The US really is pathetic.
When do we find out that the nuclear launch codes got changed to "YoureFired!".
Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
481–490 of 810 posts
Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re absolutely correct but I think your comment also highlights something important: we don’t have a good word to represent what it is Unfortunately “hack” became a catch all word long ago. Just look at “life hacks”.
They failed to redact data. That's it. People just read the files afterwards, only formatting was wierd.
They're likely viewing the electronic documents by analogy to photocopies with blacked out sections where there is nothing to distinguish the text from the redacting marks and nothing you can project out. They don't know the structure of the file format and how information in it is encoded or rendered, or even that there is a distinction between encoding and rendering.
(A better analogy might be the original physical document with redaction marks. If the text is printed using a laser printer or a type writer, and the marker used for redaction uses some other kind of ink - let's say one that doesn't dissolve the text's ink or toner in any way - then you can in principle distinguish between the two and thus recover visibility of the text.)
Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#483Earlier 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
I know you’re joking, but grievance over the loss of slavery after the civil war is privately one of the major drivers behind Trumps extremely loyal core supporters.
Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#484It sets a bad precedent to call things like this hacks. Firstly, calling this redaction implies that the data is missing, and calling what was done "unredacting" is akin to saying someone "decrypted" a cryptographic hash function. Nobody unredacted anything here, they merely discovered that it hadn't been redacted, and simply looked like it was redacted. Calling this a hack places responsibility on the people who dis…
Furthermore, this happens so often, so frequently, in so many high profile cases that even my 80 year old mother knows this "secret hack to unredact a pdf".
If you are CIA / FBI / Court / Lawyer or professional full time redactor of documents you should know that the highlighter doesn't delete the text underneath it.
Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#485It sets a bad precedent to call things like this hacks. Firstly, calling this redaction implies that the data is missing, and calling what was done "unredacting" is akin to saying someone "decrypted" a cryptographic hash function. Nobody unredacted anything here, they merely discovered that it hadn't been redacted, and simply looked like it was redacted. Calling this a hack places responsibility on the people who dis…
I also like to think this was maybe done as a form of malicious compliance. Someone inside the agency was tasked with redacting this, and found a way to sneak the information through but still getting it passed by their supervisors, so that the information got out.
It reminds me of the 2008 Underhanded C code contest. The subject was exactly this.
https://www.underhanded-c.org/_page_id_17.html
And the winner's solution is incredibly simple and clever.
Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#486It sets a bad precedent to call things like this hacks. Firstly, calling this redaction implies that the data is missing, and calling what was done "unredacting" is akin to saying someone "decrypted" a cryptographic hash function. Nobody unredacted anything here, they merely discovered that it hadn't been redacted, and simply looked like it was redacted. Calling this a hack places responsibility on the people who dis…
Here on the hacking news website we sure are persnickety about the difference.
Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>Let's crop it anyway That is not cropping. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cropping_(image) >Cropping is the removal of unwanted _outer_ areas from a photographic or illustrated image.
Please forgive my outside the box use of word.
I used it at the time as a reference to the "PNG aCropalypse" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35208721 where I originally shared it in a comment).
The algorithm does also work if you remove the outer areas of the photo.
Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#488It sets a bad precedent to call things like this hacks. Firstly, calling this redaction implies that the data is missing, and calling what was done "unredacting" is akin to saying someone "decrypted" a cryptographic hash function. Nobody unredacted anything here, they merely discovered that it hadn't been redacted, and simply looked like it was redacted. Calling this a hack places responsibility on the people who dis…
The journalist writing the story has the same level of technical knowledge about how to "redact" properly in the digital realm as the individuals doing the redaction. To the journalist, with zero knowledge of the technical aspects, viewing the "redacted" document, it appears to be "redacted", so when someone "unredacts" it, the action of revealing the otherwise hidden material appears to be "magical" to them (in the…
It's not a hard technical concept to grasp that placing a stick-it onto some thing doesn't make the thing behind it disappear.
Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#489Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Some" is 99% crimes against the state with the occasional bone they throw the peasants to look like they care. Heck, murder probably wouldn't even be unlimited if not for the fact that it thumbs it's nose at the state's monopoly on violence.
That's seems like some rather bleak hyperbole. If the goal of a conversation is to seek some improvement above the status quo then this is a solid impasse.
The problems we face can't be accurately assessed let alone solved if we are limited to thinking and reasoning about the government (and large institutions generally) the way we are taught to by our grade school civics class.