As a matter of practice, Saber Enterprises and the Alien Hunter have long used digital security measures — encrypted communications and storage — when handling sensitive information. In our endeavor to securely receive highly confidential information, we have gathered a set of tools for readers to anonymously submit the information that might be of investigative interest to the team.
SUBMIT A TIP
The tools — WhatsApp, Signal, SecureDrop, and encrypted email. From there, users can download the appropriate software and use it to transmit their tips to the Alien Hunter.
When a tip submission reaches The Alien Hunter, it is added to a secure and ever-growing database that is overseen by our staff. Roughly a third of the submissions don’t qualify as tips and are quickly discarded — a reader sounding off on a recent news article, for example.
Another third — tips that, for one reason or another, are especially time-sensitive — are escalated to Derrel or delegated to an investigator best capable of vetting them. And the remaining tips, those that might lead to substantive investigative stories, are held by the alien hunter for further evaluation.
The anonymous tips received from mobile devices, via WhatsApp and Signal, have been particularly useful, Mr. Sims said. And there’s good reason: WhatsApp, with more than 1.2 billion active users, is one of the easiest ways to send secure information.
“With WhatsApp, it’s as simple as sending a text message — but it’s encrypted, Derrel explained.