Research into the use of information security practices in regional newspapers when it comes to protecting sources and their work

1. Chilling Effect:
Regional journalists’ source
protection and information security
practice in the wake of the
Snowden and RIPA revelations
@PaulBradshaw
Birmingham City University

2. What do journalists know?
What do journalists do?
What could they be doing?

3. Not a lot.
Nothing.
A lot.

4. Some history.
.
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7. “This application produced five telephone numbers, all
of which were researched for connections with the
[Metropolitan Police Service]. One number was
identified as the switchboard number for
Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire. It was
established that Officer 15 DPG’s wife Member of Public
3, was employed at that hospital
”Enquiries were made with Siemens in order to identify
from the data on the exhibit, which extension within the
hospital the call to The Sun was made from.”

9. Some method.
.
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10. .
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“Protecting the anonymity of
interviewees and their projects
during data collection and analysis
is particularly challenging in times of
tight cybersecurity measures and
blanket cybersurveillance plans
Milan (in Della Porta, 2014)

12. .
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13. .
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14. Some charts.
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16. “How much at all have you changed the way you…?”

21. “Do you think your home ISP would or
would not share your data with…?”

22. Which of the following have you used…?

23. Some discourses.
.
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24. “Another planet”

25. “People are pretty savvy”

26. “They can get access to
anything they want to”

27. Some findings.
.
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28. Everything has
changed…
1. Pre-publication identification
2. Retrospective identification
3. Not just legal defence
4. Indirect targeting

29. …but journalists
haven’t.
1. No protection of social media
2. Unclear policies, reliance on
visible problems
3. Legal ignorance
4. Network vulnerability
5. No training

31. “More research is
needed…”
• Use of law by other
authorities
• Workplace surveillance’s
‘chilling effect’
• Ethnography
• Source behaviour

33. Twitter.com/paulbradshaw
Linkedin.com/in/onlinejournalist
Slideshare.net/onlinejournalist
Some thanks.