4 ms·

So here is an idea for an email feature/gmail plugin: 'Semantic Scramble' Basically, any sensitive email that you send to a bunch of people is automatically scr

by jayzee 14y ago

So here is an idea for an email feature/gmail plugin: 'Semantic Scramble' Basically, any sensitive email that you send to a bunch of people is automatically scrambled (retaining original meaning/correct grammar, just a small shuffling of words) so that each person gets a unique email. Easy to find out who leaked it. You could add a similar unique jitter for sensitive photos/images...

cdixon 14y ago
The canary trap.
- lotharbot 14y ago
  For those not familiar with the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap
- eddie_the_head 14y ago
  This is how the music industry does it with material they send out to different parties like reviewers or magazines with tools like Haulix, except they use watermarks that are undetectable to the ear but encoded in the file itself. Wrt email however, I don't think Paul really minded that it was leaked or just realized it was futile to stop it, perhaps that's why he un-killed it.
- dmor 14y ago
  PR people do this, it works
Alex3917 14y ago
That's called salting, and many firms already do it. I'm not aware of any software packages to automate this, but I haven't looked either.
Smerity 14y ago
Considering PG didn't strike down the story I presume to think he expected it to leak out or didn't ask it to remain confidential. Re: "Semantic Scramble", this was/is used quite successfully in a university course I tutored. Students are supplied with Java code featuring a unique comment style (/ * */). So many students blindly copied code out of another student's assignment and submitted it as their own that we could effectively generate a map of the plagiarism without even looking at the code -_- For images steganography would work easily enough and for "semantic scramble" see "Practical Linguistic Steganography using Lexical Substitution"[1] from EMNLP 2010 =] [1]: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sc609/pubs/emnlp10frannie.pdf http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sc609/pubs/emnlp10frannie.pdf
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- jorgeortiz85 14y ago
  Or pg realizes that once the cat is out of the bag, you can't put it back in. If he takes it down here, it will be posted elsewhere.
  - rdl 14y ago
    At least this way the cesspit that is Business Insider doesn't get any extra pageviews from YC.
rdl 14y ago
Generally in high security environments, you don't transmit sensitive information on systems where you're one button (intentional or accidental) from sending the information to the public. Clearly labeling every instance of the information with how sensitive it is also helps (per page or per paragraph). It's unrealistic to build a separate semi-airgapped network for most business purposes, but email is broken for sensitive information -- some kind of document room/DLP/etc. system is probably a good idea.
petercooper 14y ago
But there's another idea: when you want to share a sensitive e-mail, you run it through a 'Semantic Scramble' so it can't be detected that you specifically leaked it.
chaz 14y ago
Wouldn't this be easy to defeat by changing words around yourself before distributing? It would either match to someone else's copy of the email, or not match anyone at all. It would need to be highly resilient to a lot of tampering, which doesn't seem reasonable for relatively short documents like emails.

by jayzee 14y ago

cdixon 14y ago

The canary trap.

lotharbot 14y ago
For those not familiar with the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap
eddie_the_head 14y ago
This is how the music industry does it with material they send out to different parties like reviewers or magazines with tools like Haulix, except they use watermarks that are undetectable to the ear but encoded in the file itself. Wrt email however, I don't think Paul really minded that it was leaked or just realized it was futile to stop it, perhaps that's why he un-killed it.
dmor 14y ago
PR people do this, it works

Alex3917 14y ago

That's called salting, and many firms already do it. I'm not aware of any software packages to automate this, but I haven't looked either.

Smerity 14y ago

Considering PG didn't strike down the story I presume to think he expected it to leak out or didn't ask it to remain confidential. Re: "Semantic Scramble", this was/is used quite successfully in a university course I tutored. Students are supplied with Java code featuring a unique comment style (/ * */). So many students blindly copied code out of another student's assignment and submitted it as their own that we could effectively generate a map of the plagiarism without even looking at the code -_- For images steganography would work easily enough and for "semantic scramble" see "Practical Linguistic Steganography using Lexical Substitution"[1] from EMNLP 2010 =] [1]: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sc609/pubs/emnlp10frannie.pdf http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sc609/pubs/emnlp10frannie.pdf

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jorgeortiz85 14y ago
Or pg realizes that once the cat is out of the bag, you can't put it back in. If he takes it down here, it will be posted elsewhere.
- rdl 14y ago
  At least this way the cesspit that is Business Insider doesn't get any extra pageviews from YC.

rdl 14y ago

Generally in high security environments, you don't transmit sensitive information on systems where you're one button (intentional or accidental) from sending the information to the public. Clearly labeling every instance of the information with how sensitive it is also helps (per page or per paragraph). It's unrealistic to build a separate semi-airgapped network for most business purposes, but email is broken for sensitive information -- some kind of document room/DLP/etc. system is probably a good idea.

petercooper 14y ago

But there's another idea: when you want to share a sensitive e-mail, you run it through a 'Semantic Scramble' so it can't be detected that you specifically leaked it.

chaz 14y ago

Wouldn't this be easy to defeat by changing words around yourself before distributing? It would either match to someone else's copy of the email, or not match anyone at all. It would need to be highly resilient to a lot of tampering, which doesn't seem reasonable for relatively short documents like emails.