Boston Herald

APPS LET SECRETS FLOW FREE

Media welcomes tipsters

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Social media, encryption technology and mobile apps have set the stage for the nation’s first unfiltered presidency — with more daytoday details flowing from the White House than ever before.

Whether it’s disgruntle­d bureaucrat­s tipping off the media through secure email channels or encryption apps, or the Twitter musings of the president himself, citizens now have a frontrow seat to the good, the bad and a whole lot of ugly.

The ceaseless flow of informatio­n isn’t just the result of a pernicious political landscape, but also a simple function of technology: there are now more tools than ever to help guarantee anonymity for sources. Although no method is 100 percent secure (a good rule of thumb is that if it hasn’t been hacked yet, it will), many media organizati­ons now provide links to encryption messaging apps and secure email on their websites in order to encourage leakers to come forward. Whether it’s a detailed transcript of a foreign call with the president or a draft executive order that hasn’t become official yet, it’s clear that government employees are taking the media up on its offer.

Gone are the days of having to meet sources in the darkest corner of a parking garage. Now you can just download a free app from the Apple App Store or Google Play, such as Signal, an encrypted messaging mobile app that is free. Signal can delete messages automatica­lly at prescribed intervals, and while it claims not to retain any identifyin­g informatio­n, a lot of these methods have not faced much technologi­cal scrutiny yet. I’m sure that’s about to change.

Then there are apps that were probably never designed for anonymous government leaks but are being employed for that nonetheles­s. Pidgin is a desktopbas­ed instant messenger plugin that The Washington Post lists on its website as a suggested method for communicat­ing tips.

The Post as well as the U.K.’s Guardian are encouragin­g sources to use the dark web browser Tor, which lets users surf the web anonymousl­y. Once seen as little more than a haven for drug dealing and other unsavory activities, the Tor browser is more broadly used than ever. It is likely the browser of choice for the informatio­n vigilantes at WikiLeaks.

As for transmitti­ng documents on Tor, the opensource software platform known as SecureDrop is commonly used by newspapers and activists. The service is as simple as downloadin­g a file — a task that any moderately computerli­terate bureaucrat could easily accomplish.

Secure email is another method, but it’s not for those who need to remain fully anonymous. One of the most popular secure email methods is PGP encryption, an acronym which stands for Pretty Good Privacy. While PGP will obscure the content of your email, it won’t protect the name of the sender or the subject line. Newspapers, including this one, employ PGP encryption.

If you need to transmit informatio­n and you’re afraid of potential hackers stealing your scoop, PGP is the way to go.

Although the media had to back off the story that the Trump administra­tion was sharply curtailing the release of informatio­n — highlevel approval for press releases it turns out is normal during transition­s — there have been rumblings of dissent in the EPA and NASA.

In addition to a myriad of document leaks, rogue Twitter accounts appear to be sprouting like weeds. Though there’s no way to know whether they are legitimate, Twitter accounts claiming to be handled by disaffecte­d NASA scientists, a group of White House staffers and the National Parks Service have popped up in recent weeks.

 ?? AP FILE PHOTO ?? INSTANT INFO: Instant messenger apps Slack, IM+ Pro, Facebook Messenger, Threema, Signal, Protonet Messenger and WhatsApp can be seen on a mobile phone in Berlin, Germany.
AP FILE PHOTO INSTANT INFO: Instant messenger apps Slack, IM+ Pro, Facebook Messenger, Threema, Signal, Protonet Messenger and WhatsApp can be seen on a mobile phone in Berlin, Germany.
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