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Clinton campaign said to switch to 'Snowden-approved' Signal messaging app

Edward Snowden tweets about the Clinton campaign's seeming seal of approval for his app suggestions.

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Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
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Dan Ackerman
Hillary Clinton
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Hillary Clinton

This isn't the first time "Hillary Clinton" and "email" have been in the same sentence.

 David Becker, Getty Images

Following suspected Russian hacks of the DNC and the subsequent release of email messages through WikiLeaks, the Hillary Clinton campaign is said to be taking security advice from an unusual source: Edward Snowden.

According to a new Vanity Fair article, campaign staffers were told: "If anyone was going to communicate about Donald Trump over e-mail or text message, especially if those missives were even remotely contentious or disparaging, it was imperative that they do so using an application called Signal...Signal, staffers in the meeting were told, was 'Snowden-approved.'"

Signal is a messaging app for iOS and Android that allows for encrypted communication.

Snowden tweeted about this unusual endorsement shortly after the article was published.

The Clinton campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment about what messaging apps staffers are using.