Earlier quoted context omitted.
Snowden called himself Verax[1]. Anyone who wants to send a message to Snowden* can just: $ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 79DEBE35 $ gpg --encrypt --sign --armor --recipient 79DEBE35 and post it publicly; perhaps on Pastebin. [1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/code-n... *assuming you believe the key is authentic
79DEBE35 is a key in the possession of Wired, I'm sure they'll enjoy passing your message on the the NSA via their parent media giant. Edit: Also, it's not very hard to generate a different key with signature 79DEBE35, and put it on the key servers. gpg's displaying of such short abbreviations for keys is one the worst parts of its UI.
How do you know this?