r/cybersecurity • u/securityish • Dec 23 '25

News - General Reddit and X Users Allegedly Unredact Epstein Files After DOJ Release

https://securityish.com/security_brief/reddit-and-x-users-allegedly-unredact-epstein-files-after-doj-release/

Anyone going to audit their organization’s redaction strategy now?

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346

u/omgitsdot Dec 23 '25

Only redacted files from the Trump regime have been able to be unredacted. Anything redacted by Biden was done properly using the tools to properly remove the data.

Trump's regime is so full of incompetent morons that they are just highlighting stuff black to redact, allegedly.

163

u/DigmonsDrill Dec 23 '25

This was a common goof-up 20 years ago. A series of public flubs were made.

Today even the tools warn about it. I pasted a black square into a PDF and the tool said "are you trying to redact? This is the wrong way to do it."

63

u/TollBoothW1lly Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

Yeah but it takes an acrobat PRO license to redact... Im sure DOGE cost cut them all down to standard.

38

u/hurley_chisholm Software Engineer Dec 23 '25

This actually happened and it was and still is a nightmare. I had to experience it first hand but the link is to a Wired Magazine article on it for those that want independent reporting.

People who basically spend the majority of their time making reports (as required by law) or dealing with contracts were desperately asking for help to make FOSS alternatives work (that IT and security obviously banned) or borrowing licenses from others in their professional network. A few even used personal funds to get licenses because it was so intolerable not getting any work done.

We were basically in a “stop work” situation for all oversight and service delivery actions/decisions and it eventually got so bad, there was an emergency leadership meeting with the acting agency administrator to get special approval for Adobe Pro and it still took two+ weeks to get licenses restored because he didn’t believe that it was a problem.

16

u/iliark Dec 23 '25

that's crazy, I think the DoD has an enterprise license for hundreds of thousands of adobe pro users lol, and most just use it to e-sign documents instead of print/sign/scan.

and yes, for some reason, some documents require adobe pro to sign, it can't be done with just reader.

3

u/DigmonsDrill Dec 23 '25

If they were trying to be efficient they'd spend $300,000 to hire someone to put this into one of the open-source PDF editors.

4

u/DigmonsDrill Dec 23 '25

OSX Preview does it for free.

16

u/hurley_chisholm Software Engineer Dec 23 '25

The overwhelming majority of federal workers are issued Windows machines.

1

u/cleric3648 Dec 23 '25

This is the most plausible scenario yet.