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Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

theguardian.com

131–140 of 810 posts

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#131

I wonder if any of this is a conscious act of resistance vs. just incompetence. And yes, I've heard of Hanlon's Razor haha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

Given the sheer number of people they had to pull in and work overtime to redact Trump's name as well as those of prominent Republicans and donors as per numerous sources within the FBI and the administration itself, incompetence is likely for a chunk of it.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#132

Its not a hack to copy and paste text that is part of the document data. The incompetence of the people responsible to comply with the law doesnt mean its reasonable to label something a hack. Please change the title.

Also had this first thought, but then a hack could just be a way around a limit/lack of authorization, doesn't have to be unknown/sophisticated, so copy of black boxes fits

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#133

I wonder if any of this is a conscious act of resistance vs. just incompetence. And yes, I've heard of Hanlon's Razor haha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

There's a third option: Ambivalence.

Any major documents/files have been removed all together. Then the rest was farmed out to anyone they could find with basic instructions to redact anything embarrassing.

Since there's absolutely zero chance anyone in the administration will ever be held accountable for what's left, they're not overly concerned.

The thing that I've been waiting to see for years is the actual video recordings. There were supposedly cameras everywhere, for years. I'm not even talking about the disgusting stuff, I'm talking security for entrances, hallways, etc.

The FBI definitely has them, where are they?

What about Maxwell's media files? There was nothing found there? Did they subpoena security companies and cloud providers?

The documents are all deniable. Yes video evidence can now be easily faked, but real video will have details that are hard to invent. Regardless, videos are worth millions of words.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#135

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" - Napoleon Bonaparte Let all the files get released first. Then show your hacks.

Too late. The data has been touched far too many times. The chain of custody and any accountability will never happen.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#136
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are major differences between the Trump 1.0 and 2.0 administrations. In the Trump 1.0 administration, many of the most important officials were very competent men. One example would be then-Attorney General William Barr. Barr is contemptible, yes, but smart AF. When Barr’s DOJ released a redacted version of the Mueller Report, they printed the whole thing, made their redactions with actual ink, and then re-sca…

> but smart AF. When Barr’s DOJ released a redacted version of the Mueller Report, they printed the whole thing, made their redactions with actual ink, and then re-scanned every page to generate a new PDF with absolutely no digital trace of the original PDF file. This is a dumb way of doing that, exactly what "stupid" people do when their are somewhat aware of the limits of their competence or only as smart as the te…

>exactly what "stupid" people do when their are somewhat aware of the limits of their competence

Being aware of one's limitations is the strongest hallmark of intelligence I've come across...

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#137

I wonder if any of this is a conscious act of resistance vs. just incompetence. And yes, I've heard of Hanlon's Razor haha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

The 'resistance' was not releasing them during the last administration.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#138
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger difference from my perspective is that they have competent people doing the strategy this time. The last Trump administration failed to use the obvious levers available to accomplish fascism, while this one has been wildly successful on that end. In a few years they will have realigned the whole power dynamic in the country, and unfortunately more and more competent people will choose to work for them in o…

> they have competent people doing the strategy this time They had a great playbook in Project 2025. I'm not convinced Trump ever had the smartest people executing it.

You don't need to be the smartest person when you're pointing a big gun at someone.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are major differences between the Trump 1.0 and 2.0 administrations. In the Trump 1.0 administration, many of the most important officials were very competent men. One example would be then-Attorney General William Barr. Barr is contemptible, yes, but smart AF. When Barr’s DOJ released a redacted version of the Mueller Report, they printed the whole thing, made their redactions with actual ink, and then re-sca…

It's like Russian spies being caught in the Netherlands with taxi receipts showing they took a taxi from their Moscow HQ to the airport: corrupt organizations attract/can only hire incompetent people... https://www.vice.com/en/article/russian-spies-chemical-weapo... Anyone remember how the Trump I regime had staff who couldn't figure out the lighting in the White House, or mistitled Australia's Prime Minister as Pres…

Or the passports discovered intact after a particularly heinous terrorist attack.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#140
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are major differences between the Trump 1.0 and 2.0 administrations. In the Trump 1.0 administration, many of the most important officials were very competent men. One example would be then-Attorney General William Barr. Barr is contemptible, yes, but smart AF. When Barr’s DOJ released a redacted version of the Mueller Report, they printed the whole thing, made their redactions with actual ink, and then re-sca…

> but smart AF. When Barr’s DOJ released a redacted version of the Mueller Report, they printed the whole thing, made their redactions with actual ink, and then re-scanned every page to generate a new PDF with absolutely no digital trace of the original PDF file. This is a dumb way of doing that, exactly what "stupid" people do when their are somewhat aware of the limits of their competence or only as smart as the te…

> this type of redaction eliminates the possibility to change text length

This is the only weakness of Barr's method.

> it doesn't eliminate the risk of non-redaction since you can't simply search&replace with machine precision

Anyong relying on automated tools to redact is doing so performatively. At the end of the day, you need people who understand the context to sit down and read through the documents and strike out anything that reveals–directly or indirectly, spelled correctly or incorrectly–too much.

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