WYSINWYG or Improper Redaction Techniques
This afternoon I noticed in Joe Hall’s weblog that the Library of Congress had published the comments submitted thus far on the inquiry on orphan works. Joe commented that he was having difficulty copying and pasting from the PDF documents because of the DRM on the files, ostensibly used to help protect the redaction of the personal information contained in the files.
Unfortunately, I was able to quickly confirm a suspicion of mine. It was trivial for me to expose the “redacted” information from the documents, which had not been redacted at all, but merely covered with white boxes to obscure. I have posted an example image to the right, click the thumbnail to enlarge.
Thus, the personal information of everyone who submitted comment to the L.O.C. has their personal information available, over 700 of them at present. (No, I won’t be posting the method I used here, but it does not involve any specialized level of skill.)
This is not the first time something like this has happened. Redacted information cannot merely be obscured in digital formats, it is important that it is destroyed in the public version of a document, otherwise it will always be recoverable.
This is an amusing coincidence for me, as I am currently working on a upcoming presentation that talks about precisely these types of issues.
N.B.: I got Joe’s permission to post his data as the example document, and the appropriate people at the Library of Congress are being notified about the issue. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.
UPDATE 4/01: The LoC has now removed the documents, and replaced them with copies that fix the issue.
Boing Boing on 30 Mar 2005 at 11:46 pm
700+ Orphan Works comments at the Copyright Office
Gavin sez, “The U.S. Copyright Office has posted the orphan works comments that were submitted. Over 700 comments were submitted in total. The CO will be accepting comments in direct reply to these through May 9.” Lessig (for Save the Music and CC): …
BONWAG on 05 Apr 2005 at 6:24 am
Dave’s Theo-Tech: Redaction, Republishing, Redemption
It’s been interesting following the trials and tribulations of the US Library of Congress as they struggle to come to terms with 21st century technology. It occurs to me that there are some interesting spiritual parallels with their current problems….
BONWAG on 05 Apr 2005 at 6:57 am
Dave’s Theo-Tech: Redaction, Republishing, Redemption
It’s been interesting to follow the recent trials and tribulations of the US Library of Congress as they struggle to come to terms with 21st century technology. It occurs to me that there are some interesting spiritual parallels with their…
BONWAG on 06 Apr 2005 at 8:52 am
Dave’s Theo-Tech: Redaction, Republishing, Redemption
It’s been interesting to follow the recent trials and tribulations of the US Library of Congress as they struggle to come to terms with 21st century technology. It occurs to me that there are some interesting spiritual parallels with their…