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more on Security vulnerabilities in journalism
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 16:58:47 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: Hal Stucker <Hal () halstucker com> Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 13:04:28 -0400 To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] Security vulnerabilities in journalism It is difficult to understand the angry reaction to the UIUC project among journalists, given the fact that Deep Throat's identity is no less safe now than it has been for the last thirty years. Regardless of how compelling a circumstantial case Mr. Gaines's class may have put together, there is always the distinct possibility they are wrong. The only people on the planet who know who Deep Throat really is -- Woodward, Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, and Deep Throat himself -- aren't talking and until one of these four does come forward with the definitive answer, all speculation will be just that, speculation. John Dean put out an ebook about a year ago on his own search for Deep Throat and made an interesting statement in an interview with Salon shortly after publication that could show how far off the mark the UIUC groups' conclusion might be. The UIUC group fingered deputy White House counsel Fred Fielding, though Dean said in the interview (referring to an unedited manuscript of All the President's Men he had used in his research): ³I had developed a profile of Deep Throat, based on Woodward's and Bernstein's clues in "All the President's Men," and their unedited manuscript. Remarkably, all the clues pointed at one of my former colleagues, whom I had earlier considered only a remote possibility. But there he was, right in the middle of my Throat-searching radar. I spent months trying to figure out how I could be wrong. Then I tested the material on a couple of attorney friends who are very familiar with Watergate. They found the case overwhelming that I was right. I then tested the material on a few news organizations. They, too, felt I was correct. To make a story I tell in the book very short, I turned out to be wrong² The "former colleague" could very possibly be Fielding. Also, some years back, an article in the Atlantic Monthly put forward a very convincing case that one or more higher-ups at the FBI could have been responsible for the Deep Throat leaks. Nixon had nominated L. Patrick Gray as head of the Bureau the day after Hoover died. This was seen as a naked grab for control of the FBI, as Gray was considered Nixon's man and someone who would almost certainly take his orders directly from the White House. This article puts forward two FBI agents -- Charles Bates and Robert Kunkel -- as the prime suspects. They had a powerful motive (something most "Deep Throat" candidates lack) and access to the evidence Nixon was trying to deep six. And Watergate did bring down Gray -- he resigned on April 27, 1973 after it was revealed he had destroyed records given him by John Dean. And so the guessing will continue until Woodward, et al., decide to let us know for sure. Far from being irresponsible, I think Prof. Gaines's teaching methods are quite novel. Best, H.S.
------ Forwarded Message From: Matt Blaze <mab () crypto com> Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 01:41:13 -0400 To: dave () farber net Subject: Security vulnerabilities in journalism There was a short piece on NPR's _All_Things_Considered_ yesterday (26 April) about Bill Gaines, a journalism professor at UIUC, and his students. They claim to have discovered the identity of "Deep Throat," the confidential source who famously led Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to break the Watergate story, which ultimately brought down the Nixon administration. As I understand it, the UIUC project took facts from previously published material and applied the basic techniques of investigative journalism to eliminate, one-by-one, possible Deep Throats until, finally, only a single candidate remained. As interesting as it was to learn the (possible) identity of this important figure of modern American history, I found even more interesting the reaction of some of Professor Gaines' colleagues to his research. Several prominent practitioners and scholars of journalism roundly condemned it as irresponsible and unethical. I could not help but be reminded of how the discovery of computing and cryptologic security vulnerabilities sometimes draws similar reactions, and in particular of how we ultimately recognize that vigorous research aimed at uncovering flaws is the only known way of discovering and correcting them. The NPR report included comments from Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, who worried that this work will cause potential confidential sources to be reluctant to talk with journalists for fear that their identities won't be protected properly. Perhaps, but if so, it seems to me that those fears may be well founded. I have always though of Woodward and Bernstein's protection of Deep Throat's secret as something of the "gold standard" of journalistic confidentiality. If indeed this turns out to have been a failure, future Deep Throats would do well to ask their press contacts what they intend to do differently, and future Woodwards and Bernsteins would do well to have an answer for them. To the extent that sources ask these questions and journalists develop practices that allow them to give better answers, I would think that the profession of journalism is being advanced. But it seems instead that we have someone claiming to seek "excellence" in journalism apparently advocating that something as fundamental as source confidentiality would be best served by not asking too many questions. I hope that's not what he meant, or at least that his quote was taken out of context. Even more disheartening was Carl Bernstein's angry reaction, quoted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he calls for Professor Gaines to be "spanked" for investigating this subject: "The last thing students in a journalism class should be doing is trying to find out who other reporters' sources are," said Bernstein, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine who broke the stories with colleague Bob Woodward. "They should be learning how to protect sources." Doesn't Bernstein realize that that was exactly what they were doing? As computer security researchers (and spies) know well, it is very difficult to keep secrets. Critical clues, whether they concern cryptographic keys or the identity of a mole, tend to slowly leak and accumulate over time and can eventually point toward a single, unambiguous, answer. Avoiding this phenomenon in computing systems requires great care and is well recognized as a difficult problem -- it is frequently the subject of scholarly research. Surely journalists, too, recognize that secrecy in their own domain is a challenge; one hopes they also understand that this kind of research ultimately raises, rather than degrades, our confidence that they are up to it. Matt Blaze 27 April 2003 Links: Plain Dealer article: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1051263572302 521.xml All Things Considered piece: http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1245255 ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as hal () halstucker com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on Security vulnerabilities in journalism Dave Farber (Apr 28)