4 ms·

Are there tools for trying to predict possible fits for redacted data given font, black bar size, and context?

jmward01 10mo ago
I was thinking something similar. I wonder if the font uses kerning, and you know the rendering engine and the algorithm for how the text was blocked, if you can get exact text back even. Or, at a minimum, rule out words based on the available information. Not a field I am familiar with but I bet there are a lot of ways to uncover the redacted values.
- amarant 10mo ago
  I don't know what fonts are typically used in redacted documents, but surely this kind of technique could be rendered useless by a mono space font? Seems silly not to use a mono space font in these cases.
  - sa46 10mo ago
    Wouldn’t a mono space font provide more information since you can extrapolate the exact number of characters?
    - jstanley 10mo ago
      My guess is that is actually less information than you get from a variable width font.
    - kvthweatt 10mo ago
      Either way, fixed or with index lines.
  - jmward01 10mo ago
    This is the government. The documents are faxed/photo-copied/etc etc. They are a bunch of random docs from random sources and the original creators never thought 'This will be redacted'. They just fired up word and started typing.
estimator7292 10mo ago
https://libraryofbabel.info/ https://libraryofbabel.info/
DavidSJ 10mo ago
In some redacted documents, there is even an alphabetical word index at the end with a list of pages on which the words appear. The redacted words are also redacted in the word index, but the alphabetically preceding and succeeding words are visible, as is the number of index lines taken up by the redacted word's entry, which correlates with the number of appearances of that word. This seems like rather useful information to constrain a search by such a tool.
- kvthweatt 10mo ago
  Yes.
mapontosevenths 10mo ago
Does it even matter? The kind of people who see stuff like this and are still fine with it are likely fine with anything else thats discovered as well. The truth has become irrelevant. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA00025010.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA000250...
kvthweatt 10mo ago
This just attempts to match box dimensions.
dylan604 10mo ago
i'm sure people will ask chatGPT to do this very thing, so it's a good thing LLMs never make shit up

I was thinking something similar. I wonder if the font uses kerning, and you know the rendering engine and the algorithm for how the text was blocked, if you can get exact text back even. Or, at a minimum, rule out words based on the available information. Not a field I am familiar with but I bet there are a lot of ways to uncover the redacted values.

amarant 10mo ago
I don't know what fonts are typically used in redacted documents, but surely this kind of technique could be rendered useless by a mono space font? Seems silly not to use a mono space font in these cases.
- sa46 10mo ago
  Wouldn’t a mono space font provide more information since you can extrapolate the exact number of characters?
  - jstanley 10mo ago
    My guess is that is actually less information than you get from a variable width font.
  - kvthweatt 10mo ago
    Either way, fixed or with index lines.
- jmward01 10mo ago
  This is the government. The documents are faxed/photo-copied/etc etc. They are a bunch of random docs from random sources and the original creators never thought 'This will be redacted'. They just fired up word and started typing.

estimator7292 10mo ago

https://libraryofbabel.info/ https://libraryofbabel.info/

DavidSJ 10mo ago

In some redacted documents, there is even an alphabetical word index at the end with a list of pages on which the words appear. The redacted words are also redacted in the word index, but the alphabetically preceding and succeeding words are visible, as is the number of index lines taken up by the redacted word's entry, which correlates with the number of appearances of that word. This seems like rather useful information to constrain a search by such a tool.

kvthweatt 10mo ago
Yes.

mapontosevenths 10mo ago

Does it even matter? The kind of people who see stuff like this and are still fine with it are likely fine with anything else thats discovered as well. The truth has become irrelevant. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA00025010.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%208/EFTA000250...

kvthweatt 10mo ago

This just attempts to match box dimensions.

dylan604 10mo ago

i'm sure people will ask chatGPT to do this very thing, so it's a good thing LLMs never make shit up