Press Freedom vs. Espionage

18 USC 793E IN THE TIME OF SHADOW BROKERS AND DONALD TRUMP

https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/08/14/18-usc-793e-in-the-time-of-shadow-brokers-and-donald-trump/#comment-952659

Cryptome says:August 15, 2022 at 12:00 pm

Excellent reporting as usual. Loose threads:

1. The unreleased majority of the Edward Snowden public gift of Top Secret NSA digital files in June 2013 still held by several recipients, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman, New York Times (via The Guardian), Washington Post (via Gellman), perhaps the party or parties who assisted Poitras and Gellman in Snowden transactions. None of these recipients are known to have necessary security measures to protect their digital holdings. Greenwald in particular has been determined by Bruce Schneier, a US cybersecurity expert, to have inadequate security at his home in Brazil. Nicole Perlroth has reported that the NY Times stores its NSA files in a closet of the publisher’s office in the Times high-rise which is far from being a cybersecure facility. Gellman has written about the WaPo’s struggle to protect the NSA material while deciding on what to publish.

2. The transition from paper to digital documents has led to an outpouring of digital take-homes, thefts, leaks, malwares, prosecutions, imprisonments, exile, journalistic opportunism and distortions, not overlooking the WikiLeaks tsunami and its emulators, with Assange being accused and detained of what Trump is allegedly facing. Digital technology for information processing has led to huge increase in diminished security and concomitant volcano of reportage, much misinformed but fair game in garnering attention and aiding political and monetary advancement.

3. Encryption and anonymization have failed in their promise to provide secure means to handle classified data by unskilled but credulous users. Reality Winner and Edward Manning are hardly the only perpetrators betrayed by third parties, others exposed by press-privileged vetting material or NDA-cleared parties covering their butts for failure to report or by informers coerced into snitching on friends after being targeted for bragging in chat rooms or social media.

4. Boxes of material allegedly stashed at Mar-a-Lago sounds nostalgic for vestigial paper credibility unless some of the crates held digital files and were deliberately mislabeled in the FBI listing. If all paper, that would be weird, especially with the claim that Trump does not read. Could be some files are audio, or video, or film, even dramatic recreations for enjoying with burgers and fries, or borscht and vodka.

5. Speculation of what next in legal world is not as interesting to technologists as what next in information security. What next for assuring those in charge of handling classified information are capable to fulfill their mission, in particular so long as violating security is far more rewarding than enforcing it. Strange tension between press freedom and official secrecy may bring forth surprising means to satisfy both.