Forty years ago, Bob Woodward had a dark parking garage and Deep Throat. Today, The New Yorker has an Internet dropbox.

Strongbox is an online whistleblower system that allows sources to share documents and messages with the magazine's writers and editors, with the promise of "a reasonable amount of anonymity."

Strongbox launched today, four months after the death of its co-inventor, Aaron Swartz. With the help of his friend, Wired.com News Editor Kevin Poulsen, Swartz built an open-source, anonymous inbox, which is now up and running.

"Strongbox is a simple thing in its conception," Amy Davidson, senior editor at The New Yorker, explained in a blog post. "In one sense, it's just an extension of the mailing address we printed in small type on the inside cover of the first issue of the magazine, in 1925, later joined by a phone number (in 1928) and email address (in 1998)."

In that time, readers and sources have sent everything from letters of complaint to classified papers to the magazine. But with growing technological advancements, it became easier to trace the senders, "even when they don't want to be found," Davidson said.

So, Swartz and Poulsen addressed that issue by creating a system that won't allow even the receiving journalists to figure out where files came from.

"If anyone asks us," Davidson said, "we won't be able to tell them."

Poulsen commemorated today's launch with his retelling of the history of Strongbox and Swartz. Poulsen first met the young programmer and activist in 2006, when he sold social news site Reddit to Condé Nast  parent company to Wired and The New Yorker.

The two men worked together on the project, which took two years to complete, and finished just a month before Swartz committed suicide in his Brooklyn apartment on Jan. 11.

Poulsen and Swartz built the open-source code, which they named DeadDrop, to help bolster anonymity among shared media data. And now, The New Yorker is putting that to the test. The magazine is the first guinea pig for the system, which the staff has personalized by naming their iteration Strongbox.

To begin using the anonymous inbox, download and install the necessary software to access the Tor Project, then visit Strongbox online, where further instructions will guide you through the submission process.

The inner workings of the program, which includes multiple computers, thumb drives, encryption, and the free anonymity software Tor, are mapped out in the graphic below. In its full privacy policy, The New Yorker promises users that there will be no record of their IP address or information about their browser, computer, or operating system, nor will third-party content or cookies be delivered to their machine.

Back in Jan. 2011, the New York Times said that it was looking into a submission system that would let leakers send documents directly to the paper rather than going through whistleblower sites like WikiLeaks. But nothing ever came to fruition.

Meanwhile, Condé Nast today also announced a new Wired video channel, sponsored by the Microsoft Surface, Windows Phone, and Windows 8. Three of the seven new programs made their debut online today; the full line-up features short documentaries, an animated scripted series, and several shows aimed at bringing readers behind the scenes of Wired.

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