Users

All SecureDrop Users

SecureDrop is a whistle-blowing submission system, uniquely designed to thwart the most capable of adversaries. The original team that designed SecureDrop and today's maintainers, are aware that this design prohibits many from adopting it. So: by design, it is both exclusionary and specific. Yet within that specific subset of targeted users, we seek to be as inclusive and needs-meeting as possible.

For UX, the primary impact of that targeting means that folks in the Global South and folks vulnerable to individuals lacking social/financial power, or vulnerable to general social ills (versus a single powerful adversary), are not folks SecureDrop is built to serve.

Why is that?

SecureDrop requires the Tor Network to safely operate anywhere—and it is not recommended to be adopted in countries that see fewer than 10,000 average daily users on the Tor network. That one factor alone, has SecureDrop rarely used in Global South newsrooms and NGOs. Likewise, in newsrooms or NGOs without the monetary resources to maintain their own server stack, a Linux and CLI-intensive maintenance experience, and either two laptops with 7 USB sticks or one very fancy Linux laptop, are better served using Global Leaks. Why doesn't SD just lower its guard and make the technical compromises GlobalLeaks has? Because that would reduce its hardening, and make it easier for government intelligence agencies and Black Cube type private security firms, to break into. SecureDrop was built specifically to protect folks seeking to expose the abusive governments, suppressors of democracy, and [Harvey Weinsteins](https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-espionage/the-black-cube-chronicles-the-private-investigators) of the world.

Front-stage (Source) Users

For personas themselves, we use examples of real-life whistle-blowers. Because SecureDrop's central system-design is around adversary capabilities, notable whistleblowers from history—folks with with specific capabilities, liabilities, tolerance for risks, and consequences of failure against their specific adversaries, and use needs—have been picked and prioritized.