WAR: Classified Defense Information Exposed

A report on the shooting death of an Italian security agent includes classifeid data that can be easily deciphered. The report was issued on Adobe Portable Document Format on April 30. The classifeid data can be copied and pasted into Microsoft Notepad to reveal the blocked text of classified material.



Intelligence officials must be more careful when using computer programs to store and dispence claasified information. Lives can and are at stake in the entire war on terror.

Fortunately this report did not contain information that could have put lives at risk, however the need for more security in the document realm is evident. Authorities need to assess the entire intelligence document storage area so improvements may be made to prevent this from happening again.

This particular story informs us that communication breakdowns are the main cause for the incident. We can easily deduce that othe communication problems are happening at Iraqi checkpoints.

[edit on 4-5-2005 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

Accidental slip...

or planned release?

If any one is interested i linked to the report yesterday

www.abovetopsecret.com...




[edit on 4-5-2005 by Burgess]

The document and the exploit were actually mentioned on NPR yesterday or the day before. I remember listening to it (I'm a computer geek) and rolling my eyes and shaking my head at the state of "expertise" in that office.

Perhaps next time they want to release a partly censored document they'll just scan the edited version....

PDF Report



I just tried it and it does work when selecting the covered text does show.

From page two.

U) 3ID TCP SOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3. (U) 2/10 MTN TCP SOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4. (U) 1-69 IN TCP SOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5. (U) Rhino Bus Run TTP Background Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

That could prove as a usefull tool when some other site wants to censor something. interesting find.

Edit to add. I just saved the pdf file as a text file and when opened with word all text is revealed so no need to cut and paste either now knowing that save trick. Now anyone that wants to read the whole thing can in and instant.

[edit on 5/4/2005 by shots]

What's with the blaring headline "CLASSIFIED DEFENSE INFORMATION EXPOSED"? More like:

"Privacy of military personnel jeopardized in online PDF"

Zip

I think their both valid, although it could do with decaping