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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

#511

Post by pwg »

sallveburrpi wrote: post #493
pwg wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The journalist writing the story has the same level of technical knowledge about how to "redact" properly in the digital realm as the individuals doing the redaction. To the journalist, with zero knowledge of the technical aspects, viewing the "redacted" document, it appears to be "redacted", so when someone "unredacts" it, the action of revealing the otherwise hidden material appears to be "magical" to them (in the…

I would consider it gross negligence on the journalists part to not know the technical details here. It’s really not that hard; as someone else on this thread pointed out even my grandma knows this… You can find out the technical details in one quick search. How someone like this gets a paying job as a journalist is beyond me.

Most journalists are ex. English majors (or some other non-technical degree). I would not expect any (even the supposed tech. journalists) to understand the technology they report upon to the level that us here on HN understand that same technology.

Their job is to write coherent articles that gather views, not truly understand what it is they are writing about. That's why the Gell-Mann Amnesia [1] aspect so often crops up for any technical article (hint, it also crops up for every article, but we don't recognize the mistakes the journalist makes in the articles where we don't have the underlying knowledge to recognize the mistakes).

[1] https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#512

Post by yunwal »

afavour wrote: post #472
Arch-TK wrote: post #462

It sets a bad precedent to call things like this hacks. Firstly, calling this redaction implies that the data is missing, and calling what was done "unredacting" is akin to saying someone "decrypted" a cryptographic hash function. Nobody unredacted anything here, they merely discovered that it hadn't been redacted, and simply looked like it was redacted. Calling this a hack places responsibility on the people who dis…

You’re absolutely correct but I think your comment also highlights something important: we don’t have a good word to represent what it is Unfortunately “hack” became a catch all word long ago. Just look at “life hacks”.

Just look at hackernews

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#513

Post by seg_lol »

xzjis wrote: post #470
jvanderbot wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here we are again rediscovering Hanlon's Razor.

It wouldn't be malicious though. Well, it's malicious towards the Trump administration, but not towards the people. Quite the opposite.

The maliciousness is always towards the compliance.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#515

Post by gosub100 »

hiddencost wrote: post #86
Sparkyte wrote: post #82

I think this is a good thing. I think the people talking dictator this and that do not understand we have the ability to critique the administration. What we lack is control of the underhanded lobbyism. It is a warped democracy but still a democracy.

Bruh they're kidnapping people in the streets. They took over CBS and censored a documentary about CECOT.

> They took over CBS

Careful, this will get you labeled an antisemite

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#516

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

michaelt wrote: post #492
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lots of people involved means that it's more likely to be malicious compliance or deniable sabotage. It only needs one person who disagrees with the redactions to start doing things that they know will allow info to leak.

Doesn’t having lots of people involved also raise the chance of incompetence? You’re more likely to get at least one inept agent in a random sample of 1000 than a sample of 10.

Yep - I think they're both likely.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#517

Post by SilasX »

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…

Also the pedophile that tried to obscure his face in pictures with a swirl effect that they were able to reverse enough to identify him:

https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2007/11/you-can-swi...

IIRC there was a Slashdot discussion about it that went "Oh yeah, obviously you need to black out the face entirely, or use a randomized Gaussian blur." "Yeah, or just not molest kids."

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#518

Post by TZubiri »

Arch-TK wrote: post #462

It sets a bad precedent to call things like this hacks. Firstly, calling this redaction implies that the data is missing, and calling what was done "unredacting" is akin to saying someone "decrypted" a cryptographic hash function. Nobody unredacted anything here, they merely discovered that it hadn't been redacted, and simply looked like it was redacted. Calling this a hack places responsibility on the people who dis…

It also removes blame from the departments that redacted, it's not like they messed up big time, no, some resourceful brainiac hackers did things that were not allowed to undo the redaction process that was put in place to protect victims.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#519

Post by hxtk »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #299
groestl wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I suppose the best process would be this, and then after rescanning putting a black bar over each redacted text with image editing.

Or if the document is just text, simply scan it in black and white (as in, binary, not grayscale).

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#520

Post by sillyfluke »

SilasX wrote: post #508
pwg wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The journalist writing the story has the same level of technical knowledge about how to "redact" properly in the digital realm as the individuals doing the redaction. To the journalist, with zero knowledge of the technical aspects, viewing the "redacted" document, it appears to be "redacted", so when someone "unredacts" it, the action of revealing the otherwise hidden material appears to be "magical" to them (in the…

This. Similar issue if you introduce someone to how you can "view source" and then edit (your view of) a website. They're like "omg haxors!" True story: one time I used that technique to ask for a higher credit card limit than the options the website presented. Interestingly enough, they handled it gracefully by sending me a rejection for a higher amount and an acceptance for the maximum offered amount (the one I edi…

> "view source" and then edit (your view of) a website.

Yes, but you see it says "view source" not "edit page live". Don't really see why it wouldn't be "omg" for them.

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