Secret Data in FBI Wiretapping Audit Revealed with Ctrl-C (paying off the Telecoms)

Secret Data in FBI Wiretapping Audit Revealed with Ctrl-C
By Ryan Singel May 16, 2008 | 7:51:59 PMCategories: Glitches and Bugs, Surveillance
Once again, supposedly sensitive information blacked out from a government report turns out to be visible by computer experts armed with the Ctrl-C keys -- and that information turns out to be not very sensitive after all.


Simply highlighting the redacted columnsin this table from an Inspector General report reveals some very un-sensitive information.
Image: Justice Department Inspector General ReportThis time around, University of Pennsylvania professor Matt Blaze discovered that the Justice Department's Inspector General's office had failed to adequately obfuscate data in a March report (.pdf) about FBI payments to telecoms to make their legacy phone switches comply with 1995 wiretapping rules. That report detailed how the FBI had finished spending its allotted $500 million to help telephone companies retrofit their old switches to make them compliant with the Communications Assistance to LAw Enforcement Act or CALEA-- even as federal wiretaps target cell phones more than 90 percent of the time.

This isn't the first time the Justice Department has made such an error. In 2007, a U.S. attorney referred to THREAT LEVEL's own David Kravets (then at the AP) as a hacker for discovering similar hidden information in a BALCO steriod case filing. As far back as 2003, a report on minorities in the Justice Department was also vulnerable. The gaffes may seem humorous, but tell that to confidential informants, for whom such a slip-up could be fatal.

In fact, all one needs to do is open the CALEA report with Adobe Reader or Foxit reader, and highlight the tables and cut and paste them into a text editor, something Blaze discovered accidentally when trying to copy a portion of the report into an email to a student.

Some of the tidbits considered to sensitive to be aired publicly?

more:http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/secret-data-in.html

This makes me want to go try it just to see if I could do it too.

They need to PRINT it, and sit their asses down with the black magic marker, like in the OLD DAYS, and draw lines through the stuff.

THEN, they need to have another set of eyes...or three...look at it again, markers at the ready.

THEN, they need to SCAN the fucking thing, have three more people eyeball it to make sure nothing shows through, and send THAT copy out electronically.

Or, they can do this-- http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/nsa-redact.pdf

My way, though, guarantees fewer fuckups, assuming the redacters did their jobs.

The Pentagon learned this lesson over a decade ago.

Fucking idiots.

about FBI payments to telecoms to make their legacy phone switches comply with 1995 wiretapping rules. That report detailed how the FBI had finished spending its allotted $500 million to help telephone companies retrofit their old switches to make them compliant with the Communications Assistance to LAw Enforcement Act or CALEA-- even as federal wiretaps target cell phones more than 90 percent of the time.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DGUS,DGUS:2006-26,DGUS:en&q=EFF

or articles?

#8 on this yahoo search

http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=EFF&c=

Best use of Ctrl + A that I've seen in ages!

But that isn't really classified information!

:rofl: