When security matters: working with Qubes OS at the Guardian
If you’ve ever scrolled through the Guardian homepage, you may have come across the ‘Contact the Guardian securely’ banner. This links to a page explaining how to share sensitive information with the Guardian in a number of different ways. Of these, the one that offers the best security is SecureDrop.
SecureDrop is a system developed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation to enable sources to contact media organisations anonymously. It is a system widely respected and deployed in a large number of newsrooms.
The current configuration of SecureDrop involves three separate machines – one connected to the SecureDrop server running Tails OS, another ‘air gapped’ entirely offline machine for decrypting the messages on, and (typically) a final online machine for emailing PGP encrypted messages to the relevant journalists. Transferring messages between the machines typically involves a lot of carefully managed USB sticks, time and patience.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation is working on a more streamlined solution for journalists working with SecureDrop called SecureDrop Workstation. SecureDrop Workstation is based on Qubes OS. It removes the need for a separate ‘air gapped’ machine, replacing it with an offline virtual machine or ‘Qube’. Messages can be downloaded and read on the same machine – on an interface that looks much like a standard chat client, with all the decryption handled in the background.