How Signal’s Meredith Whittaker Remembers SignalGate: ‘No Fucking Way’
In March of This year Meredith Whittaker was with their kitchen table in Paris when signal, the Encrypted encrypted messaging she is running, suddenly became an international headline. A colleague sent their group Chat the story Ric Wicocheety over the globe: “The Trump administration, accidentally threw me sent me his war plans.”
Of course you know the rest: In the piece, the Assel neries, Detailed However, detailed how he is added to a signal conversations about an upcoming military operation in Yemen. About the following days and neighborhoods, the incident would be known as “SignalGate“-Ed a legitimate risk created that the bank would ask that people would ask the safety of signal, instead of pointing their fingers to the deeply doubtful on-sack of Senior-level Trump officials.
Never happened. In fact, the user numbers were sprung and borders, both in the US and around the world. It is growth that, Whittaker thinks, comes at the same time as “people feel in a much deeper, much personal way is important.”
On the episode of this week of The big interview, I also talked to Whittaker, who also polluted the AI institute, about the aftercare of signal, artificial intelligence, and the current relationship of the Tech Industry with politics.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
KATIE DRUMMOND: Meredith Whittaker, Welcome to The great interview.
Meredith Whittaker: Nice to see you, Katie.
Nice to see you too. Brace yourself, we always start these calls with a little warm-up, so I will ask you some very quick questions. Finished?
I am.
OK. Mountains or beach?
Mountains.
What is the most about or-hyped ai buzzword at the moment?
Agent.
I knew you would say that. What is the weirdest AI application you've ever seen?
A chatbot that proposes to be your friend.
That is odd.
On the right?
Weirder every day. If signal had a mascot what would it be?
We would never tell you.
Which emoji owns your philosophy on privacy?
The ghost emoji.
Nice. More secure: Handwritten letters or encrypted lyrics?
Handwritten letters.
Coffee order: Simple or complicated?
Simple.
She tells the truth. She drinks what looks like a very basic coffee at the moment. If you don't work in Tech, what would you do? What is your alternate career path?
A poet.
Love it. Someone asked me that once. I don't want to mention-drop, but it was [New Yorker editor] David Remnick, interview in a job, and I said Massageter appey. He was like, “What's wrong with you?”
He is like, hired.
Yikes. Wow.
I can make you joke. I'm not in your sector.
It's good. I'm blushing. Ok so let's talk a little about you so I can stop talking about that very awkward interview I did with David Remnick.
In interest interesting we don't know a lot about Meredith's early, which I realize is on purpose. You have talked about how you have decided to keep your personal life private. You have decided that on a very early age. If only more people were so careful. Tell me about that decision.
