I hereby claim:
- I am quinnnorton on github.
- I am quinn (https://keybase.io/quinn) on keybase.
- I have a public key ASBksDACU5UHZpG7xCY0N857FOqqG4F6Vx4Cud1p4jPMFAo
To claim this, I am signing this object:
Quinn Norton quinnnorton
quinnnorton
/ keybase.md
Created
June 1, 2017 00:35
quinnnorton
/ beginner leaking.md
Last active
February 12, 2019 15:35
You're a tech novice, leaking to a reporter for the first time. Computers are confusing. Encryption is a very long and very tiring word. The people who know how to do this all talk like holier-than-thou jackasses. (Spoiler: we pretty much are.) Here's a quick, hopefully beginner-friendly guide to safer leaking.
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Don't use your phone. There are some marginally safe ways to use phones, but you're not going to manage them. Just put it down, and never try to do anything terrible or heroic with a cell phone. The same is true of email.
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Don't do anything from your work, your house or your regular haunts. There's various ways of tracing things back, and you don't want to have to worry about them.
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Use someone else's WiFi. A cafe or a library, or better yet, the laundromat or cafe next to the one with the WiFi you're using. This takes a little investigation, but it's not hard. Get a few passwords as a customer and think about where you can sit unobtrusi
quinnnorton
/ source protection basics.md
Last active
July 23, 2017 09:42
Like sex, there's no such thing as safe leaking. But there is safer leaking, and ways to encourage your sources to be safer.
The next few months (like the last few weeks) will see a lot of people who want to talk about their life and their work with a media audience; people who never wanted to talk before. If they come to us, and by us I mean journalists, we need to be ready and equipped to protect them, whether what they tell us becomes journalism or not. We also need time. We need to be in a position to check stories, cross check references, and talk to experts to make sure the leaks we receive are true and right and placed in the appropriate context. We get all this from protecting our sources from discovery by governments, corporations, or individuals.
First off, initial contact is the hardest step to keep secure and private. But it is doable. Journalists, you should use social media profiles, bylines, and web pages protected by https to tell potenti
quinnnorton
/ contact.md
Last active
February 13, 2020 17:48
quinnnorton
/ The Problem with Slack.md
Last active
June 30, 2019 15:55
Don't ever say anything on Slack you don't want read aloud in front of a 72 year old Alabama judge in federal court.
Collaboration software is great, but it's also great for getting penis pictures into public court records. People are comfortable on Slack, which is what makes it so effective, and so very dangerous, especially for news teams. We are shit-talking motherfuckers, with the occasional penis jokes (I mean who doesn't love a good penis joke). There's the one kind of trouble being overheard at a bar, and then there's persistent logging of everything we say on remote servers. This isn't an esoteric, theoretical threat. This is how Gawker died, after their Campfire chats were subpoenaed and entered into court records. Fusion wrote about this at the time: http://fusion.net/story/278532/gawker-hulk-hogan-sex-tape-trial-chat-transcripts/ in an article where they also talked about using Slack. Because, presumably, bad things only happen to other journalists. Bonus dipshit point
In this marriage we seek to mingle the project of our lives.
Our relationship is one of companionship, shared resources, comfort, encouragement, and pleasure. We laugh with, and look after, each other. We share our courage, and our grief. We protect each other, but we push each other as well. We choose this because we believe we can go further together and grow more as humans than we can alone.
What keeps us together is language. We talk to each other, we never let stuff disappear, never sweep difficult topics under the carpet. Our commitment is to talk about the things we feel like we can't talk about, to push through fearful times and be present for one another. We will always still be getting to know each other, and sharing our respective evolving views of the world. We will seek to listen and learn from each other.