3 ms·
That leaks the length of the text
by david_allison 2y ago
That leaks the length of the text
- lmz 2y agoAny in-place redaction leaks the length of the text.
- danjl 2y agoFortunately, most text is proportionally spaced, rather than monospaced, so you cannot really determine the number of characters, only the length in pixels/points of the redacted phrase.
- xp84 2y agoYou're right. In some cases that's plenty, such as with the sentence "Mr. Jones was found XXXXXXXXXXXXXX of the crime." If you know it's likely either "guilty" or "not guilty," then the length (regardless of font) will automatically give away which of these two options it is since you can just 'bruteforce' the whole solution set of two options. No in-place redaction will work for a case like that, except possibly a longer one where the whole sentence is redacted and hopefully no one can guess what kind of sentence it was.
- mywittyname 2y agoNot necessarily. You can white/black out the text and replace it with something that's longer or shorter than the original. It's really just a matter of how much effort the person wants to put into the redaction.