Michael Waltz got into trouble with the White House, as National Security Advisor, a journalist inadvertently added to a sensitive conversation in Signal, a commercial messaging application.
Now, when he leaves that job, he has raised a new set of questions about the White House or the encrypted application. A photograph of him looking at his phone on Wednesday during a cabinet meeting makes it clear that he is communicating with his necklaces, including the Secretary of State and the National Intelligence Director, using a Colformal and Israeli.
This discovery of the new system occurred when a Reuters photographer stands on Mr. Waltz’s left shoulder, broke a photo of him checking his phone.
He was not using a privacy screen, and when he approached, the photo shows a list of messages and calls from several senior officials, including vice president JD Vance and Steve Witkoff, the special envoy that is negotiating in Tres Vlasse Vlassingls. Putin about Ukraine and Iran’s nuclear conversations. The Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, are also on their chat list.
While the application that Mr. Waltz was seen on Wednesday is similar to the signal, it is actually a different platform of a company that announces it as a way of archiving messages for record maintenance purposes. That is critical, because a group that arose when the senior officials were using the application was if it complied with federal registration maintenance rules.
One of the benefits of Signal is that it is encrypted and can be configured in automatic elimination messages. But while that is a characteristic for users who are safe communications, it is a problem for national archives, since it seeks to retain records.
It is not clear if Mr. Waltz is using the alternative application when he became a national security advisor or after a non -profit surveillance group, US supervision, the government for not complying with record laws through the use of Signal.
While the real version of the signal obtains constant safety updates and the messages remain encrypted until they reach a user’s phone, security experts question how safe the alternative application is.
“This is amazing,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon’s Democrat, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The Government has no reasons to use a falsified signal imitation that raises obvious counterintelligence groups.”
Cybersecurity experts said that the platform that Mr. Waltz was using is known as Telemassage, which retains copies of messages, a way of complying with government rules. The photography screen shows a request to verify its “TM SGNL” PIN. Time brands indicate that communications were as recently as the morning of the cabinet meeting.
Telemassage, founded in Israel, was a Buye last year by Smarsh, a company based in Portland, Ore.
The Telemessage platform accepts messages sent through the signal, and capture and file them.
Security experts said the use of Telemassage raised a series of questions. Some said that it seemed that the company had curved the information in the past through Israel, which is recognized for its electronic espionage skills.
But a SMARSH representative said that data from US clients did not abandon the United States. Tom Padgett, president of the Smarsh business business, said that the information collected was not enrupted through any mechanism that “could potentially violate our residence of data committed to our clients.”
Padgett also said that the information was not deciphered while collecting for record maintenance purposes or moved to its final file. Security experts said that severe information is described, security vulnerabilities could be introduced. “We don’t say,” said Padgett.
SMARSH Representatives tok Proble with the idea that its platform was a modified version of the signal application. They said that the platform simply allowed financial institutions and governments to capture communications in several channels to comply with record maintenance regulations.
But cybersecurity officials said that questions were kept on how the Telemassage platform worked and what vulnerabilities could signaling communications.
The signal is based on the open source code, which allows other organizations to make its own version that uses the same encryption. But Signal Messenger, the company that manufactures and controls the application, does not admit alternative versions and actively try to discourage its use.
The use of Telemassage by Waltz was previously informed by publication 404 average. According to the publication, the United States government hired Telemassage in December 2024 to file signal messages and WhatsApp. Smarsh’s representatives said they have worked with the federal government for a decade, but said devils to discuss specific contracts.
It is not clear if the US government audited Telemassage to determine how the messages are handled and if you could break or damage the end of the end -to -end signal. Representatives of the National Security Council staff did not promote comments requests. Smarsh’s representative said they allowed security audits.
Wyden said that the United States and Marina’s government had developed safe communications tools that comply with record maintenance rules. Using the modified version of the signal is much less safe, he said.
“Trump and his national security team could also publish American battle plans in X at this rate,” Wyden said.
In response to photo reports, Steven Cheung, communications director of the White House, said in a publication on social networks that “the signal is an approved application that is loaded on our government phones.”
As part of the lawsuit filed by US supervision, government officials have submitted statements that say that chat signal messages that Mr. Waltz created to discuss strikes about the Hutí militia in Yemen are no longer recoverable.
Chioma Chukwu, Interim Executive Director of American supervision, said she had concerns about the use of the modified application.
“The use of a modified signal application can suggest an attempt to seem complied with federal record maintenance laws, but in reality it underlines a dangerous dependence on unofficial tools that threaten national security and put our Saintk,” be it. “