AT&T Accidentally Leaks NSA Suit Information

op12 writes "CNET has an article describing how AT&T accidentally leaked sensitive information involving the NSA lawsuit. From the article: 'AT&T's attorneys this week filed a 25-page legal brief striped with thick black lines that were intended to obscure portions of three pages and render them unreadable. But the obscured text nevertheless can be copied and pasted inside some PDF readers, including Preview under Apple's OS X and the xpdf utility used with X11. The deleted portions of the legal brief seek to offer benign reasons why AT&T would allegedly have a secret room at its downtown San Francisco switching center that would be designed to monitor Internet and telephone traffic. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class action lawsuit in January, alleges that room is used by an unlawful National Security Agency surveillance program.""

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw the formatting. Deleting is the only complete answer. And even then you're better off taking an image of the edited file depending on the format.

Asterisks or similar have the problem of being characters. If you replace every redacted character with an asterisk, information can still be gleaned from context and word length. Of course, the same is true of black lines when using a fixed width font. I imagine non-fixed-width fonts are also vulnerable, since word lengths and average character length can be known.

Re:When will they learn?

[Bogtha]

Ever think that somebody was "stupid" on purpose in order to leak the information without going to jail? After all, assuming that they haven't had training in computer security and the specific software in question (after all, who is actually trained to create PDFs?), a prosecutor have a hard time proving that they should have known better.

Remember when Patriots died for Freedom?

[WillAffleckUW]

But now we just let them spy on us, arrest us without warrants, ship American citizens off to foreign prisons to be tortured for years without any formal charges, and turn the Constitution into confetti for their personal profit.

That said, the NSA has never been that legal, from a constitutional view, but noone is willing to challenge their existance, most likely due to fear or threat of tag teams of government lawsuits, IRS audits, and other tricks used by those who wish America to live in Fear.

Plausible bullshit.

[way2trivial]

Not the first time 'redacted' pdf's when 'uncovered' have led to increase the defensive position of the group who supplied the 'poorly' protected document.

I recall a redacted PDF from italy that 'supported' the US gov'ts claims at the time..

it's too damn convenient, if the redacted portion had been damming.. I'm sure the doc would have been on paper, with the blocked portions cut out... not blacked over with a sharpie.

Re:Amazingly Sloppy

[Kaenneth]

The NSA has really strong document rules. Any kind of photographic film, electronic device, so much as a furbie isn't allowed in their work areas, they have multiple sets of telephones, to keep the secret and very secret stuff separate. along with lie detector tests, and background investigations of their employees (not just pulling a credit/criminal records, they send people to talk to employees 1st grade teachers...) very little could get through.

Re:Why are they suing AT&T?

[DragonWriter]

AT&T is the one prohibited by law from providing this information; the government isn't prohibited from receiving it, though they are prohibited from seizing it.

So they are suing the people that broke the law.

Plus, of course, sovereign immunity makes it difficult to sue the government unless it voluntarily decides to let you.

Re:Here's why _you_ should dismiss the case...

[packetmon]

Wow... Six degrees of separation. Let me tell you what recently happened to me after getting a new phone number in my house... Seems the previous user of this number had credit issues up the wazoo... So let's ponder me getting a number that was used by a terrorist. Should I be labeled guilty by association. Your arguments on this are rather weak. There is no algorithm for determining which communication a terrorist is going to use. After all this same administration touts that the wily terrorists are using crypto [usatoday.com]. If they are then all arguments of tapping for the sake of weeding out terrorism are flushed down the drain.

What's next? How about a third reich like system where they allocate an entire demographic region, send all the arabs there and figure out who is who. Would that allay fears? This country is turning into the third reich slowly with their psychological crapaganda getting intermixed with politricks.

[sil@memnon /usr/home/sil]$ which terrorist
[sil@memnon /usr/home/sil]$ finger terrorist
finger: terrorist: no such user
[sil@memnon /usr/home/sil]$ whereis terrorist
terrorist:
[sil@memnon /usr/home/sil]$ find $STATE terrorist | xargs grep -i terror

Right...

Re:Extraordinary rendition?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that, short of a revolution or coup, there's nothing we would be able to accomplish. Gone are the days when government was for the people... now they're for themselves and the businesses that line their pockets. You may say we live in a democracy and can simply voice our opinions with our votes. Try again. Elections are decided by an audience way too suceptible to infomercials and mudslinging ad campaigns paid for by the companies with the most money... the candidate/company with the most money, has the most influence and thus the easiest task of brainwashing the mindless American public. In other words, we're Rome waiting to crumble.

Re:What's amazing is

[iminplaya]

Oh look! American Idol is on!

US pop show victor attracts more votes than any president [telegraph.co.uk]

Re:DMCA anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting off topic, but you might like to know that... It does not matter in which country you violated DMC(P)A, what matters that you may be prosecuted in the US for the said violation.

So, if you broke the DMC(P)A in another country, you may still end up in jail if either:

1) Your country has an extradiction treaty with the US... Most countries do!
2) You are physically present in the U.S. in a non-protected status (i.e. NOT a diplomat, etc.)
3) Your country is being/about to be liberated by the U.S. (e.g. Afganistan, Iraq, Iran, France...)

Re:Extraordinary rendition?

[barefootgenius]

Thank you for your reply. I'm still pretty angry about this and after getting moderated as flamebait (probably correctly), I'm going to cancel my Slashdot account in disgust. If I had the money, I would come over and protest myself but the only money I have is currently negative. Instead I have sent a letter to our PM, as follows;

Dear Prime Minister,
I have just read about extraordinary rendition on an online forum. This is a practice where the American government sends suspects overseas for interrogation and imprisonment. This practice is seen as a way of circumventing their obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. If cases such as these are presented in an American court they are dismissed by the administration on "State Secrets" grounds.
In view of this I would like to ask the Prime Minister to;
*Assure me that we are in no way an accomplice, indirectly or directly, to this practice.
*Investigate these rumors for evidence.
*Act upon any evidence obtained.
I realise that America is the most powerful country in the world currently, but at the same time I don't think any moral person of our country would justify that as grounds for turning a blind eye to torture.
Yours sincerely, .

I doubt that will have any effect, but who knows, maybe she has received a thousands more like it. Good luck, I hope things improve for you. If it gets to bad, you will more than likely be welcome at this end of the world. We aren't totally screwed up in N.Z. yet (just a touch). Its a pity, America once epitomized hope for me. I believed in it standing for freedom, rights, humanity. When Neil Armstrong said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." I believed he meant for mankind. When I visited Los Angeles as a teenager, I liked the people. They were helpful and friendly....just good people. I still believe that most Americans are good people. At some point though, you have to stand for what you believe in or you will lose it. Even if you find it was a lie, it is still better to know.

Over the past five years my impressions of America have been destroyed by the actions of its government both at home and on the world stage. After reading Slashdot over the past year, there was a brief moment of hope that there were people still willing to lay down their comforts for the ideals expressed in your constitution. It seems now that Slashdot is a place were people say they stand for certain ideals, but the saying of it is enough for them. It is not enough for me.

Goodbye, good luck. BarefootGenius.

Re:It's not this admin, liberal JFK spied on ML Ki

[Anonymous Coward]

What JFK did or did not is irrelevant because, at the time, wiretapping-at-will was legal. Telephone conversations were not considered private at the time (you know, with manually operated switchboards, crosstalk, reconnections, you could not reasonably expect your conversation to be private. Kinda same way as if you screw your wife in the park, then sue the city for 'violating your privacy': there is no expectation of privacy at the setting.

NOW, since 1978, due to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/ [fas.org] warrantless spying on Americans became illegal.

To be fair, Clinton had tried same shit, but was bitchslapped back into behaving... because warrantless spying was illegal since 1978! ... that was back when we had REAL conservatives.

With Bush, REAL conservatives turned into kookservatives, the general public is happy with 9/11 excuse...

Q: Why did we invade Iraq, W?
A: terrorism

Q: why do you torture people?
A: 9/11

Q: why does the gas cost $4?
A; bin Laden

Q: why is the sky blue?
A: terrorism?

But hell, people like you know better, people like you know the Truth, people like you have all the answers, even before you hear the question.

Megadildoes, asshole! Good luck to you with all that.

I think there is something important here

[Anonymous Coward]

I have noticed how carefully worded the denials reported recently in the media have been stated. The denials by these companies have taken the form of, "Contrary to media reports, we (AT&T or Bell South or whomever) have not been handing over any data to XYZ agency."

These blacked out portions seem to confirm what is actually happening - ACCESS is being handed over, not data.

XYZ agencies take whatever data they want, once they have access, and the company is doing nothing more affirmative than supplying that access.

Just a guess, but seems likely given the curious locutions and text hidings.

Bullshit statistic

[a_greer2005]

Just for the record, that stat is bogus, you can vote 5 times per phone line, most people have two phone lines, the only way you can vote 10 times for president is to move to Chicago and die...