More PDF Blackout Follies 309
georgewilliamherbert writes "The latest installment of "As the PDF Blackouts Turn" hit today, with a U.S. government apparently releasing a redacted version of their court filing in the Balco grand jury leak case
which merely stuck a black line over the text, which remains available in the document. As with prior documents, entering text cut/paste mode in a normal PDF browser such as Acrobat allows a reader to access the concealed text. Previous incidents include an AT&T filing in the NSA case." This works with Xpdf and KPDF, too; for KPDF, use the selection tool (under the Tools menu) around the redacted section, copy to clipboard, then paste into the text-manipulator of your choice.
People...learn...? (Score:3, Interesting)
--
"And the geek shall inherit the earth."
works in older acroread too (Score:4, Interesting)
i hate the new acrobat reader. some claim it calls home to the mothership(Adobe) which i dont approve of either (spyware)...
Nice and secure. Riiiiggght... (Score:4, Interesting)
Really nice to know that these folks has taken an apparent cue on safe and secure documents from the folks in Redmond.
On a serious note... this is seriously scary. Imagine if the NSA and other agencies are redacting all of their documents this way an passing them around the world to field offices, embassies and elsewhere.
Imagine the implications during legal proceedings here in the States. Yikes.
And these are... (Score:1, Interesting)
If you want my opinion (or even if you don't...:-p) this is the achelle's(sp) heel of our society today, most people are lazy bastards that just want to get done with somethign without learning anything about it. People just want to finish school to get a degree and do whatever. This is BS. That takes moeny from people like me who want a PhD (I'm an undergrad at the momenet) in a research science (bio, chem, and/or the computational varients of them), but can't get enough money to even pay tuition and buy the books I need. I would more than gladly work for the school to do it, but money is tight and work-study is hard to come by here.
Another thing that pisses me off is incopetence. This article is a good example. Getting a few days to a week of for St. Patriks day is another (who the hell gets of for St. Pat's day?). I wish I had the time to do an indepth study of stupid laws that take up time in congress. Stupid piggy basks attached to laws (one was mentioned yesterday on
So yeah, in conclusion, someone without computer experince was told to do somethign, did it without thinking or asking (my gf would at least ask if she has to do something she's unsure about, then it becomes the attoney's fault, not her's) someone else who should know more.
The New Way for Gov't Transparency (Score:5, Interesting)
Leave PDF the way it is. In fact, make it really hard to actually redact something, but put a tool front-and-center that looks like its redacting something.
Then - remove any delete capability from Outlook. Trash is fine, but not delete.
Then - configure all Windows machines to be inherently wide open, so that we may all peer into gov't computers. Oh wait, this is already true.
Sometimes I think those in positions of high gov't power should forfeit practically all privacy for the duration of their term. Put a webcam on these fuckers 24/7. Does that sound... draconian? Unreasonable? Maybe. But after losing billions of dollars in things like Iraq military contract debacles, I don't trust any of these people. They certainly don't trust us.
Someone missed the memo (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.nsa.gov/snac/vtechrep/I333-TR-015R-200
Re:Redacting right is HARD (Score:3, Interesting)
This frightens me!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Normal average government workers should NOT be redacting, the people who redact should be those who know that if they screw-up, they may be screwing themselves or good friends in the process. Have people do it(redact) who have something to lose.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:History repeats itself (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Clear as Mud (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:People...learn...? (Score:3, Interesting)
This represents a fundamental difference between how geeks/nerds think, and how the population at large thinks. Those technically inclined, whether they're gear-heads, pencil-pushers or computer geeks all take pride in knowing the HOW and WHY of the inner workings of almost everything around them. In fact, of the 3 examples I listed, the only real difference is their own proclivities. Gear-heads are gear-heads because they LOVE cars, computer geeks are computer geeks because they LOVE computers, and pencil-pushers (aka bean-counters, or Analysts in modern corporate-speak) love the truth in numbers!
This raises the question, from my geek perspective, "Why do some people not care to educate themselves on how the things they use in their life work?" I mean, aside from the obvious benefit of saving a metric butt-ton on services most people pay an arm and a leg for, you can work on just about anything once you get bitten by the knowledge bug.
Also, IMHO, probably the biggest advantage to being the geeky type is the personal pride one feels when accomplishing something difficult (such as fixing their PC, figuring out how to properly redact text in a particular file format, or rebuilding your engine)!! While I realize that pride can be a bad thing, when it's the kind of pride that makes you happy to be who you are, capable of the things you are, thats a HUGE confidence boost and spills over into so many other areas in life, you'd be silly not to try and take advantage of it!
Oh, and one last thing. I wouldn't be so quick to assume those reading slashdot can't do some of the things you listed. In fact, knowing a few of our fellow
Anyone think this may have not been an acident? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:History repeats itself (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Common problem with today's UIs (Score:3, Interesting)
I use that feature quite often and it was only yesterday that I noticed that the little triangle turns from black to dark blue when you’re viewing a filtered set. All this time I was thinking there really ought to be some sort of visual indication (other than the wonky row numbers).
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
Real redactors use razors. You hold up one of those redacted documents and it looks like a punch card.
On Purpose? (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, wait, we're talking about the government?
Nevermind.
Re:MS Word Redaction Tool (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:And these are... (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean like when people are too lazy to spell check their posts on Slashdot? Look, most people can usually excuse spelling and grammar mistakes but your argument would be much stronger without the brazen hypocrisy.