In the investigations of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, the FBI has retrieved messages from Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp. While there are weaknesses inherent in all of these apps, the question remains: What does a good data protection scheme look like?

A few days ago, the FBI revealed that Michael Cohen’s messages sent with Signal and WhatsApp are now available as evidence in the on-going investigation into his various dealings. While thousands of emails and documents have already been recovered from Cohen’s devices, home, hotel room, and office, the recovery of data from messaging apps that promise end-to-end encryption is surprising. One would presume that end-to-end message encryption should ensure that those messages are unrecoverable without assistance from Mr. Cohen. However, clearly that is not the case.