Information security refers to ‘the practice of defending information from unauthorised access’. Information security practices include everyday activities such as protecting your bank details, or keeping your workplace logins secure. Despite increasingly restrictive approaches to research ethics, academia continues to lag behind journalism when it comes to best practice with regards to information security. This article discusses information security as it pertains to qualitative and especially ethnographic research into crime and deviance. In doing so, the article addresses a gap in the methodological literature by drawing on lessons and real-world examples from journalism, academia and activism, in order to offer guidance for researchers seeking to maintain information security in a digital, networked social world. The article proceeds in three parts. First, the article considers what information researchers might want to protect, who they might want to protect it from and what the consequences might be if they failed to do so (an exercise known as ‘threat modelling’). The different powers, resources and capacities of, and threats posed by, state actors such as the police and intelligence agencies, as well as an array of non-state actors, are considered. Second, the article outlines some general principles of information security and how they might apply to ethnographic research into crime and deviance. Third, the article discusses a range of practical considerations when it comes to using mobile phones (cell phones), social media, passwords and encryption in the course of researching crime and deviance.

中文翻译：

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犯罪学民族志学者的信息安全

信息安全是指“保护信息免遭未经授权的访问的做法”。信息安全实践包括日常活动，例如保护您的银行详细信息或保证工作场所登录的安全。尽管对研究道德的限制越来越严格，但在信息安全方面的最佳实践方面，学术界仍然落后于新闻业。本文讨论信息安全，因为它涉及犯罪和越轨行为的定性研究，特别是人种学研究。在此过程中，本文通过借鉴新闻界、学术界和激进主义的经验教训和现实例子，弥补了方法论文献中的空白，以便为寻求在数字网络社会世界中维护信息安全的研究人员提供指导。本文分为三个部分。首先，本文考虑了研究人员可能想要保护哪些信息、他们可能想要保护信息免受谁的侵害以及如果他们不这样做可能会产生什么后果（称为“威胁建模”的练习）。考虑了警察和情报机构等国家行为者以及一系列非国家行为者的不同权力、资源和能力以及构成的威胁。其次，本文概述了信息安全的一些一般原则以及它们如何应用于犯罪和越轨行为的人种学研究。第三，本文讨论了在研究犯罪和越轨行为过程中使用移动电话、社交媒体、密码和加密时的一系列实际考虑因素。