‘What’s two-factor?’ How journalists can protect themselves from Twitter hacks
When The Associated Press’s verified @AP account was hacked three years ago, CPJ’s senior security adviser Frank Smyth and I noted that for individuals faced with that situation, the best course of action is to request a password reset, tweet at Twitter staff, and pray. The best advice is still to not get hacked in…
Computer security is necessary for journalist safety
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published, in Spanish, in El País. This week, journalists, technologists, and other human rights advocates will gather in Valencia, Spain for the Internet Freedom Festival, a multidisciplinary “un-conference” dedicated to fighting surveillance and censorship online. More than 600 people from 43 countries have registered for the festival, which is…
Call for Secretary Kerry to support journalist safety measures
Dear Secretary Kerry: Your support for press freedom and journalist safety is welcome and can play an important role in helping to protect journalists around the world. There are specific actions that you could take that would ensure the agenda you launched last year continues and leaves a lasting legacy.
Save Crypto: CPJ joins call for Obama to back strong encryption
The Committee to Protect Journalists has signed a petition organized by digital rights groups Access and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, urging President Barack Obama to publicly commit the U.S. to a policy of supporting strong encryption. Since the Save Crypto petition’s launch on September 29, it has gathered nearly 18,000 signatures, including about 30 from…
Flaws discovered in TrueCrypt, but journalists still have options for encryption
Project Zero, a Google team that searches for bugs, has identified two flaws affecting the TrueCrypt disk encryption software program. While the flaws, which were found by computer security researcher James Forshaw, are not cryptographic–meaning they couldn’t be used directly to decrypt a disk or device–they present potential problems for user security.
Has White House finally got the message about strong encryption? Welcome shift seen in speeches and policy memo
Yesterday, during a panel on encryption policy hosted by Just Security, an online forum covering national security law and policy, top U.S. intelligence lawyer Robert S. Litt pressed the case for engineering backdoors in encryption without undermining computer security as a whole. As CPJ has documented, leading security and policy experts consider this impossible.
Don’t Forget Rasool: In international reporting, local journalists often suffer
When two journalists from VICE, Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury, were arrested with Iraqi journalist Mohammed Ismael Rasool on August 28, a familiar scenario unfolded. A week later, Hanrahan and Pendlebury were released following a media flurry and worldwide attention. Still behind bars is Rasool, an experienced journalist and translator who had worked extensively in…
Amid claims of police beatings during Gujarat clashes, India should step up press protection
Images of police forcibly suppressing protesters, such as the one above, are seen in many places around the world. Too frequently, journalists trying to cover these events find themselves caught in the crosshairs, with news crews beaten by police batons, exposed to teargas or hit by water cannon. From race riots in Ferguson in the…
A year after James Foley and Steven Sotloff murders, more awareness of risks
Journalists who regularly cover violence are considered a hard-boiled bunch. But a year ago this month, even the toughest were crying. There was no emotional body armor to deflect the horror of the beheading videos of freelancers James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and other Westerners held hostage in Syria by the self-styled Islamic State, also known…