{"id":177396,"date":"2017-02-01T05:59:14","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T03:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scm.bz\/techsupport\/essential-tech-tools-and-tips-for-protecting-your-sources-2.html"},"modified":"2018-02-11T23:03:41","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T21:03:41","slug":"essential-tech-tools-and-tips-for-protecting-your-sources-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scm.bz\/en\/essential-tech-tools-and-tips-for-protecting-your-sources-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential tech tools and tips for protecting your sources"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"Auther:\u00a0Sam Berkhead\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
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In the post-Snowden era of investigative journalism, many journalists seek out encryption technologies to protect themselves and their sources from government surveillance.<\/p>\n

The most recent data from the Pew Research Center reveals more than half \u2014 64 percent<\/a> \u2014 of investigative journalists in the U.S. believe the government has \u201cprobably\u201d collected their phone calls, emails or online communications. Eight in ten said they believe they are more likely to have data collected because they\u2019re journalists.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0today’s investigative journalists are\u00a0more likely to face threats in the form of subpoenas and investigations into whistleblowers,\u00a0said Jennifer Valentino-DeVries<\/a>, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal who works on its data investigations team. Criminal hackers have also been known to target prominent news outlets and individual journalists alike.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only is that a problem for you and your private information, but you can also have your sources’ information be disclosed in that manner, even if that’s not what the hackers were originally looking for,\u201d Valentino-DeVries said.<\/p>\n

Another threat more likely than the NSA? Accidental disclosure of information. Journalists might not realize how much data they’re revealing through their work, allowing anyone with a basic knowledge of web scraping to easily\u00a0glean sensitive data.<\/p>\n

Take Vice\u2019s 2012 piece on John McAfee, in which they followed the software executive\u2019s life on the run in Latin America for several days. Vice published a blog<\/a> featuring a photo with McAfee and Vice editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro taken with an iPhone 4S \u2014 a photo whose geolocation data hadn\u2019t been wiped before publishing. Using this data, it was shockingly easy to pinpoint McAfee\u2019s location<\/a> by a swimming pool along Guatemala’s Rio Dulce.<\/p>\n