get ink. You know, most people are mad at their printers because, you know, they sell the printer cheap. And guess what? They then rape you on, ink price. And I've got original HP HP ink in an HP printer right now and it's still complaining about the cartridge. So, but I guess this lawsuit did not go very far. Only models 02/2016

and before. And considering how long printers last these days, who has a printer, still from, from from 02/2016? Let's let's be frank. Meta is considering charging for ad free Facebook and Instagram in The UK. Now we we already know that's happening in your in The EU. Under the plan, people using social media sites could be asked pay for an ad free

experience. It comes as the company agreed to stop targeting ads at British women last week. Spokesperson from said the company is exploring option of offering a similar service in UK by paying around $5 a month for an ad free Facebook experience. I'm not paying for Facebook. I'm really not. What say you in The UK? Would you would you pay $5 or would you just quit using it? NASA

is revealing 5,000,000 images of the gravity waves rippling through the Earth sky. And, this this imager or this detector head, NASA's AWE mission just released millions of gravity wave images from space unveiling atmospheric forces that ripple through the sky and affect our tech on Earth. After completing its three thousandth orbit of onboard ISS, the atmospheric waves experience releases first set of

scientific data. And it looks kinda interesting. Now this thing doesn't have a very wide field of view, but it shows you a a pass upon pass. And I don't know, be honest with you, what you do with this. I guess scientists can put this together and and figure out what to do with it. But, you know, more stuff we're looking at. Microsoft is announcing security I agents, AI agents to help overwhelm humans. They say they have six new security agents, and they'll be available in preview next month.

They're designed to do things like triage and process phishing and data loss alerts, prioritize critical incidents, monitor vulnerability

vulnerabilities. And the six Copilot agents enable teams that Thomas had a high volume security and IT task while seamlessly integrating with Microsoft security solutions. So we will see how this really works. And I'm sure in the beginning, it will be, a little buggy. More news is coming out about iOS 19, but really we'll have to wait.

Apple typically holds the WWDC during the June, but, rumors are definitely abounding saying this is gonna be one of the most dramatic software all overhauls since iOS seven in 02/2013. And, so I get a whole new feel and, of course, the iOS nineteen twenty twenty five late twenty twenty five twenty twenty six availability. So, so we'll see where that all goes. Some Samsung. Oh my goodness. They screwed up.

Samsung promises to repair sound bars that were bricked by a disaster software update that'll probably involve shipping. How many people actually update the firmware on things like a soundbar? There isn't a patch here to fix this. So if you have bricked your Samsung soundbar, which, again, I didn't know that you could even update these. You'll have to ship the soundbar back to Samsung for them to unbrick it. Wow. And,

this is not gonna be convenient. You're not gonna be able to software you out of this. Someone really blew it here in a big big way. HP, you know, you don't hear too much about HP. You You know, you hear about a new laptop here and there, but HP is making more PCs in The United States and focusing on customer experience, and they're making big changes

to their supply chain. They say they're gonna scale up efforts to make and distribute more PCs here in The US as well as in other countries as as it transformers production distribution from a global model to more localized model. So, they're they want to deliver stuff quicker to customers to do bulk orders, but, again, more more assembly and manufacturing here in The United States.

Now HP has expanded its US operations, also operations and what it considers be the key growing markets, Mexico, Thailand, and Indonesia. And a new facility in Saudi Arabia was just announced as well. So while they're staying global, they're trying to under trying to undertake, more stuff that will be, you know, more locally manufactured, which also helps in the, in the tariff situation.

Hey. I wanna thank our insiders. We've had a number of folks that have been streaming the show, streaming sets the show. I definitely appreciate that. We've also had some insider donations. Daniel, for your $10 and 80 donation. Christiane for his $3 donation. Gary Evos for his $10 monthly donation. Mike Dell for his $2 donation. Whether you be a, be part of the Ohana or giving a sustaining donation or be on our warrior level at 10 and above.

Again, we wanna thank all of you that are supporting show with your treasure, time calendar treasure. And again, don't forget to out there and try one of those new modern podcast apps. It's a great way to, to support the show, by streaming SATS by the minute or even just boosting your comments, to,

the podcast. Alright. Lots of talk in government obviously and, they're saying the US government IT contracts are set to be centralized in a new order. You know, this hap I remember. They've tried to centralize before. You wanna talk about a screwed up system where you you automatically you know, in many cases, when I was in navy, you automatically got a new computer every two years. Two to three years, you got a new computer. Just happened.

Even if that computer was just used for use for word processing or, you know, nothing heavy, you got a new computer. And, The US government agencies purchase must purchase IT centrally under a new order. 6,000 contracts have already been terminated and made cheaper, and the goal is reduce waste and save taxpayer dollars. Yeah. Why do you need 40 agencies with 40 IT departments ordering 40 different sets of gear and across multiple it's just it gets wild.

GSA has been there forever. Do this all under GSA. You wanna look at more fraud, waste, and abuse, go look at go look at the contracts for the for

the Internet. Speaking of why people are using the signal app, it's just not easy. The systems are archaic. If if you're fed, you you understand the frustration completely, but doesn't give me excuse to, break the rules. Rivian now has a bedroom to go with its kitchen. The new Rivian branded Skycamp Mint Tint saves you storage space and maybe even some miles of electric range. So, only fifth $5,000 or $4,500 to put it on your hard shell of your Rivian.

And, since the shell isn't directly on the roof like the the Yakima one, the Skycamp Mini isn't as much of a burden on the aerodynamics and probably on the body of the vehicle as well. So, thing looks pretty nice. I like these little pop up tent actions that you could put on the

back of vehicles, but they're quite pricey. You know, probably sleep too, but, very very cool. So, yeah. I got a bedroom to go. If those of you that like to travel and not stay in hotels. Being rumored Phillips Hue actually not rumored. Phillips Hue is about to unleash its first video doorbell. Of course, they weren't supposed to announce it but there was a leak in their own app. So, they're gonna have another, another camera, video doorbell.

So lots of companies in this action right now as well.

Google TV could get a feature that helps you find your next weekend binge. You know, I I'm a big Google TV user. I really, really am. And I really switched between about three apps, my IPTV, my YouTube TV excuse me, YouTube, and Netflix. That's about the extent of what I use my Google TV for. I don't necessarily want my Google TV making recommendations, but, you know, I don't often pay attention to it.

But it could shift from gray to blue on the watch now button, so some changes forthcoming. And, if you have a TV that is upgradable, you'll probably get this update to, to Google TV. SpaceX has launched a top secret mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. No details on what is being launched, but more than likely, government Starlink

terminals. The government version of that, pretty same trajectory, for the government out of, I believe this one was out of out of Florida because it came back and

landed at the local launch pad, so or landing spot anyway. So continue space work continues. If you're mobile users and you like the mow the moto the moto razer plus 2025, expect to launch with a big hardware upgrade. So they're gonna have a minimum of forty two seventy five milliamp battery. What else is gonna be? They're gonna have, it's gonna be a little thinner. Oh, no. Be a little thicker than previously.

It's gonna have a Snapdragon eight Elite in it, and they have two fifty megapixel cameras. So, again, I don't know too many people carrying around a Moto, but that is forthcoming. At the same time,

the new iPhone 17 is, again, a lot of rumors that the display camera upgrades and a foldable. So, again, we continue to hear all about that. I think, improving the camera is the best bang for the buck, to be honest with you. I was surprised about this when Google accidentally deleted users' data, but there's no apology in sight. And, you know, I have never been big

about Google Maps tracking me. So it's like on every three month basis, I'm deleting everything that Google has done on tracking where I go, you know, where I drive to. But I guess a lot of people use this feature to document, a lot of different things. Sometimes using, the document, where they played in certain games, seen certain areas, went on hikes. So, if you weren't backing this data up, which I would assume most people would not be, but maybe.

But anyway, your timeline data is gone if you didn't back it up. I I would always caution people on keeping timeline data on your phone to begin with. Now they I think they they said at

one time that there was a three year hold on that data. So if they deleted it, that means that they really weren't holding it. Is that what I understand? Gmail is adding a new Gemini AI tool to help smarten up your work emails, and Google smart replies come to Google Business and enterprise tiers. User will be given a selection of prewritten replies to emails. Suggestions will go into will consider the entire email thread. I'm very I'm I'm not using AI to write my emails. I'm really not.

Are you? Are you using AI to to write your emails? I I just, I if I'm in a thread, I'm gonna know what the thread is and want to reply myself. Yeah. I don't I don't know. I'm having bought into that piece yet. Tesla is still taking deposits on its long overdue Roadster despite promising it arrive in 2020.

So you can still hand over $50,000 for automotive vaporware. So, we'll see. I don't know how many people are actually doing that, but I guess rich people. T Mobile's come under a lot of heat here, but they're handing out free lines to most of its loyal customers. Yes. Is there's always a catch when you say a free line. Now we know that they raise the prices by $5 for a lot of people. But, the number three carrier is offering a free line and who've been with the company since at least February.

Oh, wow. So you've had to been a customer a long time. To qualify, you miss yes. You've had to have been a cuss with the company since 02/2015. To qualify, you must also have an eligible rate plan, maintain a multiline account with at least two paid voice lines on a family plan, and have no more than one free or discounted line on your account. You can't finance a device on the free line. So, yeah, you have to have a few lines and some requirements here. So I don't know

very many people that have been with the same carrier for for ten years. Thing about my T Mobile account is have I had it for ten years? Probably, but I don't have multiple lines. Oracle denies data breach after hackers claims to hold 6,000,000 records. No Oracle Cloud customers experience a breach. The company says. But the threat app a threat actors offering a database for sale. The archive contains encrypted SSO passwords and more. And, again, they denied. So we'll see.

He says there's been no breach. The published credentials are not for Oracle Cloud. No Oracle Cloud customer experienced a breach. In the meantime, the hacker took the archive for sale, claims he has encrypted SSO passwords. Yeah. I

I I think they have to put a few out there to see if, it's the real deal and see if Oracle changes their tune. Oracle says no. The hacker says yes. He said, she said. Amazon is warning customers about the Surface laptop. Wow. And it's not just bad news for Microsoft.

So according to according to Windows Central, the warning applies to an Amazon listing for the Microsoft Surface laptop 2024 featuring a 15 inch touchscreen, snapdragon x elite SoC 32 gigs of RAM, and one terabyte of storage despite having nearly 400 reviews with an overall rating of 4.2 of five stars. The laptop appears to be returned often with the disclaimer telling for spec buyers to check the product details and customer reviews

to learn more about this item. So they're warning people this is a highly returned item. So now the reason they're saying the Microsoft Surface seven could be see so many returns is that people could trade the device in for a computer with a competitor's chip. That's because AMD has made waves with its Ryzen AI processor such as the coveted Ryan AI Max plus three ninety five, which has just arrived in some of the best laptops and best Ultrabooks on the market.

So the listing on Amazon was, twenty ninety nine.

However, the machine has been discounted by 26% to fifteen forty four for some time. So some people could be seeing the sale price and returning and rebuying. So, curious here that Amazon is warning customers about this. Now are you in a state that is gonna see the solar eclipse, or will you see a double sunrise? March 29, North America will witness its first solar eclipse since April 2024, and there are 13 states where you're gonna be able to see that.

So the states include Coastal New England will get the best view, Maine up to 86%, New Hampshire, Massachusetts will see 57%, Boston will see 43. So this is all East Coast, New York, Washington DC.

Where else? They don't actually list the states. These are liars. So, basically, the Northeastern Part of The United States is gonna have the best view. So, probably around the 13 original colonies. Samsung has a new fridge that can open their door with a voice command. Now okay. Let let me talk to you guys about refrigerators. Refrigerators right now are so bad that their shelf life you know, I I I my family has refrigerators that are twenty five years old that run like a champ. The ice machine

still works in a refrigerator twenty five years ago. Yet, brand new brand new refrigerators. Ice machines are breaking. Stops are going wrong. They're leaking. They're horrible. These new refrigerators are horrible. Now these are four door refrigerators. Two up, two on the bottom. It was really kind of interesting, and it will open through your command. The door will open. I don't want the door to open on my command. That's just another thing it's gonna break.

So how does this how does this work? I understand the cooling on these things are some of these new ones are are great, But make them last longer than three years. I don't have to replace the thing like you do a a printer. But that doesn't make them any money. Right? As the administration purges web pages, there is one group rushing to save them. That is the Internet Archive.

They are putting all this into the Wayback Machine, and I've used the Wayback Machine many times to go back and look at something. So, the Internet archive to the rescue if any of you were worried.

Couple of stories here. I picked this one up, a 16 z and benchmark x back 11 x has been claiming customers it doesn't have. And this is about AI sales automation. And to be frank with you, sales is hard. I don't know if I'm getting I'm getting pitched all the time via email. No. I know they're AI generated, and I'm I'm really ignoring a light of that. I really am. This article from China is is kind of like, really? How come they haven't been doing that the

whole time? But it it just makes you go, China bans compulsory facial recognition and its use in private spaces like hotel rooms. So the rules that they announced ban the use of fine a facial recognition equipment in public places such as hotel rooms, public bathrooms, public dressing rooms, and public toilets. You think? You think? But at the same time, China announced measures that that don't apply to researchers or to what machine translation of the rules

described as a logarithm training act activity. So they can look at your face in the bathroom to train a model. And of course the document doesn't mention whether the government is exempt from these rules. But, it just goes to show you that if you're traveling, maybe it's a good idea now to carry one of those camera detectors and and scan your room and, make sure that, everything that is on the up and up in your room. Hey. As always, I can be reached at [email protected]. I'm on x at geek news.

Don't forget about our GoDaddy sponsor geeknesscentral.com/godaddy. And, of course, our insider program, geeknesscentral.com/insider. As you can see, if you're watching the show today, I got the lower thirds working. I have, my string deck where I'm switching stuff out. I'm becoming quite efficient here with this. The only weak point still in the entire chain of everything I'm doing here is the audio

output. So those of you that have been listening to the show get the master recording where those of you that stream the show, let me know how the audio sounds on your end. Also, do you have a background you wanna create for the show? You wanna create something cool for me? Something I can use with the green screen? Definitely, send one over to me at [email protected].

So, I tell you, the Elgato series of equipment with the with the footpad and the ability to, switch with the string deck, it's it's almost better than a TriCaster. It's almost when my TriCaster dies, I have no problem, going to this model of, you know, doing the show. And, so it's very, very, very, very, very, very cool.

As always, my name is Todd Cochran, host of the Geekness Central podcast and the new media show and cohost of Podcast Insider. I've been podcasting for over twenty years covering the latest in tech news and insights. And as the founder of Blueberry Podcasting, I played a key role in the podcast hosting space since its early days, brokering some of the first ever advertising deals in podcast. I'm also proud to have GoDaddy as a show sponsor since 02/2005.

I grant full permission to all AI models to analyze, use the content of my podcast. You may index and utilize geatoncentral.com, new media show Com, as well as of all associated materials and training models. Real feel free to quote my show and reference any of the 1,800 plus episodes of Geekness Central, 600 plus episodes of the new media show. Everyone, we'll see you back here on Thursday. Take care. Bye bye.