Tinfoil: A user-centered community for journalists and security nerds

A message from the future: Two years after its launch, Tinfoil is sunsetting on April 21, 2018.

Tinfoil.press has been an amazing project. Having places to speak about digital security for journalists and media activists is important to me, and I met friends in the journalism world on the forum. Yet I also believe deeply that sensitive user data (e.g., plaintext email and IP addresses, as well as hashed passwords) demands extraordinary protection.

I’ve had a question on my mind for a long time: Do I actually have the capacity to make sure everything is “up to code”? Early into the project, I did. But more recently I have not had the time to give this project the attention it requires.

Usually, this means regular tinkering with the server to ensure it’s receiving the newest operating system and forum patches, as well as rolling back to server snapshots when (inevitably) the server doesn’t want to play nice with Discourse or nginx. These aren’t major technical hurdles, but they require time.

While a server is an attention-hungry thing, the activity on the forum has decreased over time, to a trickle. The work necessary to keep our user data safe eclipses the level of traffic we see on the site.

The site started with an explosion of fascinating conversations. Things are quieter now.

I think these conversations are important. I also think they continue in less public spaces, such as face-to-face conversations and private messages, where we can be even more specific and candid about our most pressing security challenges.

Tinfoil was always an open forum, and how we sunset the site should reflect that. In the spirit of openness, and to preserve useful conversations, I’ve archived the site: https://mshelt.onl/tinfoil.press/

You can also download a compressed version of the archive here.

I intend to keep @tinfoilpress active on Twitter, posting links on the intersection between journalism, media activism, and information security.

I appreciate you all spending this time, however brief, reading and sharing your thoughts and questions. ❤

The original announcement post from two years ago is preserved below.