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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

#771

Post by __alexs »

2026iknewit wrote: post #457
__alexs wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has happened so many times I feel like the DoJ must have some sort of standardised redaction pipeline to prevent it by now. Assuming they do, why wasn't it used?

Of course there is a process. There was also a process on how to communicate top secret information, but these idiots prefered to use signal. I'm completly lost on how you can be surprised by this at all? Trump is in there, tells some FBI faboon to black everything out, they collect a group of people they can find and start going through these files as fast as they can. "When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't b…

Here in the UK we have a thing called the civil service. They are not immune from government meddling but if they are good at anything it's writing and following processes, even under duress.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#772

Post by barrkel »

kccqzy wrote: post #742
barrkel wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a student, and using a shareware or trial version of some software and wanted some printed output from it without a watermark, I printed to postscript (chose a printer that supported postscript and the driver used it instead of rasterized images), but using a file instead of a printer. I could then open up the postscript, delete the commands that rendered the watermark, save it, then I converted it to PDF…

You don't need PostScript for that. The PDF text commands are Tj and TJ, and rarely ' and ". They are easy to delete without going through PostScript. Tj means showing a simple text string. TJ means showing an array of strings possibly with space adjustments. ' means moving to the next line and showing a simple string. " means doing that and setting character spacing.

Perhaps, but it's easier to open up and edit a .ps file in a text editor than a PDF. PDF is a binary format with compressed streams, while postscript is just a stack-oriented programming language.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#773

Post by nephihaha »

throwup238 wrote: post #713
nephihaha wrote: post #703

One of the most pathetic things that has come out of this is that the British press refuse to say the phrase "Prince Andrew" anymore. It has to be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Because he was officially stripped of the title. He’s no longer a Prince. It’s not some grand conspiracy to distance him from the royal family, that’s just how titles work and the British are real sticklers about that class nonsense.

He was Prince Andrew back then. It's yet another example of how the silly British press falls into line whenever Buck House tells it to.

The British media also attempted to bury this story several times but couldn't, because it was so big in the USA, and Americans don't take orders from them. The BBC royal coverage has never been anything but propaganda and flattery.

Anyway, the name should be Windsor-Mountbatten, not the other way round (or the string of German names they were anglicised from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Battenberg etc)

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#774

Post by hogrug »

wildzzz wrote: post #744
jm4 wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It often comes down to not using the right software and training issues. They have to use Acrobat, which has a redaction tool. This is expensive so some places cheap out on other tools that don’t have a real redaction feature. They highlight with black and think it does the same thing whereas the redaction tool completely removes the content and any associated metadata from the document. This was basically the only r…

If my law firm can't afford the $20/month for a copy of Acrobat Pro, I'd be very concerned what else they are cutting corners on.

I think it's usually a bit more complicated, i.e. the people who were expected to do processes don't and someone else shows the people asking for access that there's a faster, cheaper, cooler tool.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#775

Post by yunwal »

legulere wrote: post #450
heavyset_go wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to believe this is malicious compliance.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

See also “weaponized incompetence”, which usually has to do with getting out of work but in this case could easily be used to get away with “bad” work for longer.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/weaponized-incompe...

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#776

Post by kccqzy »

barrkel wrote: post #772
kccqzy wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need PostScript for that. The PDF text commands are Tj and TJ, and rarely ' and ". They are easy to delete without going through PostScript. Tj means showing a simple text string. TJ means showing an array of strings possibly with space adjustments. ' means moving to the next line and showing a simple string. " means doing that and setting character spacing.

Perhaps, but it's easier to open up and edit a .ps file in a text editor than a PDF. PDF is a binary format with compressed streams, while postscript is just a stack-oriented programming language.

Tools like qpdf makes it easy to edit a .pdf file in a text editor too. I’d argue using such tools is easier than and simpler than printing to postscript.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#777

Post by phendrenad2 »

crazygringo wrote: post #737
phendrenad2 wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this program really doesn't keep the original image of the document as a raster layer? That's kind of surprising, especially if it's used in the legal world. Personally, I'd always want to be able to recover the original document from the OCR layers. Or, are you saying you can? Then you should tell snopes, because it'll make the snopes article a lot shorter if they can just lead with that.

I think you are misunderstanding. The pipeline is e.g.: Scan (600 dpi) > MRC (600 dpi) > OCR (600 dpi) > Downsample (150 dpi) > Save to PDF (150 dpi) The image is saved in raster format at 150 dpi. That's the document, but not at the original scanning resolution . If you performed MRC and OCR at the 150 dpi level, you'd get different/worse results than were originally gotten at 600 dpi. Which is why you always OCR be…

I didn't see the original pixels in the document at any resolution though. That's the point.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#778

Post by dietr1ch »

I thought that the font spacing allowed for some statistical analysis. Also some letters sneak out of the redaction boxes, but the PDF file having removable black highlighter boxes on top is pathetic.

At least it gives the US a better chance of doing a u-turn on the steep downhill path it recently took. Maybe it was intentional incompetence.

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#779

Post by crazygringo »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #777
crazygringo wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are misunderstanding. The pipeline is e.g.: Scan (600 dpi) > MRC (600 dpi) > OCR (600 dpi) > Downsample (150 dpi) > Save to PDF (150 dpi) The image is saved in raster format at 150 dpi. That's the document, but not at the original scanning resolution . If you performed MRC and OCR at the 150 dpi level, you'd get different/worse results than were originally gotten at 600 dpi. Which is why you always OCR be…

I didn't see the original pixels in the document at any resolution though. That's the point.

You don't see the pixels when you zoom in? Try again:

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/rss...

If you don't see jaggy pixel edges to the letters and form elements, what do you see?

Re: Some Epstein file redactions are being undone

#780

Post by stevenwoo »

guerrilla wrote: post #680
stevenwoo wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not expect the one case in other documents where a 13 year old pregnant child was raped by Trump and her baby was killed by a relative. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA000250...

These rape allegations are from 2016 originally. There's already a court case about it. So, it's both already known and just allegations. That doesn't help us and shouldn't surprise us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct...

There was a tip revealed to be from 2020 that linked him to this case:https://old.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1pve21d/unredacted_fbi...
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