Are passport numbers secrets?
Yes. The bottom of the post covers some of the things you can do with the number.
When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
61–70 of 354 posts
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#62Are passport numbers secrets?
I'd say sensitive at the very least. Like social security numbers they shouldn't be, but when places use them for identification without checking authenticity and authorization...
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Why don't they convert the PDF to image and convert back? This approach seems to be a lot more efficient, and less prone to other type of human errors (e.g. missing page). Is there still an attack vector?
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#64This is a long read, but trust me, keep reading it's great.
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Why don't they convert the PDF to image and convert back? This approach seems to be a lot more efficient, and less prone to other type of human errors (e.g. missing page). Is there still an attack vector?
It's a bit like point and speak checklists on aircraft - it takes a certain amount of energy to do so you can't skip it without doing it deliberately
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The top solution on this Code Golf question is possibly the most comical example of Mathematica's scope that I've ever seen: https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/71631/upgoat-or...
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#67Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get it, is there something noteworthy about eating a raw onion?
Yes and no. It was the pinnacle in a series of bizzare behaviour from Tony while he was the Prime Minister. Certainly its the one people most remember of him. Keep in mind he ate it with the skin on as well. I think its also something people look out for, with the previous PM Kevin Rudd being somewhat infamous for eating his own ear wax on live TV. When I was working on an archive project for the ABC, "tony eating on…
> I think its also something people look out for, with the previous PM Kevin Rudd being somewhat infamous for eating his own ear wax on live TV.
… as a stunt? On a dare? Why?
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get it, is there something noteworthy about eating a raw onion?
The context: he was on a PR tour of a farm (or factory or something), and grabbed it from a pile and just started eating it like it was an apple, whilst continuing the tour. It caught the public attention at how normal he made eating a raw onion look.
> grabbed it from a pile and just started eating it like it was an apple,
Sounds like a sociopath.
Re: When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number
#70Nice. 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 :)
Yet another example of someone mistaking the quality of a single person for the quality of a platform