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 front-row 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 desktop-based instant messenger plug-in 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 open-source 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 computer-literate 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 — high-level 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.
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