Blurring Images Not So Secure

An anonymous reader writes "Dheera Venkatraman explains in a webpage how an attacker might be able to extract personal information such as check or credit card numbers, from images blurred with a mosaic effect, potentially exposing the data behind hundreds of images of blurred checks found online, and provides a ficticious example. While much needs to be developed to apply such an algorithm to real photographic images, he offers a simple, yet obvious solution: cover up the sensitive information, don't blur it."

Comments

And cover it correctly...

[haakondahl]

An unclassified report was released with information blacked out to make it unclassified. The problem is that whatever software was used to produce the PDF with classified information hidden had only applied a layer which was easily removed.

People who do not understand the technology they are working with should not have this kind of release authority. And that's the hard part--the higher up you are in the food chain, the less likely you are to understand the new tools your organization is working with.

There are very few users in government who could not do their jobs just fine using Windows 3.11, WordStar 3.x and an e-mail client on a fast but simple machine.

Slaved as the government is to Microsoft's development cycle, however, the government will always be at the cutting edge of compromised.