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.
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.
Even with OCR, the Mueller Report PDF isn’t fully searchable
On April 19 we published an analysis of the Mueller report PDF released by the US Department of Justice. Further analysis of the PDF file reveals an additional serious problem. Even … Read more
April 2019 by Duff Johnson
When I’m not working for the PDF Association I still do some consulting in the document management space. Some recent … Read more
March 2019 by David Blatner
This year, the Electronic Document Conference (EDC) is being held in the same city and only days after CreativePro Week … Read more
February 2019 by PDF Association staff
The Electronic Document Conference is a do-not-miss event for developers, product managers and technical users creating and leveraging electronic document … Read more
