more on NSA explains how to redact documents electronically

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Geoff Kuenning <geoff () cs hmc edu>
Date: January 24, 2006 10:15:26 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: Ip Ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: NSA explains how to redact documents electronically

What frightens me about this document is that it suggest redaction by
complete rewriting.

When a government document is released under FOIA, we have a
reasonable assurance that the redacted version is indeed based on the
original.  This assurance is partly based on trust in the process, but
is also due to the relative ease of blacking out text versus
recreating the entire document.

In addition, the blacking-out approach gives us important information
about what was redacted.  That's often very useful to those who are
seeking to expose government misconduct.

When redaction is done by creating a new document and pasting in old
text, opportunities for misbehavior and errors abound.  The NSA's
suggestions do address one such issue: figures appearing in the wrong
place.  But what's to prevent a redacter from deciding to change a
critical word while editing?  If text is merely deleted, how are we to
know where the redactions took place?

The NSA employs some of the best programmers in the world.  Surely
they could write a "PDF flattener" that would detect all cases where A
covered B, and remove the information in B from the document.  Such a
tool would be more secure than the approach of hand copying by
element, and would also be much less labor-intensive.  Finally, it
would return the balance of effort from favoring redaction to favoring
disclosure.
--
    Geoff Kuenning   geoff () cs hmc edu   http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/

Paymasters come in only two sizes: one sort shows you where the book
says that you can't have what you've got coming to you; the second
sort digs through the book until he finds a paragraph that lets you
have what you need even if you don't rate it.  Doughty was the second
sort.
        -- Robert A. Heinlein, "The Door Into Summer"


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/