While Wired is the latest in a still-expanding group of publications offering sources a secure, anonymous space to send information through SecureDrop, there’s something a little different about Wired signing on.
SecureDrop, according to Wired’s Andy Greenberg, was a Wired brainchild:
SecureDrop was, in some respects, invented at WIRED. In 2013, WikiLeaks inspired then-WIRED editor Kevin Poulsen and the late information activist Aaron Swartz to create a prototype for software that would let any site launch a similar portal for leakers and whistle-blowers. That tool, initially called DeadDrop, first found a home at WIRED’s Condé Nast sister publication, the The New Yorker. Its open-source code was quickly adopted by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, where Edward Snowden now leads the team that maintains it. In the meantime, it’s been redesigned, renamed SecureDrop, and extensively audited for security vulnerabilities.
It’s fitting that The New Yorker was the first to sign on, considering that current Wired editor in chief Nicholas Thompson joined (or rejoined) Wired from the New Yorker, where he had been editor of newyorker.com.
Wired has instructions here on how would-be anonymous tippers can access SecureDrop, which as always requires use of a Tor browser as a first step. And because it is, after all, Wired, you can check out this excerpt published in February from The Art of Invisibility: The World’s Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data by Kevin Mitnick that offers a comprehensive look at encryption, Tor, and how to make your email as private as possible, if you need the extra context. Most of us probably do.
Source: ADWEEK