• by Ray Schultz , Yesterday

The Guardian has launched a tool that it says will protect confidential sources.  

The new offering, Secure Messaging, allows whistleblowers and others who want to share information with the newsroom do so via the Guardian app. All they have to do is click on the app menu and scroll to “Secure Messaging.” 

The new feature was built by The Guardian’s product and engineering teams in partnership with the department of computer science and technology at the University of Cambridge. 

The Guardian has published the source code for the technology behind Secure Messaging so other organizations can implement it within their own apps.  

“The technology behind Secure Messaging conceals the fact that messaging is taking place at all by making the communication indistinguishable from other data sent to and from the app by our millions of regular users,” the Guardian writes. “By using the Guardian app, other users are effectively providing ‘cover’ and helping us to protect sources.

Nieman Lab says Secure Messaging can help protect whistleblowers.

“Okay — so it’s a very small way," Nieman Lab writes. "But because of an ingenious new leaking-to-journalists protocol — created in concert with Cambridge computer scientists — regular app users are actually running interference for those who need to reach reporters securely and safely. If smoking out a whistleblower is like finding a needle in a haystack, Guardian readers are now a giant pile of extra hay.”

The Guardian justifies the tool this way: “Blowing the whistle on wrongdoing has always taken bravery. As threats to journalists around the world increase, so does the need to protect confidential sources."