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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

#271

Post by pipo234 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #161
eviks wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also had this first thought, but then a hack could just be a way around a limit/lack of authorization, doesn't have to be unknown/sophisticated, so copy of black boxes fits

> limit/lack of authorization By serving up the PDF file I am being authorized to receive, view, process, etc etc the entire contents. Not just some limited subset. If I wasn't authorized to receive some portion of the file then that needed to be withheld to begin with. That's entirely different from gaining unauthorized entry to a system and copying out files that were never publicly available to begin with. To put…

For starts, wouldn't it be kind of ironic to set up limits and authorization in a context that is about making some content available to the public?

I'd say any technical or legal restrictions or possible means to enforce DRM ought to be disabled or absent from the media format used when disseminating content that must be disclosed.

Censorship (of necessary) should purge the data entirely,ie: replace by ###

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#272

Post by reed1234 »

digitaltrees wrote: post #106

Its not a hack to copy and paste text that is part of the document data. The incompetence of the people responsible to comply with the law doesnt mean its reasonable to label something a hack. Please change the title.

And the title should briefly describe the “hack” as well

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#273

Post by ge96 »

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…

The one that was crazy to me is undoing a blur effect (based on its algo), so yeah I also will layer and screenshot something

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#274

Post by eviks »

WalterBright wrote: post #249
eviks wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but smart AF. When Barr’s DOJ released a redacted version of the Mueller Report, they printed the whole thing, made their redactions with actual ink, and then re-scanned every page to generate a new PDF with absolutely no digital trace of the original PDF file. This is a dumb way of doing that, exactly what "stupid" people do when their are somewhat aware of the limits of their competence or only as smart as the te…

> this type of redaction eliminates the possibility to change text length, which is a very common leak when especially for various names/official positions Increasing the size of the redaction box to include enough of the surrounding text to make that very difficult.

But that's a destructive operation!

I mean, sure, you can make the whole paragraph/page blank, but presumably the goal is to share the report removing only the necessary minimum?

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#275

Post by _annum »

sigwinch wrote: post #212
JohnTHaller wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the sheer number of people they had to pull in and work overtime to redact Trump's name as well as those of prominent Republicans and donors as per numerous sources within the FBI and the administration itself, incompetence is likely for a chunk of it.

It’s funny that this effort, the largest exertion of FBI agents second only to 9/11, seems to be unprepared to redact. Cynically, I’m prepared for it to be part of a generative set of PDFs derived from the prompt “create court documents consistent with these 16 PDFs which obscure the role of Donald Trump between 1993 and 1998.”

Generative subterfuge aside, the information being "uncovered" through copy-and-paste could have been modified and we would never know.

I'm leaning towards negligence though.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#276

Post by reed1234 »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #107
digitaltrees wrote: post #106

Its not a hack to copy and paste text that is part of the document data. The incompetence of the people responsible to comply with the law doesnt mean its reasonable to label something a hack. Please change the title.

If I open your laptop and guess your password then that counts as hacking you in both legal and security terms You don't need to do some sophisticated thing for it to be considered hacking

But copying and pasting text of publicly released documents is not illegal. Accessing someone’s computer is illegal. While maybe it could fall under the umbrella of hacking in some general way, articles, and especially titles, should be more precise.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#277

Post by array_key_first »

gruez wrote: post #129
mmh0000 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Layers. PDF is an absurdly complex file format. It's part of the reason there is no single "good" PDF reader, just a lot of mediocre PDF readers that are all terrible in their own way. Which is a topic for another day. There are several ways to remove data in a PDF: - Remove the data. This is much harder than it sounds. Many PDF tools won't let you change the content of a PDF, not because it isn't possible, but becau…

>- Remove the data. This is much harder than it sounds. Many PDF tools won't let you change the content of a PDF, not because it isn't possible, but because you'll likely massively screw up the formatting, and the tools don't want to deal with that. >- Replace the data. This what what all the "blackout" tools do, find "A" and replace with "🮋". This is effective and doesn't break formatting since it's a 1-to-1 replac…

I would not trust either tool to adequately redact documents, though I'm sure it works under normal levels of scrutiny.

The most reliable way is to just screenshot the document or print and scan it, effectively burning it down and recreating it in a new format that has no concept of the past. This works across basically all formats, too, and against all tools.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#278

Post by GistNoesis »

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…

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 )

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#279

Post by groestl »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
cmarschner wrote: post #14

Befuddling that this happened again. It’s not the first time - Paul Manafort court filing (U.S., 2019) Manafort’s lawyers filed a PDF where the “redacted” parts were basically black highlighting/boxes over live text. Reporters could recover the hidden text (e.g., via copy/paste). - TSA “Standard Operating Procedures” manual (U.S., 2009) A publicly posted TSA screening document used black rectangles that did not remov…

"There are major differences between the Trump 1.0 and 2.0 administrations. In the Trump 1.0 administration, many of the most important officials were very competent men. One example would be then-Attorney General William Barr. Barr is contemptible, yes, but smart AF. When Barr’s DOJ released a redacted version of the Mueller Report, they printed the whole thing, made their redactions with actual ink, and then re-sca…

> made their redactions with actual ink, and then re-scanned every page

That's not very competent.

> going analog is foolproof

Absolutely not. There are many way's to f this up. Just the smallest variation in places that have been inked twice will reveal the clear text.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#280

Post by tetha »

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…

Personally, I only trust an image manipulation tool to put down solid colored blocks, or something that does not involve the source pixels when deciding on the redacted pixel. Formats like PDF are just so complicated to trust.
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