Feb 14, 2017

Snowden works to secure newsrooms

Gage Skidmore / Flickr Creative Commons

Wired has a look at some tools that the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit headed by Edward Snowden, is putting together to help newsrooms keep themselves and their sources secure.

  • SecureDrop: Using Tor, the system allows for secure uploads of leaked materials — it's how the Washington Post got their hands on Trump's infamous Access Hollywood tape.
  • Sunder: Built with a coder for Signal, it requires passwords from multiple people in order to access encrypted data.
  • iPhone modifications: Snowden helped to build an iPhone case that shows if the phone's location or data is being transmitted without the owner's knowledge.
  • Encrypted video: The team is building a version of Jitsi, the encrypted chat software used by Snowden, for newsrooms to use internally.
  • Snowden to Wired on his goal: "We can't fix the surveil­lance problem overnight, but maybe we can build a shield that will protect anyone who's standing behind it."

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Jeff Sessions. Photo: Michael DeMocker/Getty Images

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Why it matters: Sessions had been the underdog in the race against former Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville, who had the backing of President Trump. Tuberville will now face off against Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) in November, who is considered to have one of the most vulnerable Democratic Senate seats in the country.

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Axios
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

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Courtenay Brown
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Bank CEOs brace for worsening economic scenario

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. Photo: J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

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Why it matters: The cumulative $28 billion in loan loss provisions that banks have so far announced they’re reserving serves as a signal they’re preparing for a colossal wave of loan defaults as the economy slogs through a coronavirus-driven downturn.

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