Spotting Disinformation Online Before the Midterm Elections

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Kevin Roose, a technology columnist in New York who has been writing about disinformation online, discussed the tech he’s using.

Q. As a technology columnist, what are some of your favorite tech tools for work?

A. For work, I use a company-issed MacBook Pro. I hate, hate, hate the keyboard on it, so I sometimes use an external keyboard, which makes me look incredibly cool at the coffee shop. But my only other option is using my MacBook Air, which is about seven years old, runs out of hard drive space every time I use it and has a battery life of maybe 20 minutes.

A few years ago, I got hacked really badly. (It was my own fault — I was hosting a TV show about tech and volunteered to have a few professional hackers attack me, as an experiment.) As a result, I’m pretty paranoid. I use physical security keys, VPNs, an encrypted email provider, and half a dozen secure texting apps to…