Off the Record: Introduction to Encrypted Communications for Journalists

[mozfest-bot]

[ ID ] 4960fc97-1c16-4a96-a27a-b2b2146671fd

[ Submitter's Name ] Martin Shelton [ Submitter's Affiliated Organisation ] The Coral Project + New York Times [ Submitter's Twitter ] @mshelton

[ Space ] journalism [ Secondary Space ] demystify

[ Format ] learning-lab, If possible, it would be helpful to get a little more time for a Learning Lab style session.

Description

This session is about helping journalists to tackle their real concerns with communications security and surveillance. Our participants - journalists, media activists, and people interested in these topics - will learn about how to secure their communications. Learning about information security can feel overwhelming to the uninitiated; framing how to think about responding to specific threats can empower participants. We will first cover how to think about digital security productively by discussing threat modeling, and learn how to use four different tools for securing communications and conducting research anonymously.

Agenda

We will first spend time discussing our audience's concerns. We will then explore their concerns through a discussion about how encryption works, how to calculate appropriate responses to security threats, how to think about risk assessment, the encrypted content of communications vs. conversational metadata, and several encrypted communications tools. We will show participants how to install and use Signal, Ricochet, Jitsi, and Tor Browser, and troubleshoot potential installation problems. We will also exchange messages with participants on these platforms so they are well-equipped to know how their quirks in practice.

Participants

I've conducted similar introductory security trainings in the past, and we typically provide printed handouts that help walk participants through installing tools step-by-step. If participants have questions, facilitators make sure to help them individually. This generally scales well when there are no more than 15 participants for each facilitator. If we have two facilitators, we should be in excellent shape for a group up to 30.

Outcome

We want to use this introduction to help participants know where to look for security resources in the future. There's much more to learn. We will provide links to additional security resources in our handouts, and we offer individual assistance for the future.

[ryanpitts]

Journalism accepting this session.

[ryanpitts]

Matthew Mitchell will be a cofacilitator for this session. Woot!

[martinshelton]

Mike Tigas will also help set up encrypted communications tools in the second half of the session!

[ryanpitts]

@martinshelton all the schedule data has been exported from GitHub here into a spreadsheet that feeds the schedule app, but I've got Mike listed as a cofacilitator there. Glad he's joining!