SecureDrop: Two Years On and Beyond
Live notes from HOPE XI
Garrett Robinson, CTO of Freedom of Press Foundation and Lead Developer of Secure Drop
Secure Drop debuted at HOPE X in 2014. FPF was founded in 2012, initially to crowd fund for WikiLeaks. They’ve been doing more crowdfunding for various open-source encryption tools for journalists, and for whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s legal defense. They’re also suing the federal government to respond to FOIA requests. But their main project is SecureDrop.
Over the past couple years, a lot of the plans for SecureDrop happened, and a lot changed. Last year, SecureDrop was installed at 12 independent organizations. They are a mixture of big and small media outlets, and activist nonprofits. All but one still uses the software, and several more have installed it, with a current total of 26 active installations. They’ve improved documentation to make installation easier. There’s a high demand. More organizations are waiting for help in installation and training.
FTF intentionally discourages media outlets from acknowledging which information was received via SecureDrop, which makes outreach complicated. SecureDrop was acknowledged as being used by hackers who exposed violations of attorney-client privilege by prison phone provider Securus.
As an internet service open to the public, SecureDrop attracts trolls. At The New Yorker, over half of their submissions were fiction or poetry.
Garrett gives an overview of how SecureDrop works. There are three main components: a network firewall, a monitor server, and an application server. When a source wants to submit to SecureDrop, they use Tor without JavaScript. They are assigned a secure pseudonym. They are then able to have a back-and-forth conversation with journalists. The journalist logs into the document interface Tor hidden service They are presented with a list of documents. All files are stored encrypted, transferred using USB or CDs to an air-gapped computer for decryption, reading, and editing.
The current project goals are: 1. keep SecureDrop safe, 2. Make SecureDrop easier for journalists to use, and 3. make SecureDrop easier to deploy and maintain.
Keeping SecureDrop safe. Tor hidden services enable end-to-end encryption with perfect forward secrecy without using certificate authorities. The NSA has had difficulty e-anonymizing Tor (as of 2012). Since then, the FBI has been able to install malware on users’ computers allowing the de-anonymization of Tor hidden services. In 2014, Tor identified a possible attack, which turned out to be a large-scale operation coordinated by multiple states, called Operation Onymous. This attack was made possible by researchers at CMU working with the FBI. Tor was able to blacklist the attackers and block them out eventually. Directories of hidden services have been shown to enable correlation attacks. A 2015 USENIX paper by Kwon et al. has shown that it’s possible to use machine learning and a single malicious Tor node to de-anonymize SecureDrop users, without leaving a trace.
Making SecureDrop easier to use. Doing experiments with using software isolation like Qubes to make air-gaps unnecessary. If the system isn’t usable, journalists either don’t use it or work around the security in harmful ways.
Making SecureDrop easier to deploy. There is a support process in place, but it’s inefficient. The documentation, when printed out, is 138 places. As an aside, Garrett wants a Guy Fawkes toaster.
Garrett wants to live in a world where SecureDrop is obsolete. He wants to live in a world where standard technology enables privacy at the level of SecureDrop. There’s been some progress. Open Whisper Systems has developed Signal and enabled end-to-end encryption for WhatsApp (even though there are security concerns with metadata collection).
How Anonymous narrowly evaded being vilified as terrorists (HOPE XI live blog)
Notes taken at HOPE XI.
Gabriella Coleman, Anthropologist, Professor, McGill University
Biella spent several years studying Anonymous. Found them “confusing, enchanting, controversial, irreverent, interesting, unpredictable, frustrating, stupid, and really stupid.” She expected to have to convince people they weren’t terrorists, but that didn’t happen.
The media usually refers to Anonymous as activists, hacktivists, or vigilantes, rather than terrorists. Pop culture has taken up Anonymous, which has helped inoculate them from the terrorism level.
The label can be used in the media to political ends, example: Nelson Mandela being labeled a terrorist. In France, the Tarnac 9 were arrested as terrorists for stopping trains, but the change was changed. In Spain, puppeteers were arrested for “inciting terrorism” and placed in jail for five days, but the case was thrown out. Common privacy tools like TOR and riseup can lead to suspicions of terrorism. Police and others in the US have tried to get Black Lives Matter designated as a terrorist organization.
Biella cites “Green is the New Red.” Since September 11, terrorism has been redefined to suit political whims, often impacting radical activists such as animal rights activists. What was once “monkey wrenching” or “sabotage” is now considered “terrorism.” A group called the SHAC7 were convicted under the Animal Enterprise Act for running a website that advocated for animal liberation. Many received multi-year jail sentences.
Focusing on technology, the language of terrorism has often been used to describe hacking. Biella was concerned she’d be targeted by the FBI for studying Anonymous. Targets of Anonymous described them as terrorists in the media. The hacktivist Jeremy Hammond was found to be on the FBI terrorism watch list, but because he was an environmental activist, not because he was a hacktivist. GCHQ described Anonymous and LulzSec as bad actors comparable to pedophiles and state-sponsored hackers. In the US, Anonymous was used as a primary example during Congressional hearings on cyberterrorism. The Wall Street Journal published a claim by the NSA that Anonymous could develop the ability to disable part of the US electricity grid.
Timing influenced how the public received these claims. The government compared Wiki-Leaks to Al-Quaeda, and compelled Visa and PayPal to freeze their accounts. These actions were seen as extreme by the public, and Anonymous launched Operation Payback, a DDoS of the PayPal blog, to protest. The media framed the event as a political act of civil disobedience. A month later, Anonymous contributed to social revolutions in the Middle-East and Span, and in Occupy. Anonymous has been described as incoherent for being involved in many different things, but this flexibility has helped inoculate them against the terrorist label. Anonymous is a “Multiple Use Name,” as described by Marco Deseriis.
The Guy Fawkes mask has played an important role. While the use of the mask was largely an accident, but carries connotations of resistance. These connotations were historically negative, but became positive with Alan Moore’s “V for Vendetta” and its film adaptation. There’s a feedback cycle between reality and fiction about resistance to totalitarian states. There’s an astounding amount of media about hackers. Biella’s favorite is called “Who Am I.” There’s even a ballet based on the story of Anonymous. RuPaul discussed with John Waters as a type of youthful rebellion. In contrast, animal rights activists are often portrayed as dangerous and unlikable.
ISIS uses social tactics similar to Anonymous. The difference between the two groups has created a contrast, amplified by Anonymous declaring war on ISIS.
In 2012, the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement was under debate. The Polish population protested ACTA. Anonymous got involved with Operation ANTI-ACTA in support of Polish citizens. A number of Polish members of parliament wore Guy Fawkes masks to show disapproval for ACTA. The gesture helped to legitimate Anonymous and its tactics.
Tides can change very quickly. An infrastructure attack tied to hacktivists could turn the public against Anonymous. Art and culture really matter. Sometimes the world of law and policy sees art and culture as “soft power,” but Biella argues this is a false dichotomy. She appeals to people who work in the arts to continue, perhaps writing children’s books about hackers.
Phineas Fisher created a brilliant media hack on Vice News. Vice arranged an interview with Fisher, who requested to be represented by a puppet.
What the hack?! Perceptions of Hackers and Cybercriminals in Popular Culture (HOPE XI live blog)
These notes taken at HOPE XI
What the hack?!
Aunshul Rege, Assistant Prof in Criminal Justice at Temple University
Quinn Heath, Criminal Justice student at Temple University
Aunshul begins. Work based on David Wall’s seven myths about the hacker community. How does the media portrayal of hacking differ from reality? Three objectives: 1. get hacker community’s perspective, 2. how does the hacker community feel about Wall’s myths, 3. general thoughts on how the media interacts with the hacker community. Work conducted by interviews of self-identified hackers at HOPE X.
Quinn starts on the first objective. What makes someone a hacker? Plays some interviews from HOPE X. Every hacker had a unique story, but there were common threads. Many hackers felt they had been hackers from a young age. There was also a common thread of hacking bringing empowerment.
First myth: cyberspace is inherently unsafe. Mixed response from interviewees. Some felt that the internet was “just a pipe,” while others believed that as a human system, it empowered misuse.
Second myth: the super hacker. Interviewees believed that no one person knows everything. Highly unrealistic. Real people just aren’t as interesting.
Third myth: cybercrime is dramatic, despotic, and futuristic.
Fourth myth: hackers are becoming part of organized crime. Many felt there was some truth to this.
Fifth myth: criminals are anonymous and cannot be tracked. Everybody uses handles, but you have to go through a single IP. Everyone leaves a trace. The only way not to get caught is to not do anything worth getting caught over.
Sixth myth: cybercriminals go unpunished and get away with crime: Law enforcement is making examples out of people in the hacker community. You have to be careful about what you type into a terminal, assume it will be used against you in the worst possible light. Media portrayal translates into harsher prosecution for hackers than for violent criminals. The CFAA is abused by law enforcement, for example in the Aaron Swartz case.
Seventh myth: users are weak and not able to protect themselves. Media focuses too much on companies and not enough on the users whose data is released. People are becoming less scared of technology.
Quinn moves on to common themes. One was a common objection to the way the word “hacker” is used in the media. The word is ambiguous, but has been used by the media in a much narrower and disagreeable way.
Women are underrepresented in the hacker community, even though the community tends to be more liberal. Women in technology sometimes aren’t presented as hackers because they don’t fit existing media stereotypes.
Hackers are portrayed as geeky, nerdy, boring, caucasian males. But there are hackers of all races. Sometimes hackers of color are presented as a vague formless threat.
Hackers are presented in a polarized way: either losers or dangerous and powerful. Women in the media are always attractive and sexualized and/or goth.
The media sometimes focuses on the hack, and sometimes on the hacker. It’s easier to get information on a hack, and easier to twist the facts to suit the story the media or company want to convey. The media likes to have a face and a personality, but that’s rare.
How does the news interact with the hacker community? There needs to be better journalism. The media takes snippets that don’t give the full story, but shape public opinion.
What about movies? Most of what happens is inaccurate. “They’re not going to make a movie about people staring at computer screens,” it would be “boring as hell.” The movies and media don’t pay tribute to the social engineering aspect. It makes sense that Hollywood would do this, but less so that the news does.
What about the 1995 movie “Hackers”? It’s almost a parody. It’s old and outdated, even for when the movie was set. It’s fun, but not good or accurate. It stereotypes what hackers are. Almost everyone mentioned this movie, and loved it in a “it’s so bad it’s good” kind of way.
Over time, the hacker stereotype has gone from the teenage prankster in the 80s, to dangerous cyber-warriors or weird, young, and soon-to-be-rich.
Hackers are careful about using the word because they’re sensitive to how people will perceive it. They described a strong personal impact due to the media portrayal. But the community remains strong.
What kind of movie would hackers make about hackers? It would be fun to flip all the stereotypes. Most hacking is boring from the outside, so it would need to be dramatized, but it could be more realistic.
Anshul: interested in more information on race, gender and age. Also wants to know how the hacking community is influenced by media stereotypes. Will be publishing this work soon.
Copyright © Edward L. Platt 2011–2024
