Well, howdy there, Internet people? It's Bell again. So today, we're going to talk about one of the largest intelligence operations to hit the U.S. in history. And, well, your phone. There has been an intrusion into U.S. telecommunications, and it isn't fixed yet. The short version is that your texts might be compromised.

The long version is that what is being called Salt Typhoon is a cyber espionage campaign targeting the

U.S. The campaign has been focused on three types of information. Metadata and call records focused on the

D.C. area, intercepting live calls of specific people and accessing systems used by telecom

companies to assist law enforcement. The U.S. fingers are pointing to China. China is denying it.

Salt Typhoon, by the way, is not the name of an

operation. It's a nickname given to this situation by Microsoft. Despite the reporting that

those who have penetrated U.S. systems are focused primarily on certain kinds of info,

warnings have gone out to the average American

to start using encryption on their texts. An official from the cybersecurity and infrastructure

security agency said, quote, our suggestion that we have told folks internally is not new here.

Encryption is your friend, whether it's on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use

encrypted voice communication.

An FBI official said, quote, people looking to further protect their mobile device communications

would benefit from considering using a cell phone that automatically

receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption, and fishing-resistant.

The overall tone of the breach is that it's, quote, ongoing, and there seems to be a general

feeling that the scope of the hack

isn't fully understood yet, which is what is prompting the stream of experts to come out

and advise end-to-end encryption for text. Remember that not too long ago, representatives from

some of the same agencies were trying to limit

access to encryption.

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