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When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

mango.pdf.zone

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Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

#51

Post by Namidairo »

kccqzy wrote: post #26

Nice. Here's a similar personal story with a PSA that sometimes blurring is NOT sufficient. A friend of mine posted on Instagram a picture of a U.S. visa (or something similar; it was probably five years ago) to announce her trip to the U.S., and she took care to blur out sensitive information such as her passport number. But a Gaussian blur is easy to reverse and I successfully unblurred it and told her my discovery…

> and if it is a PDF, convert to an image afterwards because too many PDF editors use non-destructive operations to add a new object instead of changing what's underneath.

You'd be surprised at how many times this happens on Government documents with redaction.

:S

Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

#52

Post by airstrike »

anon9001 wrote: post #29
POiNTx wrote: post #20

Apart from the really interesting content, this is an extremely good read, strikes me as the right kind of balance of information and keeping you entertained. I really enjoyed this writing style!

This was really a delight to read. I wonder if the author was raised on 2600. Fantastic stuff. Also visited his page. Does not disappoint: https://mango.pdf.zone/

Hard mode is an absolute delight

Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

#53

Post by akent »

btilly wrote: post #50

The following line confuses me, because it contradicts a lot in the post. Update: I have been arrested. Is that just an obvious mistake? Or is there a news flash that we would like to hear more on?

Looks like that was yet another joke.

Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

#55

Post by cjbprime »

carrolldunham wrote: post #11

clickbait. no "passport" is found. very long winded insufferable hooting about finding the passport number from an instagrammed boarding pass booking number. is that still a big security hole? i guess. could have been one tweet though

It's not mentioned in the post, but it seemed like you also get access to past and future trip itineraries. Seems like a big deal for a past head of state to me.

Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

#56

Post by banana_giraffe »

Namidairo wrote: post #51
kccqzy wrote: post #26

Nice. Here's a similar personal story with a PSA that sometimes blurring is NOT sufficient. A friend of mine posted on Instagram a picture of a U.S. visa (or something similar; it was probably five years ago) to announce her trip to the U.S., and she took care to blur out sensitive information such as her passport number. But a Gaussian blur is easy to reverse and I successfully unblurred it and told her my discovery…

> and if it is a PDF, convert to an image afterwards because too many PDF editors use non-destructive operations to add a new object instead of changing what's underneath. You'd be surprised at how many times this happens on Government documents with redaction. :S

Even when the black box is done right, sometimes there are quasi side-channel leaks of the size. The box covering a name for instances may be discoverable if there are only a few names possible, and it's a small box, meaning it's the shortest name.

Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

#57

Post by Someone1234 »

Namidairo wrote: post #51
kccqzy wrote: post #26

Nice. Here's a similar personal story with a PSA that sometimes blurring is NOT sufficient. A friend of mine posted on Instagram a picture of a U.S. visa (or something similar; it was probably five years ago) to announce her trip to the U.S., and she took care to blur out sensitive information such as her passport number. But a Gaussian blur is easy to reverse and I successfully unblurred it and told her my discovery…

> and if it is a PDF, convert to an image afterwards because too many PDF editors use non-destructive operations to add a new object instead of changing what's underneath. You'd be surprised at how many times this happens on Government documents with redaction. :S

That's why some even departments now have policies of printing and re-scanning retracted documents. It is dumb, but yet pretty hard to get wrong.

Both MS Word and PDF have leaked redacted/removed information in the past. Wasting paper given the severity of some of these leaks is minimal cost.

Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

#59

Post by ClumsyPilot »

rvz wrote: post #19

We blame these social networks for collecting vast amounts of our private data (yes we should), yet these folk have no problem of posting already sensitive information under a hashtag - creating an Aladdin's cave of identities waiting to be stolen for fraud as this blog-post has demonstrated. 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place' - Eric Schmidt…

Boarding pass clearly should not allow tgis lwvel of access to yiur personal infornatiob- it has one job, boarding a plane.

Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number

#60

Post by mroche »

function_seven wrote: post #37
kccqzy wrote: post #26

Nice. Here's a similar personal story with a PSA that sometimes blurring is NOT sufficient. A friend of mine posted on Instagram a picture of a U.S. visa (or something similar; it was probably five years ago) to announce her trip to the U.S., and she took care to blur out sensitive information such as her passport number. But a Gaussian blur is easy to reverse and I successfully unblurred it and told her my discovery…

Your advice is good, and I agree that you didn't use specialized software to reverse the blur, but this > I didn't use any specialized software; it was just Mathematica with its built-in ImageDeconvolve function with guessed parameters for the Gaussian kernel. is one of the most HN comments I've come across recently :)

> is one of the most HN comments I've come across recently :)

That gave me a laugh. I don't have any experience with Mathematica, but everytime I see it mentioned (usually on HN) I'm amazed at the sheer breadth the system is capable of. The amount of use cases and possibilities blows my mind.

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