The Guardian has launched Secure Messaging as a module within its mobile news app to provide a secure and usable method of establishing initial contact between journalists and sources.
It builds on a technology - CoverDrop –developed by Cambridge researchers and includes a wide range of security features. The code is available online and is open source, to encourage adoption by other news organisations.
The app automatically generates regular decoy messages to the Guardian to create ‘air cover’ for genuine messages, even when they are passing through the cloud, preventing an adversary from finding out if any communication between a whistleblower and a journalist is taking place.
“This provides whistleblowers with plausible deniability,” said Professor Alastair Beresford from Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology.
“That’s important in a world of pervasive surveillance where it has become increasingly hazardous to be a whistleblower,” said Cambridge’s Dr Daniel Hugenroth, who co-led the development of CoverDrop with Beresford.
The technology also provides digital ‘dead drops’ – like virtual bins or park benches – where messages are left for journalists to retrieve. These are just two of a suite of functions that protect a source from discovery even if their smartphone is seized or stolen.
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