Another PDF Redaction Snafu

Slashdot - More PDF Blackout Follies

"georgewilliamherbert writes "The latest installment of "As the PDF Blackouts Turn" hit today, with a U.S. government apparently releasing a redacted version of their court filing in the Balco grand jury leak case which merely stuck a black line over the text, which remains available in the document. As with prior documents, entering text cut/paste mode in a normal PDF browser such as Acrobat allows a reader to access the concealed text. ..."

Sigh... another PDF redaction snafu... Being in the Litigation Support/EDD industry I find these "interesting" (in the how not to do stuff way).

Look, when you’re doing redaction ("blacking out stuff") your redaction has to be physically burned in or text physically eliminated. Relying on client side redaction overlaying (i.e. drawing black boxes on a PDF) is a sure way to screw yourself.

Related Past Post XRef:
"Clean Up After Your PDFs"
US Military PDF Redaction "Issue"
Office 2003 Add-in: Word Redaction