Now do Apple.
Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
311–320 of 448 posts
Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#312Earlier 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.
It's pretty well known that map makers do this, adding non-existent small localities to detect when someone is blindly copying their work.
I used to work in a laboratory where we tested pre-production cell phones (this was before the iPhone...). Different OEMs would send us sample devices with different fonts on the keypad, or with little blemishes on the keypad, or would put little subtle cosmetic changes to devices to catch leakers.
Funny when you would see devices pop up on the internet with these little things, and wonder who lost their contracts/jobs/etc/...
When Palm was creating the Pre, we had some security dude come to our lab to show us how to securely store, transport, test and inventory devices. It was crazy.
Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#313It warms my heart that practices we used to use in EvE Online forums to identify internet spaceship strategy leakers are now being applied more widely :)
Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it wasn't an exact byte match, but close enough to only 1 print job size within a reasonable time frame.
Certainly possible, but also relies on the assumption that this was done on company equipment. When leaking info under a vindictive boss I would think opsec rule #1 is avoid company equipment as much as possible. Even without a printer at home, it's quite easy to send a print job to a local office or shipping store.
Data exfiltration is an extremely dangerous risk in the world of corporate espionage, especially for a company like Tesla that is trying to be first to market with something as massive as FSD.
There is no way I would send anything to an external print shop from company equipment; they are almost certainly on top of that as well.
Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#315Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk (from a few years ago) had a fun similar story. Someone inside Tesla wrote a letter, I believe complaining about product defects, which was printed by a media outlet. Figuring that the leaker printed the letter at Tesla offices (i.e. likely didn't have a printer at home), Musk re-typed the letter in Word, found out exactly how many kilobytes a Word file with that exact text would be,…
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Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#316Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk (from a few years ago) had a fun similar story. Someone inside Tesla wrote a letter, I believe complaining about product defects, which was printed by a media outlet. Figuring that the leaker printed the letter at Tesla offices (i.e. likely didn't have a printer at home), Musk re-typed the letter in Word, found out exactly how many kilobytes a Word file with that exact text would be,…
if they were using mac, better way would just be to check /var/spool/cups and see if the file is present.
Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#317~10 years ago I discovered Google doing steganography and their e-mails by accident. I was searching gmail for an e-mail message using a word I knew was definitely in the message but it was not being found. Eventually I found the e-mail and confirmed the word was definitely there. Ctrl+F and type the word, it's not found. Turned out there were random Cyrillic characters mixed through the message. Confirmed with other…
What's the context of this? Were/are you a Googler and this was in internal emails? Or was this just emails Google sends to customers? (I'm choosing to assume that this isn't about random emails other people send to Gmail addresses, that Google just messes with this way.)
Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it wasn't an exact byte match, but close enough to only 1 print job size within a reasonable time frame.
Certainly possible, but also relies on the assumption that this was done on company equipment. When leaking info under a vindictive boss I would think opsec rule #1 is avoid company equipment as much as possible. Even without a printer at home, it's quite easy to send a print job to a local office or shipping store.
Or take A picture of the letter Or retype the letter using leaker’s own smartphone.
Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Err, did he find the leaker or just anybody who’d printed that file? Hypothetically one person could have printed it at work while the leaker printed it at home, right?
Quoted post unavailable.
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments, e.g. snark, putdowns, and swipes? You've been doing it repeatedly and we've asked you not to, repeatedly.
No one is saying you owe billionaire CEOs better but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks
#320Years ago, I worked at a place that attempted this. They were so giddy about it. There wasn’t even a known leak, or, arguably, anything particularly worth leaking. They were just tickled by the idea that they could gotcha anyone who tried to leak something. Then, as now, it strikes me as little more than sad and paranoid Tom Clancy cosplay. I’d like to say I’ve moved on to a place with a culture of trust and faithful…
Yet I can't really fault a company for trying to hold people accountable for breaking their terms of employment.