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So this author and journalist should have had

i) full disc encryption

ii) encrypted communication

iii) anonymous communication

iv) anonymous and encrypted dealings with a publisher

v) anonymous payment from that publisher

That's not someone writing about corrupt government in an oppressive regime, that's someone living in the US writing about US companies and government.

Hackers and designers should probably spend a little bit of time making anonymity and encryption easier to use.



Time for you to write that book on encrypted journalism.


While that's a stop-gap measure I heartily support, in the long run maybe we should all try and change the US legal as well as political system to make that kind of thing unnecessary.


I think the point is that it's not stop-gap in that process, it's step one.

If the opponents of the change you propose have access to your private data, they have an unfair advantage.


Rather than encrypting 'our' data, we could also strive to make 'their' data as accessible to us as our's is to them. Aka transparency.


I think that's a failing strategy. You can only trust that 'their' data is open as much as you trust 'them'.

This is the robustness principle (for API design/use ) applied. "Be lenient in what you accept from others, stringent in what you emit."

As applied to this case, it's "Be lenient in what you you expect reality is, but stringent in what you attempt to shift reality to."


Do you really believe that encrypting any data would have changed something? The government is making it up as they go along. I mean, his mother getting charged is a clear mafia-style message send.


Remaining anonymous is difficult to combine with making a living as a journalist.




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