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Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

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Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#131

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

prepend wrote: post #85
greggsy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Margaret Thatcher did this in the 80’s to help identify who was leaking cabinet documents to the press. I recall a story about Jobs tracking down leakers in his own executive suite by telling each of them a slightly different things in private. Not sure if it worked, but it can be a very effective deterrent.

I worked with someone who would tell me very precise weird personal details (eg, “the left side of my mouth can’t taste”). I found it odd because they weren’t really pertinent and seemed really unique that I’ve never heard of anyone else with the condition. I suspected he did this to try to determine who they can trust when he would remark that people were liars or not trustworthy and one time a coworker told me a co…

That sounds like a terrible workplace in general.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#133

Post by haasted »

staplung wrote: post #12

It’s called whitespace watermarking and seems to be one of those ideas that keeps getting re-invented. It’s used a lot, particularly in HTML where the rendering hides the identifying spaces. It can help you figure out if someone is scrapping your content.

Genius used a similar technique to check whether Google was scraping their lyrics. Apostrophes in selected song lyrics spelled out "red-handed" in morse code.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/genius-we-caught-google-red-hande...

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#134

Post by savanaly »

moron4hire wrote: post #115
fooqux wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He searched the printer logs . Presumably when Word sends stuff to the printer, it doesn't bother with all the extraneous garbage it puts in files. Printer communication hasn't changed much in decades.

It is also possible he's just a lunatic who fired an innocent person.

What are the odds that he calculated a certain number of bytes, and exactly one other employee had sent a file to the printer that contained that number, but it was just a coincidence? If the method indeed doesn't work (as you suggest "is possible") it's impossible it would turn up a false positive, only a false negative.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#135

Post by brookst »

fooqux wrote: post #101
njovin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most impressive/unbelievable part of this story is that 2 Word files, created separately, ended up with the same exact file size. I'd assume with all of the Metadata they cram in that this would be unlikely.

He searched the printer logs . Presumably when Word sends stuff to the printer, it doesn't bother with all the extraneous garbage it puts in files. Printer communication hasn't changed much in decades.

Still. He’d have to have the same normal.dot, make the same space/tab choices, same fonts, etc.

And in a large company, how many ~1 page letters get printed? What are the odds that there is only a single match in the entire company?

I take this story similar to the binary coded space story: more likely to be apocryphal and promoted to deter future leakers than true stories about catching them in the past.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#136

Post by distances »

rtkwe wrote: post #118
bojan wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of those printers are actually still functioning. There was a time once where you actually had to print stuff (anyone remembers MapQuest maps?), so I'm guessing there are still a lot of printers from that era collecting dust at people's homes.

I swapped over to a laser printer for that exact reason. There's still a few things a year I need to print and the laser printer stays working through the lulls where I always had issues with inkjets clogging up.

And I walk to a nearby copy shop for my printing needs. At maybe twice a year it's a rare enough occasion that I refuse to keep a printer myself.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#137

Post by salawat »

staplung wrote: post #12

It’s called whitespace watermarking and seems to be one of those ideas that keeps getting re-invented. It’s used a lot, particularly in HTML where the rendering hides the identifying spaces. It can help you figure out if someone is scrapping your content.

Non-breaking whitespace/other non-rendered characters can disrupt this type of technique. It can also be rendered moot by photograph, transcription, paraphrasing, etc...

Hell, even a re-encode/format change, or stripping of format info can moot the entire premise.

I welcome Musk to demonstrating his own psychosis/neurosis. It doesn't really speak to any fundamental cleverness.

Furthermore, were I a journalist receiving such material, I'd damn well make sure to change how I communicated it enough to neutralize attempts at such watermarking, simply because I know people are pre-disposed to such acts as he did.

In fact, if you're going for maximum Discordian Malcontent high score, and you're confident you're operating under such scrutiny, neutralize a copy you leak, then carefully orchestrate the planting of false trails to keep the spook wannabes chasing their tails, which can end up blowing back on the orchestrator for waste of resources. This works better with a larger team though where Spartacus dynamics start kicking in. Sample size 1 tends to leave sufficient metadata from neutral parties to rehome in on a common perpetrator.

This is why labor organization scares the living shit out of people like Musk, and other large holders of capital/abusive management types. Info asymmetry, fear, and disunity are some of their most potent weapons.

Wisdom tends to prevail on the side of "don't do shit somebody'd find leak worthy, and you won't have this problem".

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#138

Post by simiones »

greggsy wrote: post #23
staplung wrote: post #12

It’s called whitespace watermarking and seems to be one of those ideas that keeps getting re-invented. It’s used a lot, particularly in HTML where the rendering hides the identifying spaces. It can help you figure out if someone is scrapping your content.

Margaret Thatcher did this in the 80’s to help identify who was leaking cabinet documents to the press. I recall a story about Jobs tracking down leakers in his own executive suite by telling each of them a slightly different things in private. Not sure if it worked, but it can be a very effective deterrent.

It's pretty well known that map makers do this, adding non-existent small localities to detect when someone is blindly copying their work.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#139

Post by Karunamon »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #120
asdajksah2123 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate networks tend to keep printer logs for extremely long durations. Also, printers at home are incredibly useful. I'm surprised more people don't have them. Especially now that online shopping (and therefore online returns) are so much more common and require printing return labels.

I have occasion to actually need to print something about twice a year. I don't know how it is that we live such drastically different lifestyles that you find them so incredibly useful.

Honestly, printers have gotten so cheap that the pain in the ass they can save when needed would make them useful to have for even that low of a volume. Printing a return label means I don't have to drive to a shipper. Your cheapest printers nowadays can scan and sometimes fax, which is useful for when legal or other requirements force you to submit a signed document. I'm not a fan of digital tickets for travel and events due to the apps being garbage and the severe consequences in case of technical problems, so these are easily printed as well.

As crappy as modern printers are, they provide an oversized amount of peace of mind for me.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#140

Post by moffkalast »

moron4hire wrote: post #115
fooqux wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He searched the printer logs . Presumably when Word sends stuff to the printer, it doesn't bother with all the extraneous garbage it puts in files. Printer communication hasn't changed much in decades.

It is also possible he's just a lunatic who fired an innocent person.

Looking at twitter these days I sure have a feeling this is not super unlikely.
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