Turning on your sources is not a good look.

At least here in Australia, sources are no longer really all that safe.

We've recently seen the police over here raiding the homes and offices of prominent journalists (quite publicly) to gain access to their sources and related material. :(

Luckily, this was the NYTimes, which is based in the US, and considered one of the most prestigious news outlets in the world—turning on a source would be major malpractice. Possible? Sure, but just like with heart surgery, I'm more inclined to trust a professional with an earned reputation to uphold, than just some random shmo—which is to say, there's not much more of aa reliable bet than the NYT for staying safe as a source.

Did NYT follow through with revealing the real name of the Slate Star Codex author?

That's one data point in opposition (although not exactly revealing a 'source', the difference is splitting hairs).

The difference really isn't splitting hairs. Not only is he not a source, he's not anonymous.

Blogged under his full name until a couple years ago, blogs under first and middle still, full name still all over the internet and discoverable within a couple minutes, details of life all over blog still. Hell you probably don't even need to know his last name to find him. Scott Alexander Bay Area Psychiatrist is probably enough to go trawling through psychiatrist practice staff pages and find him fairly quickly.

Dude's basically wishing he was anonymous and living in denial because to accept that he isn't would be to accept that he really shouldn't continue his career and blog.

I think it's entirely possible for a person to both be willing to publish his last name and also go to prison in order to protect a source, all while remaining consistent in their principles.

the real issue is what you get when you google Scott [Lastname]. If the top result is an NYT story his patients will reliably find it, and that can be problems.

Except a NYT journalist was willing to dox Scott Alexander for no reason at all..

Hmmm. My point was that even if the journalist wasn't themselves willing to hand over data, at least in some (western) jurisdictions the police will raid them and seize the data directly.

Now, whether or not given journalists are following good enough data handling practises (eg encryption, etc) to still maintain confidentially is unknown.

NYT is prestigious? Could have fooled me, their attempts at journalism are sorely lacking IMO. Didn't think anyone still considered them credible.

> NYTimes, most prestigious news outlets in the world

Really?

Startup Idea: Anonymizing data provider based in a country where most big governments can't easily touch you and more competent at removing information that can be used to identify the whistleblower than current news agencies.

Just the information in article is valuable in helping track them down. The number of people involved, their communication platform of choice, and the age, gender, location of the participants. Assuming it’s all true, of course. It also sounds like the journalist corroborated some of the hackers’ claims by confirming non-public information about the hacks with law enforcement. That’s particularly valuable to law enforcement. It verifies some of their findings for them.

Or the crackers provided “confirmation” to the journalists based on what false information had already been fed to investigators.

And yet, the NY Times is threatening to do exactly that to the guy behind https://slatestarcodex.com/

We're at the point where the NYT is doxxing random bloggers. I don't think this is a good time to be relying on journalistic integrity for your safety.