Good to see The Citizen Lab’s Knight News Challenge entry for teaching digital security to journalists. There is far too much resistance, ignorance and indifference in newsrooms to securing communications. Journalists understand, I think, that online and telephone newsgathering are easily monitored by multiple actors but most do nothing to protect themselves and their sources. Good also to see the focus for The Citizen Lab is the global south, where I work.

It is not only urgent and essential for journalists to understand how to protect themselves in communications with sources. It is also vital that sources understand how to use these tools. Just today, I spoke to a newsmaker who has been targeted by state and corporate espionage and yet had no means available of communicating with me securely. I had to bring it up. I said, “You and I both know that this phone conversation is almost certainly tapped.” He laughed. But the shared understanding also put a chill into the conversation. And so we’ll need to go offline to discuss the important stuff.

And that takes more time, and requires physical meetings, slowing down the process of gathering and disseminating information. The well-funded spooks win, again.

There are 667 entries in this round of the Knight News Challenge. The round is all about strengthening the Internet for free expression and innovation.