Vaultine for Journalists — Protecting Source Material and Contacts

Situations this covers

—A border officer or security screener asks to see your phone before you can board.

—A source hands you documents or photos that would put them at risk if anyone else saw them.

—The same notes live on your phone and your laptop, and losing either one shouldn't mean losing the story.

—A shared or IT-reviewed newsroom device means personal source contacts shouldn't be sitting in the open.

What does the work

Duress Vault

A third code opens an empty vault and wipes the real ones as it does — for when you have to unlock and the files must not survive intact. Afterwards that vault simply becomes your main one, with no empty shell left behind.

Decoy Vault

A second code opens a separate vault stocked with files you chose, so a forced unlock shows something ordinary instead of an empty screen or a refusal.

Zero-knowledge design

Encryption keys are derived on your device and never leave it. There's no server holding anything that could be subpoenaed, breached or handed over.

Works on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android

The same vault on the laptop you write on and the phone you carry — not two different tools with two different sets of files.

Folder import

Bring in an entire directory of existing documents at once, rather than moving files in one at a time.

No account or email to sign up

Nothing links the vault back to your identity.

Two codes, two different jobs

A Decoy Vault and a Duress Vault solve different problems, and it's worth being precise about which one does what before you're relying on either.

The Decoy Vault opens on a second code and shows exactly what you stocked it with in advance — a set of ordinary files you chose. It's for the situation where you need to unlock something, and an empty vault would itself be suspicious.

The Duress Vault is a third code that opens an empty vault and wipes your real ones as it does. And it isn't left as a conspicuous empty shell afterwards: that vault becomes your main vault, as though nothing else had ever been on the device. It's for the situation where the files genuinely cannot survive the unlock — not diverting attention, but making sure there's nothing left to find. Which one applies depends entirely on what you're facing, and both are configured by you ahead of time, not improvised in the moment.

One vault, not two separate tools

Source material tends to live wherever you were when you received it — a phone in the field, a laptop back at the desk. Vaultine runs on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, so it's the same encrypted vault either way, not a phone app you also have to remember to mirror onto a laptop.

Folder import matters here too: an existing folder of documents comes in as a folder, not as thirty individual files added one at a time.

Nothing to compel

Vaultine has no account system and no server that holds your files or your encryption key. The key is derived from your code, on your device, and it never leaves. That's a design decision with a practical consequence: there is no vendor-side copy of your source material for anyone to request, subpoena or breach — because it was never there to begin with.

The bottom line

None of this replaces the judgment calls that actually protect a source — who you tell, what you write down, what you carry across a border at all. What it does is make sure that if your device is the thing being searched, what's in it is a decision you already made, not one someone else gets to make for you.

Frequently asked questions

Can I make sensitive files disappear if I'm forced to unlock my phone?

That's what the Duress Vault is for: a separate code that opens an empty vault and wipes your real ones as it does. Once it has, that vault becomes your main vault, so there is no empty shell left sitting there to explain. It's a different mechanism from the Decoy Vault, which shows a separate stocked vault rather than deleting anything.

Does Vaultine need an internet connection to work?

Opening, viewing and locking your vault all happen on the device — no network connection is required for any of it. An optional encrypted backup to your own Dropbox does need a connection when you choose to run it, but nothing about unlocking or viewing your files depends on being online.

Is there anything Vaultine could be asked to hand over?

No — the encryption keys are derived from your code on your device and never leave it. There's no account and no server holding your files or your key, so there's nothing on our end to compel.

Can I use the same vault on my phone and my laptop?

Yes. Vaultine runs on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, so the vault you set up on one device is the same vault available on the others.

Some files don't belong in your normal folders.