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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

PDF Days Europe 2021 – Agenda Announcement

June 2021 by PDF Association staff
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Check out the agenda for PDF Days Europe 2021, and get your early bird ticket while they last!

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June 2021 by PDF Association staff
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pdfa.org resources now include a new technical index, list of GitHub repos and more.

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June 2021 by Peter Wyatt
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Doing PDF right means being aware of errata for PDF 2.0. With over 65 issues now resolved and approved by … Read more

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June 2021 by PDF Association staff (Adobe)
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The Endowment supplements membership dues to enable the PDF Association to maintain and extend its support for administration of ISO … Read more

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May 2021 by Peter Wyatt
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The PDF Association expands its pdf-issues GitHub repo to cover all ISO standards based on PDF 2.0.

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May 2021 by Peter Wyatt
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The LangSec IEEE S&P Workshop this year includes several PDF-related presentations resulting from SafeDocs research including a paper by CTO … Read more

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May 2021 by PDF Association staff
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An overview of industry working-group activities pertaining to tagged PDF.

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April 2021 by PDF Association staff
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Version 1.18 of veraPDF, the industry-supported PDF/A validator, is now available for download, and now includes support for PDF/UA-1 (machine … Read more

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April 2021 by PDF Association staff
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The document promotes adoption of the ISO standard for accessible PDF by software developers, service bureaus and others interested in … Read more

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April 2021 by PDF Association staff
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The PDF community was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Chuck Geschke, one of the visionaries who helped … Read more

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April 2021 by PDF Association staff
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A domain-specific subset of PDF, PDF/R is simple to generate and interpret, allowing it to replace the TIFF and JPEG … Read more

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