Secure Communication, Buried In A News App

The Guardian, in collaboration with University of Cambridge developers, has deployed CoverDrop, a secure messaging system embedded directly into its news app. Unlike traditional encrypted messaging apps that can draw attention by their mere presence, CoverDrop hides whether any messaging is occurring at all. Every install of the Guardian app continuously sends small encrypted packets to CoverDrop servers — most are meaningless cover traffic, but real tips are indistinguishable from the noise. Messages are encrypted with the journalist's public key, dead drops are padded to a consistent size, and on-device storage vaults are kept at a fixed size and regularly modified regardless of use. The open-source codebase is available on GitHub, and the system is designed to be adoptable by other news organizations.