Comment by danso
8 months ago
Based on the (changing) relative timestamps in the published screenshots, it looks like Goldberg was taking screenshots throughout the days he was privy to the chat. The published images also appear to be the actual screenshots (e.g. as opposed to a reproduction of them, using CSS etc. to mimic Signal's design).
I had thought that once Goldberg realized what he was into, that he and The Atlantic would've taken some steps to mitigate the risk of the government seizing his phone. Like using another camera to take photos of his phone displaying the group chat's contents (and then saving those jpegs on several USB drives via an air-gapped computer). Maybe they did do that, but realized they don't need to publish those stowed-away jpegs after Trump asserted that nothing classified was in that group chat.
That’s how I would do it too recording with another phone/camera everything, the chat history, all members and open their contact information and yours, record how it’s your phone and you enter into the signal app. Backup your phone, maybe delete some things and be ready that you have to hand it in.
> Trump asserted that nothing classified was in that group chat
It's kind of a scary "what if" had the administration denied the legitimacy of the thread from the start. This could have been drawn out into months of questionable digital forensics. Maybe they were worried another one of the unknown numbers in the thread would have come forward?