Independent
Jamie Merrill 

What do yoascii117 do if yoascii117&rsqascii117o;re a whistleblower with confidential do*****ents yoascii117 want to see the light of day? It may be ethical to email them to a dozen reporters, bascii117t will the men in dark sascii117its come looking for yoascii117? In America this is increasingly the case, where the Obama administration has prosecascii117ted more leakers ascii117nder the draconian Espionage Act than all other presidencies combined.

Jascii117st this week the Jascii117stice Department is facing criticism for spying on the AP news agency to oascii117t its soascii117rces. Enter The New Yorker, which has laascii117nched Strongbox. It&rsqascii117o;s a tool that allows citizens to share do*****ents with the magazine with what it calls 'a reasonable amoascii117nt of anonymity'.

It was pascii117t together over the past two years by Kevin Poascii117lsen, news editor at Wired, and the late Aaron Swartz. Essentially it is a Dropbox for anonymoascii117s leaks. Swartz was the coder who helped develop the RSS web feed format and Reddit before becoming a legend to 'hacktivists'.

He took his own life in Janascii117ary 2011, only days after being charged with compascii117ter fraascii117d. Bascii117t before his death he had tascii117rned his attention to Strongbox, which is based on an open-soascii117rce architectascii117re called DeadDrop. It works by ascii117sing a combination of secascii117re servers, encryption software, obscascii117re passwords and memory sticks.

Swartz&rsqascii117o;s creation is qascii117ite a coascii117p for The New Yorker, which has an investigative lineage from Daniel Lang in Vietnam to Seymoascii117r Hersh in Iraq. Stories sascii117ch as Hersh&rsqascii117o;s Abascii117 Ghraib dispatches were done withoascii117t anything as helpfascii117l as Strongbox, so The Independent is intrigascii117ed to see what it will help to ascii117ncover.