I was NTKing late Thursday night, and watched the David Kelly story develop. It was sad sitting on my own, reloading Google News, watching the reports get bolder, grow from rumour to suspicion to the front-page coverage of his death, even as the sun rose.
Kelly was suspected of being the source for the BBC’s claims that a key government Iraqi dossier was “sexed up” for the press. Protecting sources is a tricky game – particularly in the UK where its legally unclear how much protection journalists can realistically provide. Courts can comply editors to reveal sources and have done so in the past. Newspapers have threatened to appeal to the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg on this issue recently. NTK has a slightly simpler approach: we let people know we’ll squeal like little piggies in court, so don’t tell us anything you wouldn’t want the world to know – and for God’s sake, send it to us anonymously.
That’s not ideal. Anonymity protects the source, but doesn’t help the journalist much – because anonymous sources aren’t that much use. Cryptography protects the message, and authenticates the source (if they digitally sign it), but leaves a damning paper trail if the journalist is forced to hand over their records.
What you really want is an encryption system which would allow that the journalist and the source to communicate privately, allow the journo to confirm who the source is, but provide complete deniability on the source’s behalf should the messages be obtained at a later date. That’s what Nikita Borisov, Ian Goldberg and Eric Brewer propose in this paper, “Off-the-Record Communication, or, Why Not To Use PGP“. They plot out the flaws in using standard crypto, and implement an instant messanger extension that will let parties talk in a confidential, authenticated manner that cannot be decoded – even by each other – at a later date, and is fully deniable if intercepted.
A neat solution, although it doesn’t stop Parliament calling you in on the merest suspicion you might be the source, then having the rest of the media follow you around with sixty-suns-worth of spotlight until the end of your poor life. But then, even crypto has its limits.