Posted by Mossad on June 25, 2000 at 09:19:13 AM EDT:
Security Focus has the details on how the New York Times released a SECRET CIA report on the Agency-sponsored 1953 Iranian coup on their Web site as a PDF file, with the names of foreign agents covered up with black lines and boxes. It turns out the Times didn't merge layers, and John Young of Cryptome discovered that by freezing the rendering at the right time, he could view the edited text before the black boxes covered them. He's putting up the full, unedited document on his site now. The Times says he's endangering lives, but why, oh why, didn't they use eraser tool, and how many other PDF files, Word documents, etc., contain more than meets the eye?