Edward Snowden to Help Develop a Safer Phone for Journalists - The New York Times
Edward Snowden to Help Develop a Safer Phone for Journalists
CAMBRIDGE,
Mass. — The former National Security Agency contractor Edward J.
Snowden said Thursday that he planned to help develop a modified version
of Apple’s iPhone for journalists who are concerned that they may be
the target of government surveillance.
The
announcement was made during a one-day conference on “Forbidden
Research” held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.
Mr.
Snowden, who spoke via a video connection from Russia, where he is
living in exile, said he was working with Andrew Huang, a computer
hacker known as Bunnie who studied electrical engineering at M.I.T., to
see if it would be possible to modify a smartphone to alert journalists
working in dangerous environments to electronic surveillance.
Mr. Snowden, who is a board member of a nonprofit group called the Freedom of the Press Foundation,
said he was concerned that cellphones and smartphones serve as tracking
devices that automatically create electronic dossiers that give third
parties, including governments, detailed information on location.
Edward Snowden, who spoke via
a video connection from Russia, said he was working with a computer
hacker to see if it would be possible to modify a smartphone to alert
journalists working in dangerous environments to electronic
surveillance.
Credit
Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times
