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Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

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Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#21

Post by aix1 »

lagrange77 wrote: post #11

Reminds me of the strategy of map companies, that planted tiny errors or fictional streets in their maps, so that they can identify other map companies, that copied their work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street

The following is only tangentially related, but somewhat interesting. For most of its history the USSR systematically distorted publicly available maps of the country, misplacing or omitting streets and geographical features etc. This was done as a security measure, while accurate maps were classified.

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/03/world/soviet-aide-admits-...

In contrast, the classified maps were remarkably detailed:

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#22

Post by theCrowing »

staplung wrote: post #12

It’s called whitespace watermarking and seems to be one of those ideas that keeps getting re-invented. It’s used a lot, particularly in HTML where the rendering hides the identifying spaces. It can help you figure out if someone is scrapping your content.

yeah, the biggest case might have been Google vs genius. There are also more elaborate things done for documents with a 500 company we rolled out fonts with slightly different hinting to determine in which ring the leaks were happening.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#23

Post by greggsy »

staplung wrote: post #12

It’s called whitespace watermarking and seems to be one of those ideas that keeps getting re-invented. It’s used a lot, particularly in HTML where the rendering hides the identifying spaces. It can help you figure out if someone is scrapping your content.

Margaret Thatcher did this in the 80’s to help identify who was leaking cabinet documents to the press.

I recall a story about Jobs tracking down leakers in his own executive suite by telling each of them a slightly different things in private. Not sure if it worked, but it can be a very effective deterrent.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#24

Post by Freak_NL »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #17
hirundo wrote: post #5

Now that this is known they'll need an approach that can survive retyping, like word choice and order. That can be defeated by rephrasing but requires even more work, and is somewhat identifying of the rephraser. If you find a corporate document with a lot of weird sounding word choices and ordering ... it's probably just written by someone not great with the language.

This would be a good use of GPT-3: take a leaked document and rephrase it so that the original is not identifiable, while keeping the meaning the same.

Or just a thesaurus (which is already a technique in use).

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#26

Post by themaninthedark »

988747 wrote: post #18
jmeister wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what it's like in military organizations around the world and in history? Most men don't have a problem with authoritarian hierarchies as long as the hierarchy is justified in their view. Tech people are extremely coddled and clueless about how the rest of the world works and the moral intuitions of normal people. "The authoritarian relation between the one who commands and the one who obeys rests neither…

It changes with age. Men in their teens/twenties are followers, by your mid-thirties you start to question things.

Pretty sure that the rebellion starts in the teens, source: myself, all my friends and now my friends children.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#27

Post by mooner »

988747 wrote: post #18
jmeister wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what it's like in military organizations around the world and in history? Most men don't have a problem with authoritarian hierarchies as long as the hierarchy is justified in their view. Tech people are extremely coddled and clueless about how the rest of the world works and the moral intuitions of normal people. "The authoritarian relation between the one who commands and the one who obeys rests neither…

It changes with age. Men in their teens/twenties are followers, by your mid-thirties you start to question things.

I'm past 40 and I see this in my workplace. All my colleagues who work long hours are in their 20s, particularly the fresh graduates who just joined. I try to gently tell them that they can just work their 7.5 hours per day and go home like us old guys, but they seem determined to burn the candle at both ends. Ah well, they'll learn - when they burn out.

Re: Tesla has used space characters in internal emails to identify leaks

#28

Post by unsupp0rted »

Freak_NL wrote: post #24
unsupp0rted wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a good use of GPT-3: take a leaked document and rephrase it so that the original is not identifiable, while keeping the meaning the same.

Or just a thesaurus (which is already a technique in use).

As long as the leaker doesn't copy-paste the original and start replacing words. They'll have to clean up all the hidden chars and spaces too, then pull out the thesaurus as a last step.
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