SecureDrop

#1

Post by hatchan » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 12:55 PM UTC

Re: SecureDrop

#2

Post by StavrosK » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 1:33 PM UTC

Hmm, what security does this actually provide? It seems to me that it only secures materials from the server to the operators, but that's a really small part of it. Someone malicious with access to the server can just inject something to get the plaintext, no?

Re: SecureDrop

#3

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 1:39 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #2

Hmm, what security does this actually provide? It seems to me that it only secures materials from the server to the operators, but that's a really small part of it. Someone malicious with access to the server can just inject something to get the plaintext, no?

[deleted]

Re: SecureDrop

#4

Post by crb002 » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 1:45 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #2

Hmm, what security does this actually provide? It seems to me that it only secures materials from the server to the operators, but that's a really small part of it. Someone malicious with access to the server can just inject something to get the plaintext, no?

Documents are public key encrypted and you view them on an airgapped laptop. Submission server is on TOR to provide obfuscation of the transmission source.

IMHO the system is over complicated. There should just be a client side HTML5 drag and drop that encrypts files pre-transmission. Should be symmetric so both source and journalist are reading messages on an airgapped laptop.

Re: SecureDrop

#5

Post by danso » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 1:49 PM UTC

There needs to be more information on now usable this is. That is key for adoption but particularly so at media organizations where many of the professionals can barely operate a spreadsheet. When security systems get cumbersome, they take shortcuts in security. Hence, the recent number of high profile Twitter phishing hacks among news orgs

Re: SecureDrop

#6

Post by tomp » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 2:08 PM UTC

So... can this protect against internal attack, or attack by courts, like the one witnessed in the Lavabit case? I certainly hope so, since it uses TOR, but I don't know enough about TOR to be able to claim that the source remains hidden even if the destination is owned.

Another possibility is that courts would allow journalists to keep their sources hidden, but I wouldn't count on it...

Re: SecureDrop

#7

Post by splatcollision » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 2:13 PM UTC

Github Link: https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/

Re: SecureDrop

#8

Post by solutionyogi » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 2:43 PM UTC

crb002 wrote: post #4

StavrosK wrote: post #2

Hmm, what security does this actually provide? It seems to me that it only secures materials from the server to the operators, but that's a really small part of it. Someone malicious with access to the server can just inject something to get the plaintext, no?

Documents are public key encrypted and you view them on an airgapped laptop. Submission server is on TOR to provide obfuscation of the transmission source. IMHO the system is over complicated. There should just be a client side HTML5 drag and drop that encrypts files pre-transmission. Should be symmetric so both source and journalist are reading messages on an airgapped laptop.

What's your credential to claim that system is over complicated? Are you a security professional? Have you performed a full blown security audit of the system? Have you designed an alternate system which is less complicated and equally secure?

Re: SecureDrop

#9

Post by jarrett » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

crb002 wrote: post #4

StavrosK wrote: post #2

Hmm, what security does this actually provide? It seems to me that it only secures materials from the server to the operators, but that's a really small part of it. Someone malicious with access to the server can just inject something to get the plaintext, no?

Documents are public key encrypted and you view them on an airgapped laptop. Submission server is on TOR to provide obfuscation of the transmission source. IMHO the system is over complicated. There should just be a client side HTML5 drag and drop that encrypts files pre-transmission. Should be symmetric so both source and journalist are reading messages on an airgapped laptop.

> There should just be a client side HTML5 drag and drop that encrypts files pre-transmission.

The problem is that you'd be doing crypto in JavaScript. We're not currently at a point where that's viable:

http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/

Currently, if you want to securely transmit a document, you're pretty much stuck with learning and using something like PGP/GPG. Which is a pain for a lot of people, because there are new concepts to learn, software to install, and keyrings to manage. But it's the best we have right now.

Re: SecureDrop

#10

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 2:53 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #6

So... can this protect against internal attack, or attack by courts, like the one witnessed in the Lavabit case? I certainly hope so, since it uses TOR, but I don't know enough about TOR to be able to claim that the source remains hidden even if the destination is owned. Another possibility is that courts would allow journalists to keep their sources hidden, but I wouldn't count on it...

As far as I can tell, the journalist wouldn't be able to identify the source, or even the codename that the source was using in order to interact with them.