Incomplete PDF Redaction Leaks Data From UK MoD

An anonymous reader writes "The UK Ministry of Defence has been left with egg on its face, after a supposedly redacted PDF detailing secrets related to air defence radar systems was published on a parliamentary website. The problem? Whoever did the redacting simply changed the sensitive text to black on a black background, making it possible for anyone to access the information simply by cutting-and-pasting. The incident is particularly embarrassing for the Ministry, as six months ago precisely the same security screw-up occurred — that time related to sensitive information about nuclear submarines."

Comments

Re:Don't hide information.

[Doc Ruby]

Actual secrets of military technology are legitimate secrets, as long as the military secrets are being overseen by competent people with power independent of the military - who are themselves catchable when they're corrupt.

But the problem isn't this secret. It's the vast abundance of secrets in governments like the UK's. Some percentage of secrets are going to be divulged when they shouldn't. Having millions of secrets means that percentage results in a lot of divulged secrets.

Perhaps the large number of secrets that are worthless, or are secret only to protect someone who did something wrong rather than to protect the country, means that most divulged secrets harm no one - or harm people who did wrong. But the large number of secrets makes the percentage divulged increase. Especially when the worthless ones divulged get everyone used to divulging secrets. Then the percentage goes way up. And the secrets worth keeping do a lot of damage.

Proper management calls for reducing the amount of secrets to the minimum. This is a fundamental principle known to any competent info security professional, and to many amateurs - in any field. But governments keep increasing their trove of secrets. Mostly because governments keep increasing the number of things they do wrong. And keeping too many secrets, many (if not most) of them worthless or even beneficial to reveal, is just one of the things they're doing wrong.

It's the worst kept secret in the secrecy business.