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Current and former government technologists reacted with shock and disbelief to reports that top Trump Administration officials used the consumer messaging app Signal to discuss and plan bombing strikes against Yemen-based Houthis. The private chat group included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It came to public attention after its organizer, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, inexplicably invited Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to join the conversationdespite Goldberg being a frequent target of Donald Trumps criticism. Goldberg says he witnessed the full strategy session, including detailed discussions of war plans and logistics. Using a nonsecure consumer messaging app for sensitive government work is neither normal nor smart, according to several current and former government technologists. I’d never use Signal if something was classified, says Kate Green, who worked at the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) until late last year. There’s so many risks in communicating about classified information that you don’t mess around with that. You use approved channels for that. Green explains that government agency security departments configure government-issued phones to prevent users from installing commercial apps like Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp. My work phone was very locked down and managed by them, she says. So they were using Signal either on their personal devices, or they were using it on government phones that weren’t being managed by the rules of the agencies they were part of, Green says of the administration officials on the Houthi chat. No one I know wouldve been this reckless talking about sensitive matters on a nongovernment system, says another government technology leader, who until very recently worked within USDS. I cant imagine any professional I know committing this egregious a lapse in judgement.” It’s a hard line we don’t cross for obvious ethical and legal reasons, adds the ex-USDS source, but also the logistics of personal devices getting subpoenaed and FOIA’d [accessed via a Freedom of Information Act request] would be terrible. (Another ex-government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, says people within her agencyuntil recently, the Office of Management and Budgetreceived ethics training during their first month of employment, along with extensive instruction on the proper ways to communicate about government matters.) Virginia Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated the obvious during a contentious hearing of the same committee Tuesday. Classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system, he said. If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired. Matthew Mittelsteadt, cybersecurity and emerging technologies expert at the Cato Institute, says the security of encrypted messaging apps like Signal is only as strong as the security of the end devices used to access them. In the specific case of Signal, messages may be secure when they are in transit between phones,” he says, “but once they reach the recipient, security can indeed fail. He points out that just last month, Google Threat Intelligence found actors backed by Russias GRU were actively exploiting Signals “linked devices” feature to eavesdrop on target individuals messages once they reached the individual’s inbox. As it happened, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was on a trip to Moscow during the Signal chat in question, which spanned several days. Republican Representative from Nebraska Don Bacon, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said theres no doubt that Russia and China were monitoring the devices of the U.S. officials on the Houthi text chat. Waltz claims that the Signal chat group discussed no secret war plans, nor was any classified material shared. Goldberg bluntly denied Waltzs claim during a CNN interview Monday: Thats a lie. He was texting war plans, he said.
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E-Commerce
The chief-executive-to-be at money-losing Japanese automaker Nissan is determined to speed up decision-making to come up with models that say Nissanand really sell.Ivan Espinosa, 46, chief planning officer and a Mexican with two decades of experience at Nissan Motor Corp., told reporters in embargoed comments for Wednesday that the company’s corporate culture is “lacking empathy” and has to change.“We need to work together as one single team,” he said at the Nissan Technical Center in Atsugi city on the outskirts of Tokyo. “We need to work together hand in hand.”Nissan recently appointed Espinosa to take its helm, effective April 1, replacing Makoto Uchida.Espinosa has his work cut out for him as the maker of the Sentra sedan and Infiniti luxury cars faces yet another crisis, which began decades ago when Carlos Ghosn was sent in by French alliance partner Renault to save it from the brink of bankruptcy.Ghosn was arrested by Japanese authorities in 2018 on financial misconduct allegations but jumped bail and is now in Lebanon.Uchida, chief since 2019 when Ghosn’s successor Hiroto Saikawa resigned over a separate money scandal, stepped down after the company projected a loss for the fiscal year through March.Espinosa expressed an openness to partnerships, including with parties outside the auto industry, although he declined to give specifics.Nissan recently ditched talks with Japanese rival Honda Motor Co. to set up a joint holding company. They will continue to cooperate on technology development.Espinosa repeatedly came back to the importance of being nimble. New cars will be developed in 37 months, and offshoot models within 30 months, he said.Auto production, starting with design and culminating in product tests, takes several years. Bringing a product to market in 30 months would be relatively quick for the industry.To showcase its turnaround plans, Nissan showed an array of models rolling out in the next two years for the U.S., Europe, Japan, and other markets, some of them as mockup models.Espinosa and other officials promised a lineup that highlights Nissan’s legacy, like the Leaf electric car, and models that sell in greater volumes. It’s also bringing out various ecological models, like hybrids, plug-ins and electric vehicles, and cutting-edge technology like self-driving cars.When announcing his replacement, Uchida called Espinosa “a car guy.”Espinosa, who drives a Z sportscar, Nissan’s flagship nameplate, said he saw himself as “a car lover.” He loves the stories behind each car, he said, like how it’s developed and becomes loved by customers.Analysts have so far taken a cautious approach to Espinosa’s appointment. As an insider, he takes up where Uchida left off, meaning the verdict is still out.“We view it as unlikely that Nissan would be open to becoming a subsidiary of Honda at this time, at least until the board has time to assess the effectiveness of Espinosa’s strategy, once it is unveiled and put into action,” CreditSights analysts Todd Duvick and Will Lee wrote in a recent commentary. Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@yurikageyama Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
China protested Wednesday after the U.S. added dozens of companies to its export control list, including more than 50 based in China that it says sought advanced knowhow in supercomputing, artificial intelligence and quantum technology for military purposes.Companies from Taiwan, Iran, Pakistan, South Africa and United Arab Emirates also were included in the roughly 80 companies added to the “entity list” of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.Six are subsidiaries of the Inspur Group, China’s leading cloud computing and big data service provider. It was listed in the U.S. government’s entity list in 2023.The update also includes the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, which objected vehemently.“We are shocked that a private non-profit scientific research institution has been added to the entity list. We strongly oppose this wrong decision without any factual basis and ask the relevant U.S. departments to withdraw it,” the research institute said in a statement.A review committee said the BAAI and another company, the Beijing Innovation Wisdom Technology Co. were judged to have developed large AI models and advanced computer chips for military purposes.China’s Foreign Ministry also lashed back, saying the entity list and other export controls were an abuse meant to “unjustly suppress Chinese enterprises.”“It seriously violates international law and basic norms of international relations, severely damages the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, and undermines the security and stability of global supply chains. China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this,” ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a routine news briefing Wednesday.The aim is to restrict China’s capacity to acquire and develop ultra fast, or “exascale” supercomputers, to develop hypersonic weapons and other sensitive technologies, the bureau said in a notice on its website. It also is intended to prevent South Africa’s Test Flying Academy from using U.S. goods to train Chinese troops, disrupt Iran’s access to unmanned aerial vehicles and other military items and hinder development of insecure nuclear and ballistic missile programs, it said.The companies on the list are subject to the “foreign direct product rule” of the BIS which allows it to control reexports and transfers of foreign-made products containing technology that the U.S. government deems vital for national security.The tightening of controls comes as the Trump administration prepares for another round of tariff hikes due next week, an escalation of the trade war that President Donald Trump launched during his first term in office.Trump has already raised tariffs on imports of Chinese goods to 20%. On Monday he said he would impose a 25% tariff on all imports from any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela. China buys a large share of the oil exported by Venezuela.China has retaliated with its own countermeasures, including sweeping new duties on a variety of American goods and an anti-monopoly investigation into Google.It also has moved to tighten its own sanctions regime, meanwhile, with a law enabling it to freeze assets of companies subject to Chinese sanctions. Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
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