The foundation – launched less
than a year ago “to crowd-source funding for cutting-edge,
independent journalism and publishing outlets” lacking mainstream
support – announced early Tuesday that it has taken charge of the
DeadDrop project, an endeavor announced earlier this year after
the death of Swartz, a transparency advocate who co-created the
system with Wired journalist Kevin Poulsen.
DeadDrop was unveiled this past May and touted at the time as
being a secure-way of submitting sensitive documents to a single
publication: The New Yorker. But only five months after its
debut, the Freedom of the Press Foundation said it has now
inherited the project from Poulsen and will try to bring it to
more media outlets needed to communicate securely with sources.
In a blog post authored by the foundation’s Trevor Timm and
Rainey Reitman on Tuesday, they wrote that the project has been
re-named SecureDrop, and within a matter of weeks it will be
available to a number of journalistic outlets who’ve already
expressed interest in getting involved.
The foundation has published the open-source instructions for
SecureDrop on its website and claims “Any organization can
install SecureDrop for free and can make modifications” now–not
just the New Yorker.
When operating accordingly, the SecureDrop system works when an
anonymous source accesses a website anonymously and provides
documents to the news outlet that are encrypted and only
available to select employees. Journalists and sources
communicate using code words, and documents are deciphered using
an air-gap computer that is never connected to the Internet.
That isn’t to say it’s easy to someone without a deep computer
and security knowledge to get the system and up and running,
however, and that’s what the foundation is offering to find help
for organizations who want to use SecureDrop but might need
assistance.
“Freedom of the Press Foundation will also help organizations
install SecureDrop and train its journalists insecurity best
practices to ensure the best protection for sources,” the group
announced on their website.
A group of independent experts, including Jacob Appelbaum of the
Tor Project and security guru Bruce Schneier, audited SecureDrop
in August and have since released their findings. Their initial
report revealed a number of flaws that caused concern, though,
and the foundation has reportedly since begun correcting those
errors.
Even before revamping the system to fix those issues, though, the
the security experts said the system was still “technically
decent” for allowing anonymous communication between sources and
journalists. Since then, the foundation says it “has made a
number of updates to SecureDrop based on these findings and will
be making a significant investment in continually improving the
system.”
“We’ve reached a time in America when the only way the press can
assure the anonymity and safety of their sources is not to know
who they are,” foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow said in a
statement released this week. “SecureDrop is where real news can
be slipped quietly under the door.”
Timm, the group’s executive director, added in a statement that
“A truly free press hinges on the ability of investigative
journalists to build trust with their sources.”
When the foundation was unveiled last year, it initially began
processing donations and contributions to whistleblower-related
groups including WikiLeaks and the Center for Public Inquiry.
When the military court-martial of WikiLeaks source Chelsea
Manning was conducted in de-facto secrecy, the foundation raised
over $100,000 to hire stenographers so that the press could have
transcriptions of proceedings that otherwise would not
necessarily be made public.
Copyright: RT