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Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

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Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#141

Post by sangnoir »

jmull wrote: post #81
simias wrote: post #27

I scoffed a bit at this part: >Try it in Adobe Acrobat (via the “Save as Other” command under “File” on a Mac) and you’ll quickly be redirected to Adobe’s website and presented with a handful of subscription packages that will allow you to transform your documents. [...] Indeed, it’s probably a little safer, all things considered. If I was doing shady stuff the last thing I'd want to do is send my incriminating docum…

It's actually much worse than sending incriminating documents through the mail, even printed brazenly on a postcard. To capture incriminating physical mail, the authorities have to already be monitoring you at the time you send the documents. With email they are typically able to go back and capture emails from days, weeks, and years prior.

> It's actually much worse than sending incriminating documents through the mail, even printed brazenly on a postcard.

I know I'm nitpickig, but the USPS photographs of all pieces of mail and digitizes it. This information is considered metadata and is not protected against unwarranted searches, so postcards are much worse (for privacy), because even the small-town PD can get access to them without having to look for an "IT guy" to help. Email requires assistance from a TLA agency (or a search warrant served to the mail provider).

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#143

Post by s73v3r_ »

braderhart wrote: post #133
s73v3r_ wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't buy that many people are quite bad with computers?

When it is your job to hide your financial activities, then no not really.

You've never worked tech support, have you?

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#145

Post by imglorp »

freehunter wrote: post #5

There are certain things I cannot believe are still this difficult with as advanced as user-friendly technology is: sending files to someone else, and converting documents. Sending files to someone else is a problem with a ton of solutions, some of them better than others, but none of them actually solving the problem. Email often has size limits and spam filters block certain attachments. Dropbox is often restricted…

What's up with reading Visio documents on OSX anyway? Why should that be so hard? What business decision drove not supplying Visio with the Office stuff on Mac anyway? They give you Excel, Word, OneNote, PPT etc but not that.

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#146

Post by eyepulp »

Nokinside wrote: post #84

When I was involved with a contract negotiation, they emailed me a pdf offer with addresses, names and important numbers retracted with black and asked if these terms are OK with me and we can talk about the numbers. I noticed that when I select a region of text with a mouse, the retracted' black text becomes white text over black background. It revealed name of our competitor, addressees and numbers in their offer,…

I think you meant "redacted" vs "retracted". But yeah, there are a lot of stories out there of people assuming a black bar over black text is high security.

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#147

Post by spookthesunset »

ajross wrote: post #24
twoquestions wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody's stupid sometimes, and it only takes once to do you in.

Mostly true. Hans Reiser and Ross Ulbricht were smart folks who got caught nonetheless. But not always true. No one's figured out Satoshi Nakamoto yet.

Didn't they find a "how to get away with murder" book in Reiser's car?

And 'ol Ross had a whole journal of his illegal activity sitting right on his hard drive.

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#148

Post by mwfunk »

LeonM wrote: post #71
jacquesm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how this isn't even about encrypted pdfs but plain ones.

They are actually encrypted, but with an empty string as the (read) password. Since this is a common 'technique' to 'protect' PDF documents, as some PDF viewers (such as Adobe reader) won't allow selecting text on these 'protected' PDF's. It's so common that most PDF tools assume an empty string if no password is explicitly supplied. Source: I run a SaaS that converts PDF invoices to structured data, so I've examined…

Also, the current PDF permissions model is comically obtuse IMO. Acrobat doesn't even expose the permissions bits directly, rather each permission exposed in Adobe's UI represents various permutations of those permissions bits rather than a 1:1 mapping. It has to, because the design of that bitfield is nuts.

The semantics of the bits are described in ways that are very open to interpretation, and can be used to specify combinations of permissions that just don't make sense (example: allow content extraction for copy/paste, but don't allow content extraction for accessibility purposes, like screen readers for the blind). I suspect there are no two PDF parsers that handle that bitfield in the same way, and that it may not even be possible to implement support for it without baking in contradictions and unexpected behaviors (from a user's perspective at least). I'd be surprised if even Adobe's implementation handled it in its entirety.

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#149

Post by mwfunk »

alphabettsy wrote: post #77
stcredzero wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More in the US than elsewhere. In Germany, you obey the speed limit, and only rubes pass on the right. In the US, everyone drives 9 mph above the posted limit if they're being careful, and people pass on the right willy-nilly, regardless of what local laws say. But if the police really want to enforce that on you, they can. There are tons of "blue laws" in the US, some from over a hundred years back. Sometimes the po…

People pass on the right because people block the passing lane. It shouldn’t be possible in most cases to pass on the right.

Rant: I see this in the Bay Area all the time. On many freeways, the fast lane is also the carpool/HOV lane, at least during high-traffic times. The idea is that the government wants to encourage carpooling and/or low-emissions vehicles, therefore restricting the fast lane to such people would encourage such things.

But I often see people get in the fast lane not because they want to go faster than the adjacent lane, but rather because they have more than one person in the car and they just feel entitled to use the fast lane regardless of how fast they want to drive. Like, they don't understand the concept of lanes being related to speed, and are just thinking, "hey I'm a carpool, I get to drive in the carpool lane!" or something.

I've seen people in 20-year-old Chrysler minivans packed full of kids go all the way over to the fast lane and proceed to drive 10 under the speed limit, followed by a parade of cars passing them on the right because WTF. I can only assume that they literally don't understand that if the other people in their lane are going faster than they are, they're supposed to move over to a slower lane. Or they just don't think about it at all. I have no idea.

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