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New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

libroot.org

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Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#31

Post by libroot »

londons_explore wrote: post #17

So this is almost certainly redaction by the journalists? 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.

Yes, the journalists did the redactions. The metadata timestamps in one of the documents show that the versions were created three weeks before the publication.

And to be honest, the journalists generally have done a great work on pretty much in all the other published PDFs. We've went through hundreds and hundreds of the published documents, and these two documents were pretty much the only ones which had metadata leak by a mistake revealing something significant (there are other documents as well with metadata leaks/failed redactions, but nothing huge). Our next part will be a technical deep-dive on PDF forensic/metadata analysis we've done.

Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#32

Post by Zigurd »

dfreel wrote: post #21
maqp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is of course very telling that Snowden ended up in Russia. 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 h…

[flagged]

Even if you are playing tic-tac-toe at a chess tournament, you still have to think a move ahead. Saying "Very naive to think that the Russian and Chinese governments didn't get a full copy" makes your initial point moot. If the adversaries you are supposedly worried about already have everything, what's the point of keeping it from the American people?

Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#33

Post by threethirtytwo »

dfreel wrote: post #20
Andrex wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

That’s a one sided view. Secrecy is also used to hide corruption and crimes. There is plenty of corruption going on just within the CIA.

Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#34

Post by anticodon »

dfreel wrote: post #21
maqp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is of course very telling that Snowden ended up in Russia. 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 h…

[flagged]

What Russia and China has in common? Why would somebody work for both countries?

Do you know, for example, that China willingly sells huge amounts of drones to Ukraine?

Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#35

Post by maqp »

dfreel wrote: post #21
maqp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is of course very telling that Snowden ended up in Russia. 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 h…

[flagged]

>Very naive to think that the Russian and Chinese governments didn't get a full copy of the documents Snowden stole and absconded with.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

>Snowden is some sort of hero?

He left his cozy upper middle-class life, partner, and put his life on the line to expose illegal mass surveillance. That's gazillion times more risk and sacrifice to do the right thing, than you'll ever accomplish.

Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#37

Post by cookiengineer »

password4321 wrote: post #16

The "print and scan physical papers back to a PDF of images" technique for final release is looking better and better from an information protection perspective.

> The "print and scan physical papers back to a PDF of images" technique for final release is looking better and better from an information protection perspective.

Note that all (edit: color-/ink-) printers have "invisible to the human eye" yellow dotcodes, which contain their serial number, and in some cases even the public IP address when they've already connected to the internet (looking at you, HP and Canon).

So I'd be careful to use a printer of any kind if you're not in control of the printer's firmware.

There's lots of tools that started to decode the information hidden in dotcodes, in case you're interested [1] [2] [3]

[1] https://github.com/Natounet/YellowDotDecode

[2] https://github.com/mcandre/dotsecrets

[3] (when I first found out about it in 2007) https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/camp/2007/Fahrplan/events/197...

Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#38

Post by tester756 »

password4321 wrote: post #16

The "print and scan physical papers back to a PDF of images" technique for final release is looking better and better from an information protection perspective.

Why not just make screenshoot of every PDF page?

Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#39

Post by maqp »

dfreel wrote: post #20
Andrex wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

>Snowden's aim was to damage the US and its allies, and he succeeded in this.

Dude, nobody's buying this nonsense. Snowden expressed his concerns multiple times. He talked about the surveillance enabling turn-key tyranny, if ever a fascist leader would rise into power in the US. And look what's happening now. He was right, and thank god he blew the whistle, as that gave privacy activists a decade long headstart to get end-to-end encryption deployed.

Re: New information extracted from Snowden PDFs through metadata version analysis

#40

Post by jfengel »

maqp wrote: post #35
dfreel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>Very naive to think that the Russian and Chinese governments didn't get a full copy of the documents Snowden stole and absconded with. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. >Snowden is some sort of hero? He left his cozy upper middle-class life, partner, and put his life on the line to expose illegal mass surveillance. That's gazillion times more risk and sacrifice to do the right thing, than you'll e…

The problem is that much of it wasn't illegal. Some was, but some was just spy agencies doing spy agency things. The laws draw some pretty fine distinctions that are at odds with what you expect.

Perhaps it's worth it to have exposed the genuinely illegal things and have scrutiny on the legal but unpleasant ones. But I don't think that's obviously the case. Spy agencies are by definition going to do stuff you wouldn't approve of if you weren't paying close attention to what protections are in place.

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