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Journalists who deal in sensitive material should not trust any of that to any third parties to the greatest extent possible. If I were Chinese intel or the FBI
by fjorde 5y ago
Journalists who deal in sensitive material should not trust any of that to any third parties to the greatest extent possible. If I were Chinese intel or the FBI, otter would be one of the richest targets imaginable for some of the most prized information on earth, i.e. high-value intel targets spilling secrets in "full-confidence" and divulging information they might never reveal even in court. otter also transcribes medical/psych convos and legal discussions as well, bringing the sum total of what they could "know" about any human, willing or not, to scary levels.
Journalists who are casual or reckless with this kind of data shouldn't be in the business, and companies that don't make these kinds of risks apparent to their user base, or go to lengths to disguise a clear conflict of interest as bad support should not be in that business either.
- sam0x17 5y agoRight but my point is there is nothing surprising or groundbreaking about the the fact that the journalist received the survey and that it contained the information that it contained, but media coverage of this is treating it like there was some shocking breach or cooperation with a foreign power when really it's quite a mundane situation by all accounts. The shocking revelation should be that journalists who normally are so careful they use end-to-end client-side encryption for their communications are using third party transcription services that have full access to their sensitive interviews. That's a faux pas and critical security blunder on the journalist's part, not otter's, though one learning here is maybe otter should consider offering some sort of secure enclave service for situations like this with additional guarantees and client-controlled encryption keys.