[Cryptography] Photojournalists & filmmakers want cameras, to be encrypted

[Peter Todd]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 11:57:05AM -0500, Joshua Marpet wrote:
> A fascinating point about the perception of encryption vs. the reality of
> encryption.  Can we break this discussion down a bit?
> 
> What I mean is, if still and video footage has issues, what are the issues,
> and what are some solutions to those issues? A knee-jerk jump to
> "Encryption Magic will SAVE THE DAY!!" might not be the right answer. :)
> Forgive the levity.
> 
> Issues:
> 1. Unauthorized editing of video or stills
> 2. Pressure, ranging to duress, to delete stills or video
> 3. Pressure, ranging to duress, to view stills or video

Remember that a *very* common thing for journalists to do is record still/video
and then redact sensitive parts of the recording later, e.g. by blurring
specific faces, cutting out part of the audio, etc. That use-case alone
justifies encrypted storage IMO, and it's a use-case applicable to relatively
civilized countries where the consequences of being unable to decrypt are
tolerable (e.g. here in Canada, while you'd piss off the cops for doing that,
there would be no real consequences to you).

> 2 and 3 are solved with remote storage, to a "safe" place, of the stills or
> video. Take it off the camera, fast.

Remote storage is both expensive and unreliable, particularly during protests
and similar events - police actively block cell phone signals, and even when
they don't the amount of traffic can easily overwhelm the system.

Encrypted local storage is a much more reliable solution.

-- 
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
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