It's also interesting that WaPo bases its tool on Tor. Tor was compromised a couple of years ago; surely those fine, smart folks at the paper know this. But, then, they're only suborning criminal activity, not engaging in it directly....
From the Instructions: [T]he program isn’t meant only to track and unearth spies — it also aims to curtail the sort of leaking that allows news organizations to detail the inner-workings of the government.
Actually, any program, protocol, what-have-you that's designed to unearth and track spies is going to expose leakers, also--as a side effect of the unearthing and tracking. But, hey, this is WaPo; they wouldn't disingenuously distort things.
“It’s important that people realize that whistleblowers are really doing a very brave and courageous thing,”
Except when they're "whistleblowers" who've not first been through their established channels for exposing wrong-doing and leaking very dangerous and damaging information for their ego or personal gain.
It's one thing to cultivate sources who leak specifically and at least hypothetically in the public interest- it seems quite another to, as Mr. Hines says above "suborn criminal activity". As this is not specifically aimed at a particular leak that one can evaluate for consequence and relevance, it would seem to be flirting rather heavily with being an illegal act on it's own accord, without the normal 'protections' of freedom of the press.
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Ooh--Code Word/Name-protected illegal leaks.
It's also interesting that WaPo bases its tool on Tor. Tor was compromised a couple of years ago; surely those fine, smart folks at the paper know this. But, then, they're only suborning criminal activity, not engaging in it directly....
From the Instructions: [T]he program isn’t meant only to track and unearth spies — it also aims to curtail the sort of leaking that allows news organizations to detail the inner-workings of the government.
Actually, any program, protocol, what-have-you that's designed to unearth and track spies is going to expose leakers, also--as a side effect of the unearthing and tracking. But, hey, this is WaPo; they wouldn't disingenuously distort things.
“It’s important that people realize that whistleblowers are really doing a very brave and courageous thing,”
Except when they're "whistleblowers" who've not first been through their established channels for exposing wrong-doing and leaking very dangerous and damaging information for their ego or personal gain.
Eric Hines
It's one thing to cultivate sources who leak specifically and at least hypothetically in the public interest- it seems quite another to, as Mr. Hines says above "suborn criminal activity". As this is not specifically aimed at a particular leak that one can evaluate for consequence and relevance, it would seem to be flirting rather heavily with being an illegal act on it's own accord, without the normal 'protections' of freedom of the press.
How this does not fall under Conspiracy to commit espionage, I do not know.
And Freedom of the Press does not extend to soliciting for a crime.
The darkness rises, for the alpha and the omega. The conspiracies extend.
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