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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

#331

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Teever wrote: post #250
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why wouldn't you just black box redact right away and print and scan? What does underline then ink give you? These are roughly equivalent. The point is having a hard copy in between the digital ones.

Absolutely. The other comments replying to your original comment that are nitpicking over implementation details miss the purpose and importance of this step. The fact that this release process is missing this key step is significant too imho. It makes it really clear that the people running this didn't understand all of the dimensions involved in releasing a redacted document like this and/or that they weren't able…

This is one of the biggest document collections ever released to the public (...or will be when it's finally done) and the redactions were done in a hurry by a government agency with limited resources which would usually be doing more useful things.

So it's likely there simply isn't the time to do extended multi-step redactions.

What's happening is a mix of malicious compliance, incompetence, and time pressure.

It's very on-brand for it to be confused, chaotic, and self-harming.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#332

Post by rurban »

vkou wrote: post #66
andsoitis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you truly believe the US is currently a dictatorship?

How would the roadmap for turning a democracy into a one party dictatorship differ from the trajectory we are on?

Which democracy? The USA isn't one for decades already

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#333

Post by vanviegen »

9dev wrote: post #321
OneMorePerson wrote: post #231

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…

In practical terms, a more convenient way to achieve this is just printing the document to a PDF, which rasterises the visible layer into what the printer would see. Most pdf tools support this.

That seems like a dangerous approach. Though printer drivers do often use rasterization, especially when targeting cheap printers, many printers can render vector graphics and text as well. Print-to-PDF will often use the later approach, unless of course the source program always rasterizes it's output when sending it out to the printer driver, or the used Print-to-PDF driver is particularly stupid.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#334

Post by aucisson_masque »

culi wrote: post #257
refurb wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also don’t assume the mistake wasn’t intentional.

This was my initial reaction to this news. I mean think about it The Trump team knows that nobody is gonna buy whatever they put out as being the full story. Isn't this just the perfect way to make people feel like they got something they weren't supposed to see? They can increase trust in the output without having to increase trust in the source of it And as far as I've heard there hasn't been anything "unredacted"…

It's the same government that invited a journalist to a signal discussion about ongoing military strike in Yemen.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#335

Post by rurban »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #251

A mafia state puts loyalists on top and can't produce anything ( smart people leave) and smart people who think for their own can't be promoted. That's also why a mafia extorts and doesn't run complex businesses in general. Perhaps the US can survive this administration. But somewhere down the line it will become broken.

The non-complex mafia businesses is moot since the 50ies already. They run Vegas, most of big sports leagues, politics, secret services and restaurant chains. Everything which can effectively wash money.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#336

Post by darubedarob »

agentifysh wrote: post #255
OneMorePerson wrote: post #231

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…

it's absolutely bewildering how ridiculous everything has been so far in terms of competence and this really takes the cherry on the top near Christmas too. how much lower can they go ?!

This low https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse_in_Pakistan aka a society where child abuse is simply accepted and mainstream, with the child abuse of child labour and dhijhadism being just additional nightmare fuel on top.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#337

Post by layla5alive »

GistNoesis wrote: post #313
GistNoesis wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not done properly, and you happen at any point in the chain to put black blocks on a compressed image (and PDF do compress internal images), you are leaking some bits of information in the shadow casted by the compression algorithm : (Self-plug : https://github.com/unrealwill/jpguncrop )

And that's just in the non-adversarial simple case. If you don't know the provenance of images you are putting black box on (for example because of a rogue employee intentionally wanting to leak them, or if the image sensor of your target had been compromised to leak some info by another team), your redaction can be rendered ineffective, as some images can be made uncroppable by construction . (Self-plug : https://gi…

Right, using stenography to encode some parity bits into an image so that lost information can be reconstructed seems like an obvious approach - all sorts of approaches you could use, akin to FEC. Haven't looked at your site yet, will be interested to see what you've built :)

Edit: I checked it out, nice, I like the lower res stenography approach, can work very nicely with good upscaling filters - gave it a star :)

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#338

Post by darubedarob »

rurban wrote: post #327
yetihehe wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is still very high, so they can go much much lower, but I think they might go to some still lower places, finding them where we didn't even know such places could exist. Some ideas: - Leave NATO - Start openly supporting Russia and North Korea - Arrest whole International Criminal Court - Preventively invade China

Reintroduce witch burning. Reintroduce death penalties on public squares. Taking Greenland and Venezuela is given, as they took most of Latin America already. Just the new Mexican president looks like the next thorn in their eyes. Too competent, too social, too anti-corruption.

They had one in bangladesh the other day.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#339

Post by Ekaros »

baby wrote: post #305
yetihehe wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is still very high, so they can go much much lower, but I think they might go to some still lower places, finding them where we didn't even know such places could exist. Some ideas: - Leave NATO - Start openly supporting Russia and North Korea - Arrest whole International Criminal Court - Preventively invade China

I'm convinced slavery will be reintroduced before 2028

Fully enshrined in the constitution with massive support for the document. Just need to imprison them for something first.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#340

Post by vanviegen »

lostlogin wrote: post #269
agentifysh wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's absolutely bewildering how ridiculous everything has been so far in terms of competence and this really takes the cherry on the top near Christmas too. how much lower can they go ?!

The really interesting bit is whether they can go another term.

They seem to be ahead of schedule abolishing a working democracy before the midterms.
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