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Ask HN: Do journalists worldwide know they can build cryptographic identities?

1 points by Jeff_Brown ↗ HN
In many (most?) countries, reporting without anonymity can get the reporter killed. But truly anonymous reporting is ineffective, because readers have no reason to believe a source with no history.

There is a middle way. Cryptography allows a reporter to sign statements proving they own the private key used to sign whatever they report, without disclosing anything else about themselves.

2 comments

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dave4420
Given that journalists already know they can use a pseudonym… how does this help?
Jeff_Brown
If I know your pseudonym, I can pretend to be you. For pseudonymous reporting to work therefore requires the reader to trust the publisher, who supposedly knows the author. But in many countries (e.g. Colombia, where I live) it's reasonable to anticipate someone using the threat of violence to extract a reporter's identity.