How internet sleuths are un-redacting some of the Epstein files

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/epstein-files-unredacting-9.7027723

178 points · 32 comments · view on lemmy.world

32 Comments

ExtremeDullard@piefed.social · 84 pts · 233d (24 replies)

This has been known for years (decades?): setting black text against a black background in a PDF doesn't eliminate the text in the PDF. Duh...

The only reason why this is still an idiotic mistake made by public officials is because public officials are idiots.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 53 pts · 233d (22 replies)

The more I read about what's in some of these files (e.g. a report about Trump being present while a 13yo rape victim's newborn baby was thrown into lake Michigan), the more I'm starting to think it was intentional.

The people who had to go through this shit to redact it might be fascist pieces of shit, but they're still ostensibly in fields at least somewhat related to law enforcement. Having to read shit like that, and then be complicit in covering it up... I dunno.

ExtremeDullard@piefed.social · 24 pts · 233d (11 replies)

the more I’m starting to think it was intentional

That's a mistake. Go by Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

SaraTonin@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 233d

It wouldn’t be malice, it would be altruism

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 233d (8 replies)

Hanlon's razor is and has always been bullshit.

ExtremeDullard@piefed.social · 15 pts · 233d

It's always held true for me. Malice - or forethought - require intelligence, something that's in much shorter supply than anybody would believe.

Stupid usually explains most everything adequately.

non_burglar@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 233d (4 replies)

Is it, though? Has the system been keeping us down, or are the ppl in charge just stupid and greedy? Assigning intent makes the unfairness sting less.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 233d (3 replies)

Has the system been keeping us down, or are the ppl in charge just stupid and greedy?

This is a false choice, it's both. Not all of them are (or were) stupid. But the system is intentionally like this because people are greedy. For money and power.

non_burglar@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 233d (2 replies)

Oh, my apologies.

I didn't realize you were being intractable.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 233d

What? I thought we were having a respectful discussion. My bad I guess I misread the situation

UltraMagnus@startrek.website · 1 pts · 232d

That's true of many rules/razors... I wonder if there's a rule/razor about not putting too much faith in things like murphys law and occams razor.

SaraTonin@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 233d

It basically just means “be kind“

Xaphanos@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 233d

The important thing is "adequately". Sometimes the reality can make it improbable.

Paragone@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 233d (1 reply)

You may never have heard of the AAAA, the Advertisers Against Advertising Alliance..


Imagine a cigarette-company wants some advertising-work done..

Imagine that you're dead set against cigarette-companies, but they don't know that..

Imagine getting the contract, & doing advertising-design for them, where they get an advertising-campaign which to them looks good, but .. doesn't work on people..

Imagine that that is exactly what you had intended..

No card-carrying, no meetings, no visible-connections: only independent people contributing independently.

( I suspect that the drugstore "Life" brand, at Shopper's Drug Mart was done by a member of the AAAA: NOBODY with health-sense would buy that shit, as a result of the campaign they had, years ago, when I lived in a city )


Now remap it from AAAA to someone ordered to redact evil, to protect the regime against accountability..

Imagine you know exactly that this highlighting-with-black won't work..

Imagine that this is exactly why you use the method: to protect accountability, in a dying-empire's deathspasms..

It then becomes possible to "do one's job" & be complicit within the regime ( but notice those falsifying-quotes! ),

while one protects integrity, Justice, & accountability, by doing one's "job" in a way which enables actual-Journalism, should there be any left, to dig-in..


Beauty, eh?

_ /\ _

Karkitoo@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 232d

Sooo, malicious compliance?

My favorite

Jumbie@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 233d (7 replies)

Hold. What. Where do I find this, please?

I’ve read of the copy/paste unredacting but I’ve yet to read them.

MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io · 8 pts · 233d (6 replies)
overthere@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 233d (1 reply)

Man, the contortions that editor had to go through to get to that tame headline are spectacular. The tip says that he raped a pregnant 14 year old then oversaw the murder of her newborn baby.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 233d

Our media has failed us completely

mmmac@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 233d (2 replies)

I saw this yesterday (read the tip pdf, not the article), but am having a hard time believing this. Sounds a bit far fetched

MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io · 1 pts · 233d (1 reply)

Yeah… after finding out the Nasser letter was fake…

mmmac@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 233d

Yeah this more feels like something else though - tip came through 2020 at peak Epstein hype craze, names multiple high profile individuals in an absurdly grotesque crime, that even if true, they'd likely have "people" for these kinds of clean ups, just doesn't pass the smell test for me.

Also with the amount of redactions in trump related files this feels like something they "feed" us so that we pull the string until they can prove its a fake to discredit us

Jumbie@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 233d

Thank you. My default is to assume crazy shit in this timeline is true but some of these sound so fantastical.

tal@lemmy.today · 14 pts · 233d

Even if the text is removed, if the font is a proportional one, the very exact dimensions of any removed text plus knowledge of stuff like kerning can reveal the text.

Avicenna@programming.dev · 8 pts · 233d (1 reply)

that is thousands of FBI man hours wasted for you lol

m33@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 233d

Will the get tax credits for that ?

BlueKey@fedia.io · 3 pts · 233d (5 replies)

As pointed out in the article, how do we deal with documents from people filling the blanks with whatever they want and claim they "unredacted" it?

Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 233d

If they tell you how they did it, you can just do the same thing to the file and see for yourself.

overthere@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 233d

By following the law that required this release of files, which includes things like limiting redactions to specific topics, accompanying the redactions with explanations as to their content, and retaining the unredacted versions for congressional inspection.

They are deliberately creating doubt and confusion to avoid accountability.

Psythik@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 233d

Because that's not how Ctrl+C works.

adespoton@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 231d

The documents are public and the unredacters are documenting what they’re doing to reveal the text.

usrEnter@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 233d
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