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Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

theguardian.com

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Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#231

Post by OneMorePerson »

It's funny seeing this play out because in my personal life anytime I'm sharing a sensitive document where someone needs to see part of it but I don't want them to see the rest that's not relevant, I'll first block out/redact the text I don't want them to see (covering it, using a redacting highlighter thing, etc.), and then I'll screenshot the page and make that image a PDF.

I always felt paranoid (without any real evidence, just a guess) that there would always be a chance that anything done in software could be reversed somehow.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#232

Post by dragonwriter »

juujian wrote: post #63

Apart from the technological and procedural question, I would love to learn why the DOJ found it important to protect Indyke. He was Epstein's lawyer, and now we learn that he was personally involved. He is not a Washington person. We expected there to be politically motivated protection of certain people, but is the DOJ just going to blanket protect anybody in the docs?

He was Epstein’s lawyer, he almost certainly has the dirt on anyone the DoJ wants to protect, and may be the kind of person that would be inclined to burn whoever DoJ was protecting if he wasn't getting treatment at least as favorable.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#233

Post by fc417fc802 »

eviks wrote: post #221
fc417fc802 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can mistakenly receive data you're not authorized to have (might even be criminal to have!) Not the layman, at least to the best of my knowledge. Yes, certain licensed professionals can be subject to legal obligations in very specific situations. But in general, if you screw up and mail something to me (electronic or otherwise) then that is on you. I am not responsible for your actions. > if you have publicly a…

> Not the layman, at least to the best of my knowledge. Are you not aware of content that is criminal to possess? Like CP is the most common example. > I am not responsible for your actions. I've already addressed this confusion of yours - this is NOT about your responsibility for someone else's actions, but about your own actions and whether they constitute a "hack". > You are the only one using the term "hack" here…

You realize we just went from (the legal equivalent of) "I accidentally mailed you my tax return" to "I accidentally mailed you a bomb". Like yeah, it remains illegal to retain possession of said bomb irrespective of the fact that someone intentionally sent it. That is ... not at all surprising?

Beyond that you're clearly just trolling at this point, going to great lengths to manufacture an argument about a term that I never used to begin with. "Lack of authorization" has a clear legal meaning whereas "hack" does not.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#234

Post by eviks »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #224
eviks wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I settle for a rough equivalence? The point was about the chance of making mistakes in redaction, so sure, if you ignore the difference in the chance of making mistakes (which the underline process increases), everything becomes equivalent!

> Why would I settle for a rough equivalence? They're equivalent in security. The digital method is more convenient (albeit more error prone). What confers the security is the print-scan step. Whether one is redacting in between or before doesn't change much. You'd still want to do a tabula rasa and manual post-pass with both methods. > point was about the chance of making mistakes in redaction Best practice is human…

> They're equivalent in security

They aren't, security is defined as the amount of information you leak. If you have an inferior process where you're substituting the correct digital match with an in incorrect manual match, you're reducing security

> albeit more error prone

The opposite, you can't find all 925 cases of the word Xyz as efficiently on paper without the ease of a digital text search, my guess is you just have made up a different comparison (e.g., a human spending 100hrs reading paper vs some "smart" app doing 1 min of redactions) vs. the actual process quoted and criticized in my original comment

> Whether one is redacting in between or before doesn't change much

It does, the chance to make a mistake differs in these cases! Printing & scanning can't help you here, it's a totally set of mistakes

> Best practice

But this conversation is about a specific blogged-about reality, not your best practice theory!

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#235

Post by fc417fc802 »

awesome_dude wrote: post #179
eviks wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So following that strange logic if a dumb person knows he's dumb, he's suddenly become intelligent? Or is that impossible by your peculiar definition of intelligence?

Knowing your limits has to be a sign of intelligence. "Dumb" people (FTR the description actually refers to something rather than that which you think it does...) run around on the internet getting mad because they haven't thought things through...

It's an interesting question though. I know quite some "smart" people who lack self awareness to an almost fatal degree yet can outdo the vast majority of the population at solving logic puzzles. It tends to be a rather frustrating condition to deal with.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#236

Post by JumpCrisscross »

eviks wrote: post #202
herewulf wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading through material in context and actively removing the telling bits seems very focused to me. Furthermore, reading through long winded, dry legalese (or the like) and then occasionally marking it up seems like an excellent way to give the brain short breaks to continue on rather than to let the mind wander in a sea of text. I am for automating all the things but I can see pros and cons for both digital and man…

The reading is focused, but that focus is wasted on menial work, which makes it easier to miss something more important > give the brain short breaks Set a timer if you feel that's of any use? Why does the break have to depend on the random frequency of terms to be redacted? What if there is nothing to redact for pages, why let the mind wander? > I am for automating But you're arguing against it. What's the pro of ma…

> What's the pro of manually replacing all 1746 occurrences of "Trump" instead of spending 0.01% of that time with a digital search & replace and then spending the other 1% digitally searching for variants with typos

Because none of this involves a focussed reading. It's the same reason why Level 3 can be less safe than Level 4. If you're skimming, you're less engaged than if you're reading in detail. (And if you're skipping around, you're missing context. You may catch Trump and Trup, but will you catch POTUD? Alternatively, if you just redact every mention of the President, you may wind up creating a President ***, thereby confirming what you were trying to redact.)

If it doesn't matter, automate it. If you care, have a team do a proper redaction.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#237

Post by TylerE »

eviks wrote: post #152
fc417fc802 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. It's a procedure that's very difficult to unintentionally screw up. Sometimes that's what you want. > you can't simply search&replace with machine precision Sure you can. Search and somehow mark the text (underline or similar) to make keywords hard to miss. Then proceed with the manual print, expunge, scan process.

You process doesn't make sense, why wouldn't you just black box redact right away and print and scan? What does underline then ink give you? But it's also not the process described in the blog > that's very difficult to unintentionally screw up. You've already screwed up by leaking length and risking errors in manual search&replace

It gets you the non-existance of a PDF full of reversible black boxes.

Can't leak a file that doesn't exist.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#238

Post by alex77456 »

echelon wrote: post #88
tim333 wrote: post #24

It's quite funny really. Apparently you just cut and paste the text into Word. They just had the pdf put black rectangles on top.

Why reveal the trick before all the papers have been released?

Someone wanted to make sure to be the first?

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#239

Post by agumonkey »

irjustin wrote: post #170
rtkwe wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not 'hacks' it's the people doing the redaction making beginner mistakes of not properly removing the selectable text under the redactions. They're either drawing black rectangles over the text or highlighting it black neither of which prevents the underlying text from being selected. Keeping that secret would require sponaneous silence from everyone looking at these docs which is just not possible.

Yes but don't tell them they're doing it wrong.

Misdirection 101

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#240

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dragonwriter wrote: post #206
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its exactly equivalent to a dictatorship by the head of the CIA No it's not. I can commit all manner of illegal acts in my home unnoticed, that doesn't make me a dictator.

Yes, and if the hypothetical were that the CIA was effectively outside of control of the law for actions committed in private by CIA personnel in their homes, then the conclusion would be different (even though an agency the scale of the CIA would still have different implications than an individual even then), but that wasn't the hypothetical under discussion, which had much fewer—as in zero—qualifications on the CI…

> if the hypothetical were that the CIA was effectively outside of control of the law for actions committed in private by CIA personnel in their homes

My point is their actions are committed outside the law. They've just been able to avoid punishment by covering it up. What they are not is above the law, at least not in the long run. (There are absolutely short bouts where the CIA acts above the law overseas, and rare cases where it has done so domestically. But the fact that they're covering it up betrays that they're crafty bastards, not invincible ones.)

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