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A case study in PDF forensics: The Epstein PDFs

This article details a PDF forensics case study on a small, random selection of the Epstein PDF files released by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). The tranche contains 4,085 PDF files, with an estimated 5,879 remaining unreleased. Key findings include:

  • A difference in PDF version reporting between forensic tools.
  • The presence of two incremental updates.
  • The discovery of a hidden (orphaned) document information dictionary revealing the software used in processing.
  • The DoJ avoided JPEG images to prevent metadata leakage.
  • Overall, the DoJ’s sanitization workflow could be improved to reduce file size and information leakage.
Peter Wyatt

By Peter Wyatt
December 2025

A case study in PDF forensics: The Epstein PDFs

This article details a PDF forensics case study on a small, random selection of the Epstein PDF files released by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). The tranche contains 4,085 PDF files, with an estimated 5,879 remaining unreleased. Key findings include:

  • A difference in PDF version reporting between forensic tools.
  • The presence of two incremental updates.
  • The discovery of a hidden (orphaned) document information dictionary revealing the software used in processing.
  • The DoJ avoided JPEG images to prevent metadata leakage.
  • Overall, the DoJ’s sanitization workflow could be improved to reduce file size and information leakage.
Peter Wyatt

By Peter Wyatt
December 2025

How to tag titles in PDF documents

November 2019 by Klaas Posselt
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The PDF/UA Technical Working Group released Tagged PDF Best Practice Guide: Syntax – to provide developers and expert users with formal advice and best practices for implementing tagged PDF. The … Read more

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November 2019 by Thomas Zellmann
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AI applications for business intelligence processing can extract information from unstructured “born digital” documents, but many archives include years (or … Read more

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November 2019 by Duff Johnson
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Apple’s desktop suite, Pages, Keynote and Numbers, now supports creation of tagged (and thus, accessible and reusable) PDF.

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October 2019 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
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As of October 7, 2019, websites and mobile applications in the U.S. will be assessed as “public accommodations”, and the … Read more

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October 2019 by Thomas Zellmann
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To survive a great flood Noah brought pairs from every species aboard his ark. But is this approach – gathering … Read more

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September 2019 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
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Earlier this year we covered the release of the Mueller Report covering the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in … Read more

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August 2019 by Dietrich von Seggern
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This article was recently updated. The new version was posted on February 16, 2021. PDF is one of the most … Read more

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August 2019 by Elizabeth Thede
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Instead of retrieving and searching each file in its associated application, a search engine needs to review all files together … Read more

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July 2019 by Roman Toda (Normex)
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Users printing to PDF are throwing away information that could be reused by downstream applications. Find out how “Deriving HTML … Read more

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July 2019 by Frode Hegland
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The Visual-Meta approach take the metadata out of of the document internals and presents it as an appendix at the … Read more

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July 2019 by Duff Johnson
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What are the essential characteristics and optimal functional requirements of email messages and necessary related information in a PDF technology-based … Read more

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