Journalists have the passion for and duty to report what’s happening in the world. But they are often attacked for doing their jobs. It is admirable that journalists are willing to take so many risks. But they can stay safe if they secure their online anonymity with leading VPN services like ExpressVPN and take precautions when they publish their findings.
Case in Point: Olivier Laurelli
Olivier Laurelli is a French activist and blogger who is well-known in a few tech communities. He owns and manages Toonux, a security services company. He also helped build Reflets.info, a news site that gets computer networking specialists and journalists together. In 2012, Laurelli got in big trouble with a government agency over some files that he found by accident during a run of the mill Google search. He had sent some of the documents to one of the Reflets writers, who published some information contained in them.
Laurelli used a VPN provided by Toonux which automatically connects when he turns on his computer. But because the files got traced to the Reflets writer Yovan Menkevick, he got identified. He didn’t do anything dicey to get the files. He simply found a link in Google search results that led him to almost 8 gigabytes worth of documents from the French National Agency for Food Safety, Environment, and Labor (ANSES). He downloaded the files into a drive with the Linux Wget tool and later moved them to his desktop so he could conveniently read them. He had no reason to believe they were secret documents. They were readily available and they pertained to public health. Laurelli concluded that these were documents that were open to the public. But he was charged with “intrusion into a computer system and data theft from a computer”. The Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (DCRI) jumped on this and joined ANSES in prosecuting Laurelli on charges of hacking. He ended up being ordered by the court to pay 3,000 Euros.
The facts of the case were twisted to get a conviction. This often happens when agencies can’t get the results they want. Laurelli could have stayed safe if he had not been connected to the publication of the files and the use of a VPN. Actually, the prosecution jumped on the fact that he was using a VPN to support their accusation of hacking. VPNs get a bad rap once again when they are actually just online security tools. And Laurelli didn’t hack anything. But they convinced the court otherwise. Even after ANSES admitted that the files could be accessed by simply visiting the URL that Laurelli found on Google during an unrelated search. ANSES dropped the charges, but DCRI would not let go.
This case shows that people like Laurelli who are passionate about getting the word out need to stay protected. They are not hackers or thieves but simply want to share information that is available. Using a secure VPN like ExpressVPN that cannot be traced to the user is the first step. The next step is making sure that the user cannot be connected to the publication. This case proves that even without hard evidence, when agencies want a specific result, they find ways to make it happen.
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