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You’re absolutely correct but I think your comment also highlights something important: we don’t have a good word to represent what it is Unfortunately “hack”
by afavour 10mo ago
You’re absolutely correct but I think your comment also highlights something important: we don’t have a good word to represent what it is
Unfortunately “hack” became a catch all word long ago. Just look at “life hacks”.
- kungito 10mo agoThey failed to redact data. That's it. People just read the files afterwards, only formatting was wierd.
- lo_zamoyski 10mo agoThey're likely viewing the electronic documents by analogy to photocopies with blacked out sections where there is nothing to distinguish the text from the redacting marks and nothing you can project out. They don't know the structure of the file format and how information in it is encoded or rendered, or even that there is a distinction between encoding and rendering. (A better analogy might be the original physical document with redaction marks. If the text is printed using a laser printer or a type writer, and the marker used for redaction uses some other kind of ink - let's say one that doesn't dissolve the text's ink or toner in any way - then you can in principle distinguish between the two and thus recover visibility of the text.)
- calgoo 10mo agoTo complicated, the people doing the redacting pasted digital stickers ontop of the text, people are just removing the stickers.
- mjevans 10mo agoFile formats are complicated. The only reliable way to redact is to reduce that complication to one which humans can manage. This is even true for software that is written by humans. Plain text and flat images are my preferred formats for things which must be redacted. Images require a slight bit of special care, as the example in the underhanded C contest highlights, but it's possible to enforce visible redaction and transcription steps that destroy hidden information.
- silveira 10mo agoIf you unlock a lock, that's still a lock. Also, in light of everything that is happening, is incredible that the top comment on this thread is about some minor semantic definitions.
- shkkmo 10mo agoAnd it is still a lock if it was just hanging there and not actually locked as in this case.
- pessimizer 10mo agoThere's nothing else to say about this. Also, your comment is nested even deeper within the same semantic squabbling, so it's odd that you think that it's a waste of time in light of more important things that you are also not talking about.
- flufluflufluffy 10mo agoYeah but there was no lock; somebody put a box around the doorknob without anything holding it there, and somebody removed the box and opened the door.
- afavour 10mo agoI think that doesn’t do the scenario justice. They tried to redact and did so in a way that looks visibly redacted (in screenshots many have seen) but can be uncovered. If you say “they failed to redact data” to a layperson looking at a visibly redacted document they’re going to be confused.
- mannykannot 10mo agoHow about "the documents were clarified" or "their contents were revealed"? Maybe "formatted for reading on your device"?
- epolanski 10mo agoJust like my friends and family call everything AI now. Special effects in movies? AI Some edited photo? AI Illustration for advertising? AI
- paraselene_ 10mo agoTo be fair, I put partial blame on the advertisers. They've been claiming "AI" on their products on anything that has an algorithm basically for the past few years.
- yunwal 10mo agoJust look at hackernews
- jasonlotito 10mo ago> You’re absolutely correct They are not. They are factually incorrect. Look up the various definitions of redacted. They fit perfect for the title. Arguing otherwise suggests you are making up definitions and words, in which case, I am still correct.
- FeteCommuniste 10mo agoI'd call it a "workaround," which has less connotation of technical cleverness (or malice) than "hack."