AT&T Accidentally Leaks NSA Suit Information

op12 writes "CNET has an article describing how AT&T accidentally leaked sensitive information involving the NSA lawsuit. From the article: 'AT&T's attorneys this week filed a 25-page legal brief striped with thick black lines that were intended to obscure portions of three pages and render them unreadable. But the obscured text nevertheless can be copied and pasted inside some PDF readers, including Preview under Apple's OS X and the xpdf utility used with X11. The deleted portions of the legal brief seek to offer benign reasons why AT&T would allegedly have a secret room at its downtown San Francisco switching center that would be designed to monitor Internet and telephone traffic. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class action lawsuit in January, alleges that room is used by an unlawful National Security Agency surveillance program.""

Comments

DMCA anyone?

[MarkByers]

But the obscured text nevertheless can be copied and pasted inside some PDF readers, including Preview under Apple's OS X and the xpdf utility used with X11.

Looks like Slashdot is informing readers how to avoid document protection mechanisms. I hope you don't get sued under the DMCA!

Re:DMCA anyone?

[R3d M3rcury]

DMCA wins.

Oh crap

[Intron]

Now xpdf will be banned under the DMCA.

room 101

[robinesque]

The secret room is room 101.
Duh.

Re:room 101

[Bryan_W]

I thought it was 404

You see?

[cno3]

This is what happens when you outsource your redacting responsibilities to overseas contractors.

Re:Here's why _you_ should dismiss the case...

[Speare]

Here's a little "political-cartoon-style" diagram I put together a week ago on this topic: http://halley.cc/2006-05-16.hidden.agenda.jpg

Heavy Underlining

[DrNoNo]

Anybody thinks that this stuff was ruled over? It's very heavy underlining I tell you. Ok, it is so heavy, it covered the text, but it did its task and got it onto /.

Part of the politcal defense strategy?

[abb3w]

Every educated person should now know that black bars in PDF do not remove what is under them.

FTA:

"In an ironic twist, the NSA published a 13-page paper in January describing how redactions could be done securely."

Maybe AT&T is trying to show that they're not just a sock puppet of the NSA. Or maybe the NSA is sneaky enough to try and hide that AT&T is merely a sock puppet.

Damn, I'm snickering so hard that I can't find my tinfoil....