Investigating the Computer Security Practices and Needs of Journalists Susan E

Investigating the Computer Security Practices and Needs of Journalists Susan E. McGregor, Columbia Journalism School; Polina Charters, Tobin Holliday, and Franziska Roesner, University of Washington https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity15/technical-sessions/presentation/mcgregor This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 24th USENIX Security Symposium August 12–14, 2015 • Washington, D.C. ISBN 978-1-939133-11-3 Open access to the Proceedings of the 24th USENIX Security Symposium is sponsored by USENIX Investigating the Computer Security Practices and Needs of Journalists Susan E. McGregor Polina Charters, Tobin Holliday Tow Center for Digital Journalism Master of HCI + Design, DUB Group Columbia Journalism School University of Washington Franziska Roesner Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Abstract and sources cross the line from legal consequences to the Though journalists are often cited as potential users of potential for physical harm [42, 57, 58]. computer security technologies, their practices and men- Responses to these escalating threats have included tal models have not been deeply studied by the academic guides to best computer security practices for journal- computer security community. Such an understanding, ists (e.g., [17, 43, 47, 62]), which recommend the use however, is critical to developing technical solutions that of tools like PGP [67], Tor [22], and OTR [14]. More can address the real needs of journalists and integrate generally, the computer security community has devel- into their existing practices. We seek to provide that in- oped many secure or anonymous communication tools sight in this paper, by investigating the general and com- (e.g., [4, 10, 14, 21–23, 63, 67]). These tools have seen puter security practices of 15 journalists in the U.S. and relatively little adoption within the journalism commu- France via in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Among nity, however, even among the investigative journalists our findings is evidence that existing security tools fail that should arguably be their earliest adopters [48]. not only due to usability issues but when they actively in- To design and build tools that will successfully protect terfere with other aspects of the journalistic process; that journalist-source communications, it is critical that the communication methods are typically driven by sources technical computer security community understand the rather than journalists; and that journalists’ organizations practices, constraints, and needs of journalists, as well as play an important role in influencing journalists’ behav- the successes and failures of existing tools. However, the iors. Based on these and other findings, we make recom- journalistic process has not been deeply studied by the mendations to the computer security community for im- academic computer security community. We seek to fill provements to existing tools and future lines of research. that gap in this paper, which is the result of a collabora- 1 Introduction tion between researchers in the journalism and computer security communities, and which is targeted at a techni- In recent decades, improved digital communication tech- cal computer security audience. nologies have reduced barriers to journalism worldwide. Security weaknesses in these same technologies, how- To achieve this, we develop a grounded understand- ever, have put journalists and their sources increasingly ing of the journalistic process from a computer se- at risk of identification, prosecution, and persecution by curity perspective via in-depth, semi-structured inter- powerful entities, threatening efforts in investigative re- views. Following accepted frameworks for qualitative porting, transparency, and whistleblowing. research [18, 30, 35], we focus closely on a small number Recent examples of such threats include intensifying of participants. We interviewed 15 journalists employed U.S. leak prosecutions (e.g. [46, 54]), the secret seizure in a range of well-respected journalistic institutions in of journalists’ phone records by the U.S. Justice De- the United States and France, analyzing these interviews partment [55], the collection of journalists’ emails by using a grounded theory approach [18, 30]. We then syn- the British intelligence agency GCHQ [11], politically- thesize these findings to shed light on the general prac- motivated malware targeting journalists (among oth- tices (Section 4.3), security concerns (Section 4.4), de- ers) [13, 36, 41, 45], and other types of pervasive digital fensive strategies (Section 4.5), and needs (Section 4.6) surveillance [34]. In the U.S., these developments have of journalists in their communications with sources. led to a documented “chilling effect”, leading sources Our interviews offer a glimpse into journalistic pro- to reduce communication with journalists even on non- cesses that deal with information and sources of a range sensitive issues [25, 40]. Elsewhere, risks to journalists of sensitivities. Some of our participants report being 1 USENIX Association 24th USENIX Security Symposium 399 the direct targets of threats like eavesdropping and data We consider these and other lessons and recommen- theft: for example, one participant received threatening dations in more detail below. Taken together, our find- letters and had his laptop (and nothing else) stolen from ings suggest that further collaboration between the com- his home while working on sensitive government-related puter security and journalism communities is critical, stories. Others discuss their perceived or hypothetical se- with our work as an important first step in informing and curity concerns, which we systematize in Section 4.4 — grounding future research in computer security around along with threats that participants tended to overlook, journalist-source communications. such as the trustworthiness of third-party services. By cataloguing the computer security tools that our 2 Related Work participants do and don’t use (Section 4.5), we reveal We provide context for our study through a survey of new reasons for their successes or failures. For example, three types of related works: studies of journalists and built-in disk encryption is widely used among our partic- computer security, computer security guidelines devel- ipants because it is both easy-to-use and does not require oped specifically for journalists, and secure communica- explicit installation. However, we find that many security tion tools. tools are not used regularly by our participants. Beyond the expected usability issues, we find that the most crit- Studies of journalists and computer security. Sev- ical failures arise when security tools interfere with an- eral recent studies interviewed or surveyed journalists other part of a journalist’s process. For example, anony- (among others) in Mexico [58], Pakistan [42], Tibet [15] mous communication tools fail when they compromise a and Vietnam [57] to shed light on the risks associated journalist’s ability to verify the authenticity of a source or with their work, as well as their use and understanding information. As one participant put it: “If I don’t know of computer security technologies (such as encryption). who they are and can’t check their background, I’m not Despite the different context, our findings echo some of going to use the information they give.” This requirement the findings in these studies: for example, that maintain- limits the effectiveness even of tools developed specifi- ing communication with sources may take precedence cally for journalists — such as SecureDrop [26], which over security [57], that meeting in person may be prefer- supports anonymous document drops — and highlights able to digital communication [15], and that the use of how crucial it is for computer security experts who de- more sophisticated computer security tools is typically sign tools for journalists to understand and respect the limited even in the face of real threats, including risk of requirements of the journalistic process. physical harm [42, 57, 58]. These prior studies primar- Based on our findings, we make recommendations ily recommended increased computer security education for technical computer security researchers focusing on and training for journalists; though we concur, our work journalist-source communications, including: focuses more on technical recommendations. Though most journalists in countries like the United Focus on sources: Journalists often choose commu- • States do not face physical harm, recent interviews of nication methods based on sources’ comfort with U.S. journalists and lawyers [40] revealed a distinct and access to technology, rather than the sensitivity chilling effect in these fields resulting from revelations of information — particularly when sources are on about widespread government surveillance. For exam- the other side of a “digital divide” (e.g., low-income ple, journalists reported increased reluctance by sources populations with limited access to technology). to discuss even non-sensitive topics. Another recent re- Consider journalistic requirements: Security tools • port [48] provides quantitative survey data about the use that impede essential aspects of the journalistic pro- of computer security tools by investigative journalists, cess (e.g., source authentication) will struggle to see suggesting (as we also find) that sophisticated computer widespread adoption. Meanwhile, unfulfilled tech- security tools have seen limited adoption. These studies nical

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