[diego898]

Not downplaying or defending - but I don’t understand the failure mode here - presumably hegseth had to ask someone in pentagon IT to set this up? Submit a form etc. sure he asked for something illegal* but someone actually following a set of rules had to enable this, no?

(* or against protocols, etc)

[lukev]

The failure mode is that the Secretary of Defense unilaterally bypassed security protocols to use technology that had not been evaluated for that use case in a national security context by the appropriate experts.

It doesn't matter if he happened to use something that has a solid security model. The problem isn't Signal, it's that he ignored all the rules.

And it does have an impact, as we see in other news, because one failure mode of Signal is that it's super easy to add the wrong people to a group. Which has actually happened. Twice (at least.)

[betaby]

> to use technology that had not been evaluated for that use case

I'm curious what technology has been evaluated for secure communications. Are there better option?

Is MS Teams approved?

[diego898]

I 100% agree - I’m only saying hegseth didn’t run an unsecured line into his office himself no?

Why didn’t some automated system say “installation of unsecured lines in this building is not possible” or similar

To be course : I didn’t think something so obviously wrong would have been allowed and enabled by several people who made this possible - removing absolutely no accountability from the person who asked for this to happen

[CamperBob2]

Not downplaying or defending - but I don’t understand the failure mode here

Like so many others, this particular 'failure mode' doesn't exist if you're a Republican. What if Hillary Clinton did it? Now that would be a democracy-threatening 'failure mode.'

[ceejayoz]

> Hegseth is breaking the military rules…

I'd note that he's not subject to them. It's a civilian position, and he's no longer serving in the military. You're obviously allowed to wear makeup as a former soldier.

I agree he's a clown, but not for this. Politicians frequently wear makeup. It's part of the job.

[diego898]

Just to clarify - I am not presuming to shift blame - I am asking about a failure mode here- absolutely hold hegseth accountable (he should have never been in this position and is completely unqualified in my opinion).

I am also not suggesting we hold an IT person accountable-

I am only saying there should be rules/systems in place so that if someone else asks for something obviously wrong like this again, there’s a clear stop gap to say “that’s not possible”

Maybe there already is one(several) - if so, then of course the chain of accountability continues to ensnare…

[dec0dedab0de]

Why are you so upset about men wearing makeup? I mean clearly he is not a member of any of the armed services anyway. Your whole comment is essentially a rant about how this guy should adhere to gender norms. You have a point about spending the money for a studio, but that has nothing to do with the article.