Police raid on Marion County Record underscores digital security threats to media orgs.

Summary

  • The Marion County Record newsroom in Kansas was raided by police, who seized two cellphones, four computers, a backup hard drive, and reporting materials.

  • A computer seized was most likely unencrypted. Law enforcement officials hope that devices seized during a raid are unencrypted, as this makes them easier to examine.

  • Modern iPhones and Android phones are encrypted by default, but older devices may not be.

  • Desktop computers typically do not have encryption enabled by default, so it is important to turn this on manually.

  • Use strong random passwords and keep them in a password manager.

  • During the raid, police seized a single backup hard drive. It is important to have multiple backups of your data in case one is lost or stolen.

  • You can encrypt USB storage devices using BitLocker To Go on Windows, or Disk Utility on macOS.

  • All major desktop operating systems support Veracrypt, which can be used to encrypt entire drives.

Main Take-aways

  • Encrypt your devices, drives, and USBs.

  • Use strong random passwords and password manager.

  • Have multiple backups.

  • GormadtEnglish
    24•1 year ago

    And don’t forget to use encrypted messenging apps like Signal.

    And do your research into which apps, programs, etc have the best encryption.

    • Gamey
      6•1 year ago

      I vouch for Veracryp, Signal, Matrix and your favorite Linux Distro, can’t beat those tools!

      • @blackstratA
        5•1 year ago

        If you’re not a world leading cryptographer and security expert then you vouching for something isn’t worth much. It’s just repeating others opinions without having done the work to verify these tools are as good as they claim. Any or all of these could have issues and weaknesses that you don’t know about.

        • Gamey
          3•1 year ago

          Yes I don’t understand the exact mechanisms but I did my research and no one could verify all of those huge codebases, we have experts in public so normal people can do their research and no I don’t have to read every line and understand the mathematical formular to recommend secure tools…

        • RickRussell_CAEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          Although you don’t have to be smarter than the experts, just smarter than police. Few local PDs can bring the kinds of resources to bear to do a decrypt on a properly encrypted data store.

          Obviously if you’re pissing off major state actors, all bets are off – they are probably already surveilling you and saw you type your password through a zoom lens pointed at your window, or worse.