Comments on: Editing tips from the NSA

Advice comes after embarrassing incidents in which sensitive data was unintentionally stored in electronic documents.

[marileev]

Meta Data Affects SMBs too

The sba.gov site notes how much Small Business contributes to the U.S. infrastructure, Meta Data puts Small Business entities at risk too.

Microsoft publishes how meta data can be removed from such things as Word Documents: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290945

Prospective clients can possibly see other client data when meta data is used - http://www.essentialsecurity.com/Documents/article12.htm

[curtiscarmack]

Free tool works, too

For non-business use there is a great, free tool called Doc Scrubber (www.docscrubber.com) that I have been using for years to strip out all metadata. It makes the job much easier and is more thorough than the cumbersome methods Microsoft prescribes. I just wish they would license a commercial version!

[ajbright]

Hilarious

that any government agency would think they could advise people on any sort of computer security issue.

I'm not digging at the IT people within these departments, who must have a hellish job trying to persuade the typical ******, middle-management tw@t that runs these departments to exercise a modicum of common sense, rather that people who can't stop children hacking into their networks, leave sensitive information lying around in word documents and regularly leave laptops full of top secret data at airports or in taxis.

Flawed Premise

I'm all in favor of spreading awareness that metadata and hidden content are dangerous, but the problem can solved without resorting to the tortured workflow they present. Too bad these folks didn't search on "PDF redaction" before they wrote the paper.

[John Kuzak]

tortured workflow

http://www.analogstereo.com/hyundai_xg300_owners_manual.htm

[ryebrye]

The creation date is not relevant metadata

The author thinks he is clever for pointing out that the NSA
paper contains "metadata" in the form of a creation date for the
PDF. That creation date is in your filesystem, not necessarily the
document. Depending on your web browser, and how you saved
the PDF file from your web browser - it may even mean on the
date it was downloaded.

That metadata is a relic of the file system - not the document.
The fact that the date doesn't agree with the document date is
insignificant and irrelevant. The document could well have been
created in 2005, printed and distributed internally - and the PDF
could have recently been created for online distribution.

If you consider creation and modification dates sensitive meta-
data, and you think that's what it is talking about - you need to
find another job. Technical writing is not for you.

[kimocrossman]

Useful guidelines from NSA

These help to preserve the document in it's original electronic format - here was the feedback i sent to the NSA on their guidelines:


Interestingly - they do not like/trust the new Word 2003 redaction tool. it might be one of those, "prove a negative situations" - Can you prove there is no metadata left in the document that might cause embarrassment?

It would be good if they defined what metadata is being stripped, some of it may legitimately be considered a portion of the exact original record and therefore relevant.

They should move away from converting from an original electronic format of a Word doc to a searchable PDF (is it searchable? or an image only result - unclear) - because this may reduce the ADA compliance of the resulting document for use by disabled for reading the document with alternative interface software (Machine readers etc).

Also converting to a PDF reduces some of the abilities to search for information as it was contacted in the Word format. For example regular expressions in a Word doc search are probably not possible in a searchable PDF.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010873051033.aspx
Any single character except the characters in the range inside the brackets [!x-z] t[!a-m]ck finds "tock" and "tuck," but not "tack" or "tick."

I like that they understand the concept of preserving a document format at a page and line count level by replacing redacted information with XXX in the same amount of space. They should promote this as the default way to redact.

Nice coverage on how to redact images.
would like to see them replace redacted information with the cited withholding justification - i.e. rather than:
XXXXXXXXXXX
use:
XXXsec 2.12 iiiXX

as i have seen on other FOIA responses - typed on the side of a redacted portion.

It might also be useful to use the marked out space to suggest an alternate way to achieve the information as well.

[bluemist9999]

Is This A Simple Solution?

Since most new versions of Word export to HTML and import HTML, why not export to HTML, edit the HTML to remove any confidential information, then re-save the cleaned up document?

That should eliminate any metadata since it would all be visible in HTML.

[Chaya M Loyens]

Blocking out information before release....

I totally know what it means by saying that blocking out text within a document with a black marker or text cover only works on certain documents.

I once came across some documents about myself that someone tried to black out certain parts, but when I held it under the light at a certain angle, I could read every word. My eyes are kind of funny that way, but if I had to black out anything within my own life endeavors, I will definitely visit this site more often.

Especially, since I am going to school online, so I can become a document specialist. I have always been fascinated with people's signatures, the color of ink, the way certain kinds of pencils look when they get sharpened, and the way a newly printed and completely perfect or imperfect document looks. I love to edit things and try my best to make it look better.

I have even found typos within the online school site that I attend, but I am not totally perfect either!

I would like to again inform you, about the immense enjoyment that I had in reading this site.