SignalGate: Secure Chat and the Theater of the Absurd

Operation SignalGate – Digital Duct Tape and Denial

May 27, 2025

Welcome to Guerrilla Memo

Truth in satire for the digital warfighter.

You’ve been force-fed the PowerPoints.
You’ve heard the AI demos that never deployed.
You’ve watched billions vanish into the modernization void and all you got was another tasker in Microsoft Teams.

So we started Guerrilla Memo.

Led by Sgt. Jax a battle-hardened gorilla who’s seen more failed IT rollouts than field rations. This is your front-row seat to the absurdity of defense tech, AI hype, and taxpayer-funded chaos.
No fluff. No PR. Just the truth, camouflaged in comedy.

If you've ever wanted to laugh and scream at the same time during a digital transformation brief, you're in the right place.

Welcome to the rebellion.

👉 First satirical op-ed drops below. Read it, rage-smirk, and share it with someone still waiting on their CAC reader to work.

UNCLASSIFIED// FOR OFFICIAL MOCKERY ONLY (FOMO)

SUBJECT// WHY THE PENTAGON CAN’T EVEN CHAT ABOUT CHAT

NARRATIVE/

Let’s start with the panic that gripped the Puzzle Palace recently, and no, it wasn’t over hypersonics, peer threats, or a surprise GAO audit.

No, this time it was Pete Hegseth…using Signal.

One Fox News segment, one mention of a secure messaging app, and suddenly the DoD responded like someone had detonated a flashbang inside the E-Ring.

Clutch the pearls, initiate the think pieces, stand up the cyber task force.

“He’s using Signal!? To communicate!? On a phone!?”

Yes, friends. Apparently, in a military ecosystem that routinely misplaces USB drives and ships hard drives across oceans via DHL, the real crisis was someone using the same encrypted app that half the Pentagon uses to coordinate their carpool.

And in true DoD fashion, instead of focusing on the message, we started a full-blown modernization initiative for the medium.

Enter: Operation SignalGate, not to be confused with the app but definitely confused with innovation.

A revolutionary new effort to make chat work in the DoD. For real this time. Not like last time. Or the time before that. Or those other 46 times.

This bold, revolutionary, game-changing effort will finally address the one capability the Pentagon has failed to deliver since the bell-bottom clad disco era:

Basic. Freaking. Chat.

So, let’s give it up for Acting DoD CIO Katie Arrington, who in response to “Signalgate” has courageously stepped forward to lead the DoD into the bold, brave world of…instant messaging.

Yes, you heard that right.

In the year 2025, while commercial industry is training AI to detect cancer, optimize global logistics, and rewrite your résumé in pirate-speak, the Pentagon is still trying to figure out how to securely say:

“Hey, you up?” - JSOC, probably.

INNOVATION THEATER: CHAT EDITION

According to a recent DefenseScoop article, the DoD CIO office is now prioritizing secure platforms for sensitive instant messaging. This is being framed as a major modernization milestone.

Because after 40+ years, 300+ tools, and approximately $8.7 billion in reinvented solutions, the department has declared that “chat is hard” and must now be studied, road mapped, and focus-grouped.

“It’s not just about chat,” they say. “It’s about trust, security, and mission assurance.”

Right. And yet here we are, after decades of programs like mIRC, Jabber, ChatSurfer, Wickr, Slack-clones, SIPRchat, JChat, CB Chat, Rocket Chat, MS Teams, "insert-JCWA-name-here" Chat, the CENTCOM Custom Chat Client of 2013 (RIP), and that one tool that required a 12-step PKI ritual just to say, “Good morning.”

It’s a bit like a major airline announcing it’s finally going to modernize… wheels.

“We believe reliable rolling technology is foundational to flight.”

Definitely something you want to hear at 30,000 feet.

It’s tempting to ask: why is chat still a “future capability” for the world’s most powerful military?

ARE WE THE PROBLEM? (SPOILER: YES)

If DoD’s “innovation thought leadership” hasn’t solved the secure chat problem since Han Solo first shot Greedo in a Mos Eisley cantina (he did, it’s settled)… what faith should anyone have in its ability to deliver on things like AI-enabled kill chains, digital C2, or data-centric operations? Seriously.

The Pentagon has announced Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), Project Convergence, and Task Force Lima. It holds tech showcases with drone swarms and quantum-secure communications. It publishes strategies with phrases like “machine speed” and “decision advantage” on the cover.

But in the real world?

We’re still losing contact with forward elements because chat goes down during patch Tuesdays.

We’re still issuing training slides for how to properly log into MS Teams using a SIPR token, two CAC readers, and the blood of a unicorn.

We’re still asking battalion staff officers to “just email it” because no one knows which chat client works on which network.

This isn’t innovation. It’s cosplay.

A BRIEF AND PAINFUL HISTORY OF DOD CHAT

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

1983: DoD explores secure bulletin boards. Only 4 people can log on at once.
1998: AOL Chat tested at the Pentagon. Discontinued after “BRB, bio break” triggers counterintel alert.
2003: Army launches “WARChat.” It works fine until someone in G-6 blocks the port.
2009: DISA introduces a chat tool. Two years later, it’s deemed non-compliant with DoD IA controls.
2015: Someone tries to install Slack. Project killed by “cyber hygiene” guidance from a 2007 memo.
2020: MS Teams wins. It now takes 45 seconds to send a message. Attachments over 5MB require a Courier of Action.
2025: SignalGate launched. Key features: “send,” “receive,” and possibly “emoji after FY26 funding.”

THE STAKES ARE HIGHER THAN A CHAT APP

Now, you may think this is just a snarky critique of digital tools. But let’s not lose the plot.

This is a Command-and-Control (C2) problem. There is no C2 without comms.

We cannot afford to treat secure, reliable, interoperable chat as some nice-to-have “future capability.” It’s the very foundation of mission command.

After all, communication is the first principle of C2. Every commander knows you can’t command jack without knowing who’s on the net.

Yet we’ve turned a basic 90s-era technology into an eternal R&D science experiment, like we’re trying to land a chat window on Mars.

You want to talk about AI? Quantum? JADC2?

Let’s start with the warfighting technology that lets an E-5 in Poland ping the JOC in Germany without submitting a DD-2875 and praying to the Active Directory gods.

All the machine learning in the world won’t save us if we are unable to communicate securely.

You know what enables decision dominance? Messages that arrive before the enemy artillery does.

Let’s be honest: if DoD can't figure out real-time chat, what are the odds we’ll win at AI, cyber, or digitally enabled kill chains?

The issue isn’t technology. It’s governance, acquisition inertia, and an obsession with building custom tools in a world full of commercial solutions that actually work.

Instead, we have a “chat modernization roadmap” that reads like a Choose Your Own Adventure where every option leads to a working group.

WHAT’S ACTUALLY BROKEN?

Here’s what is NOT the problem:

Technology. We’re not lacking encrypted chat tools.
Capability. Commercial industry has solved this repeatedly.
Demand. Every warfighter wants this fixed yesterday.

Here’s what IS the problem:

Procurement delays make chat rollout glacially slow.
Security paranoia that blocks tools until they’re neutered into uselessness.
Siloed governance where every organization builds its own flavor of chat, all mutually incompatible.
Cultural distrust of COTS because heaven forbid a product actually works or industry outperforms Government.

We’ve somehow managed to turn “send message securely” into a multi-year acquisition drama starring 17 stakeholders, 4 PMOs, and at least one software engineer who now works at Wendy’s out of spite.

SIGNALGATE = SYMPTOM, NOT SOLUTION

SignalGate isn’t the problem. It’s the symptom of an institution that keeps trying to “go digital” while refusing to fix the pipes or deliver a basic capability in the span of two generations of service members.

You can’t slap “Joint AI-Powered Mission Chat” on a PowerPoint and call it modernization if it still takes 18 months to get an ATO.

This also isn’t just about chat. It’s about credibility.

If DoD leadership wants the warfighter to believe in any of its modernization priorities, from ABMS to JWCC, it must first demonstrate competence in delivering basic functionality.

Trust doesn’t come from white papers. It comes from working systems. There’s no digital kill chain without digital comms. Trust is built on results, not ribbon cuttings. And right now? Secure chat’s not working.

GUERRILLA LESSONS FROM THE FRONT

So, what should we learn from SignalGate?

“Innovating” basic tools is a warning sign. When a CIO must prioritize instant messaging in 2025, it means the system failed 20 years ago.

C2 without modern communications is a myth. Don’t talk to us about JADC2 if your chat breaks during a shift change.

Trust in IT modernization depends on delivery. If you can’t deliver a secure chat box, no one’s trusting your “warfighting platform of the future. You can’t spell JADC2 without ‘Just Another Duct-taped Chat Client.’

Want to prove innovation? Deliver something that works.

Let’s stop pretending every requirement is a moonshot. Some of this is plumbing. Reliable, fast, secure plumbing. The DoD’s digital pipes are leaking, and the warfighter is getting soaked.

Final Word from Sgt. Jax:

`Decision advantage’? Buddy, your chat tool’s held together with digital duct tape and denial. If that’s your resilient C2 plan, I hope your fallback is smoke signals”

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