11–20 of 139 posts
This is insightful work, great job. Recently someone else revisited the Snowden documents and also found more info, but I can't recall the exact details. Snowden and the archives were absolute gifts to us all. It's a shame he didn't release everything in full though.
Can someone spell out how this is possible? Do pdfs store a complete document version history? Do they store diffs in the metadata? Does this happen each time the document is edited?
You can replace objects in PDF documents. A PDF is mostly just a bunch of objects of different types so the readers know what to do with them. Each object has a numbered ID. I recommend mutool for decompressing the PDF so you can read it in a text editor: mutool clean -d in.pdf out.pdf If you look below you can see a Pages list (1 0 obj) that references (2 0 R) a Page (2 0 obj). 1 0 obj > endobj 2 0 obj > endobj Rath…
This is insightful work, great job. Recently someone else revisited the Snowden documents and also found more info, but I can't recall the exact details. Snowden and the archives were absolute gifts to us all. It's a shame he didn't release everything in full though.
[flagged]
This is insightful work, great job. Recently someone else revisited the Snowden documents and also found more info, but I can't recall the exact details. Snowden and the archives were absolute gifts to us all. It's a shame he didn't release everything in full though.
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If our system is so flawed Snowden's leaks would have blown everything up, maybe the system deserves to be blown up.
Otherwise we're just papering over flaws which likely will be discovered and exploited eventually.
I have read claims that there were fake documents inserted in those leaks, who aimed at pushing disinformation.
It is disappointing they didn't mark those sections "redacted", with an explanation of why.
It is also disappointing they didn't have enough technical knowhow to at least take a screenshot and publish that rather than the original PDF which presumably still contains all kinds of info in the metadata.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can replace objects in PDF documents. A PDF is mostly just a bunch of objects of different types so the readers know what to do with them. Each object has a numbered ID. I recommend mutool for decompressing the PDF so you can read it in a text editor: mutool clean -d in.pdf out.pdf If you look below you can see a Pages list (1 0 obj) that references (2 0 R) a Page (2 0 obj). 1 0 obj > endobj 2 0 obj > endobj Rath…
To put it reaaaaaly simple, a PDF is like a notion document (blocks and bricks) with a git-like object graph?
But yeah. It's all just objects pointing at each other. It's mostly tree structured, but not entirely. You have a Catalog of Pages that have Resources, like Fonts (that are likely to be shared by multiple pages hence, not a tree). Each Page has Contents that are a stream of drawing instructions.
This gives you a sense of what it all looks like. The contents of a page is a stack based vector drawing system. Squint a little (or stick it through an LLM) and you'll see Tf switches to Font F4 from the resources at size 14.66, Tj is placing a char at a position etc.
2 0 obj
>
>>
/Contents 5 0 R
>>
endobj
5 0 obj
>
stream
q
BT
/F4 14.66 Tf
1 0 0 -1 0 .47981739 Tm
0 -13.2773438 Td Tj
10.5842743 0 Td Tj
ET
Q...
endstream
endobj
This is insightful work, great job. Recently someone else revisited the Snowden documents and also found more info, but I can't recall the exact details. Snowden and the archives were absolute gifts to us all. It's a shame he didn't release everything in full though.
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Yeah it's almost like you can revoke someone's passport during their layover in Russia and make the people with MAGA-levels of intelligence take the optics at face value through decade long repeated messaging.
If Snowden was a Russian spy, he would've taken the files, given them to Putin, received the largest Datša in the country and we would never have heard from him or the files. Instead, he gave it to journalists who made the call what to release.
If you don't want people to blow the whistle, stop breaking the damn law https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/03/edward-snowd...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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The best way to fix a problem is to bring it into the light, not pretend it doesn't exist. "Security by obscurity" has been debunked for decades. If our system is so flawed Snowden's leaks would have blown everything up, maybe the system deserves to be blown up. Otherwise we're just papering over flaws which likely will be discovered and exploited eventually.