this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2025
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[–] kmirl@lemmy.world 304 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Honestly wondering if this was done deliberately by DOJ tech folks who weren't on board with the cover-up.

[–] lechatron@lemmy.today 159 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Never attribute to morality that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

[–] fan0m@lemmy.world 64 points 1 day ago (4 children)

The saying is usually malice but I suppose it still works with morality all the same

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Because this would be doing a good thing, not a malicious one.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Being malicious is not exclusive to being a bad person. Good people can be malicious in the face of adversity. It’s an effective tool of protest.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 9 points 21 hours ago

malicious compliance to be exact which is not the same as malice, pure malice is somewhat evil.

[–] Kowowow@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wonder how greed figures in, it's not like companies need to be moral to end up on the right side

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[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 19 points 21 hours ago

Hey there. It doesn't work in authoritarian regimes. When the only way to resist is sabotage, sabotage is everywhere

[–] Soulphite@reddthat.com 54 points 1 day ago

If true, their information needs to be noted if possible only after the arrest of all these other assholes. Gotta protect the ones that did not follow orders of this pedophile regime.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Given the sheer ineptitude of this administration, this was likely stupidity.

When I worked for DOD, I worked on a FOIA request and was trained on using the declassification software. The software worked by highlighting the appropriate text and then "flattened" the highlight so you couldn't do this.

The software was REQUIRED to be used because it would also perform the validation.

These people probably used regular Adobe acrobat. Because they are that dumb. And they don't know about proper FOIA procedures.

Because they are stupid.

It might be likely that DOGE thought it was frivilous government spending the license for that software, because it's the government and they'd use licensed software, so axed it out.

[–] bizarroland@lemmy.world 25 points 23 hours ago

30 minutes before releasing the Epstein files:

"Grok, how do I redact a PDF?"

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[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 22 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (9 children)

I have heard of a gov employee keeping a usb cable in a locked cabinet because they thought it had leftover data after use.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 10 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Oversecure is better than undersecure

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[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

ah yes, in case some bits got stuck in the pipe

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[–] SorryQuick@lemmy.ca 16 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

From what I’ve heard, it wasn’t released, they were uploaded and it’s url kept private. Imo they probably did that to send it to a few highly ranked people so they could check if they agreed with the censorship before releasing them. However, the URL for those to-be-released files were easily guessed based on the pattern of the previously already public ones.

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[–] LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 1 day ago

At this point? Probably, this isn’t the first time we have seen thick exact rookie mistake.

Of course, who knows since doge or whatever probably wiped the people who knew how to get things done I it and replaced with high schoolers that just can’t wait to gobble elons musky bits

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago

or it was purposeful to feed the public another thread of distraction that we can all entangle ourselves with for the next few months.

At this point, the controversy is not Trump .... the controversy is the American government, the American media and the American public just rolling over another chapter of this absolute stupidity.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 127 points 1 day ago (5 children)

The incompetence is staggering.

And also has a long history. They've done this before.

[–] rafoix@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 day ago

Trump’s GOP supporters are all incompetents.

[–] BossDj@piefed.social 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When you fire all of the intelligence out of the intelligence community, and the rest jump ship.

I really hope they're put in front of a panel and say "we don't have the manpower"

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[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 8 points 21 hours ago

thats how russia is run, get rid of the "potential threatening" govt workers and replace them with brown-nosers.

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[–] wuffah@lemmy.world 82 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Never forget that above all, above the narcissism, the megalomania, and the viciousness, above all Trump is a terrifyingly stupid and incompetent man. When he hires, he does so that he feels like he’s the smartest one in the room. That tells me a lot about the people now running our federal government.

With all of its mercilessness, it can be easy to forget that authoritarianism is a profoundly flawed and short-sighted way to run a government.

[–] Maiq@piefed.social 66 points 1 day ago (3 children)

So the entirety of the files released thus far, have been copied and unredacted I would assume. Might just need to buy some popcorn. Probably going to be a wild couple weeks.

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 63 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I haven't checked myself, but on another post someone claimed that only some of the pages were "redacted" in this manner. If that's the case then while we got more information than they probably wanted us too, there is still some information that's yet to be made available.

[–] Maiq@piefed.social 11 points 1 day ago

Might have been a little optimistic... I'll take whatever win we can get!

[–] ClownStatue@piefed.social 27 points 1 day ago

Except, if we’ve learned anything to this point, it’s that Trump will once again face zero repercussions from this.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 10 points 1 day ago

No. Only some files. Most have been redacted in an effective manner.

[–] hellfire103@lemmy.ca 51 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Why do I keep expecting the US government to be remotely competent at anything?

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Propaganda i guess, the evidence for incompetence has been right there for decades and it keeps getting easier to find.

[–] Carnelian@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

To be fair it’s genuinely a super common mistake. I see redacted documents often at work (I do nothing fancy, just some privacy policy thing we deal with) and on like 30% of the documents we get you can either just highlight the underlying text or literally click and drag the black box off of the words lol.

I guess what happens is people can redact it such that they can no longer see it in their particular pdf software but then a different software can bypass it

I guess what happens is people can redact it such that they can no longer see it in their particular pdf software but then a different software can bypass it

That's pretty charitable. I've worked civil service many years ago and the computer skills of some of them were beyond laughable. I never dealt with redacted documents during that stint of my life but I can say with 100% certainty that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if someone "redacted" a document by making the text and background highlight color black and posting the Word docx file online.

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[–] snooggums@piefed.world 19 points 1 day ago

It was more competent before they fired everyone competent and replaced them with incompetent sycophants. It wasn't perfect before, but far better than now.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's entirely dependent on which parts of the government you're dealing with. The parts operated by the career civil servants and people who got there by working the job tend to be run perfectly well.
In cases where it's political appointees following rules and guidelines setup by the aforementioned people, it tends to be... Fine.

It's the political appointees who actively disregard or are hostile to the civil service who are profoundly incompetent. You know, because they were selected for ideology, not competency.

For some reason that I think is spelled really similar to "traitorous anti American assets and useful idiops" the trump administration has been opposed to. and in favor of making it easier to fire, the civil service, AKA: the competent part.

It's why you can end up with the parts that work well, like the military, NOAA and others like it wandering around being competent (prior to the current "let's fire everyone and try to destroy the country" moment), while political appointees accidentally add a reporter to an illegal group chat. It's the authoritarian impulse to demand orthodoxy and committed belief not just from the people who decide direction, but from the people who make day to day decisions as well.

As a fun aside, it lets you know who was doing the redaction work instead of the people who would normally be responsible for ensuring a smooth release of documents.

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[–] Million@lemmy.zip 44 points 19 hours ago

I was watching a coffeezilla video on the new leaks yesterday, and I saw he could highlight and copy text in the pdf document.

I have had broken PDFs that lose the ability to select and search for text for much less modifications, and was wondering if there was a way to see behind the redaction.

I figured it would be a task for someone to look at the text in code and see the redacted parts, but turns out everyone can do it lol.

[–] neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 23 hours ago

The Guardian claims that there are some redacted documents that can un-redacted by copying the text and pasting it into another window. Also, in other documents, photoshop can be used to enhance features of the redacted portions of text to reveal potential characters being covered.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/23/epstein-unredacted-files-social-media

[–] reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I predicted sleuths would be able to figure out some stuff that was supposed to be redacted (like “donald trump” redactions always being the same width or something) but if this is true it has to be sabotage from within lol

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Idk this just being incompetence wouldn't be the most insane thing ever. I'd hardly expect anyone in the Trump Administration to know how Microsoft word works

[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (3 children)

Has anyone actually tried this?

I did. I checked both the “Masseuses” and the “Contact Book,” (mentioned in the X comments as being not redacted correctly), and they seem to be redacted properly. I’ve tried 3 PDF readers, but I’d be curious what actually works.

You have to scroll a while in the original comments to find someone who actually tried it, and it didn’t work for them either.

It’s hilarious that everyone is just believing it though.

Yay, someone else is actually covering it!

[–] kingofras@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I’ve done all 18,000 pdfs. This must have happened in one document. The vast majority are redacted correctly.

This looks like a disinformation campaign to distract from other stuff. “Some people are saying there are word in the document that should not be in the documents, so we have to wonder how they got there”.

The entire thing is a classic disinformation campaign. Right before Christmas. Multiple tranche release. Then pullbacks and rerelease. Maximum confusion. Make sure nobody knows who to trust.

Fun fact: this technique was developed in Russia.

[–] calliope@retrolemmy.com 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Maybe I’m wrong but the whole thing seemed like bullshit. No other news organization I can find has picked this story up, after ten hours. Obviously no one can replicate the results.

About thirty minutes ago, USA Today published an article that Trump’s name is in plain text several times in documents released today. No redaction copy and paste necessary.

People are eating it up though.

The incompetence is… here! 😱

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[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 20 points 20 hours ago

msm has no interest in covering it fully, because its mostly captured by conservatives

[–] 58008@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I love this shit, it really shows how ludicrous those "deep state" conspiracy theories are. They can't even blot out a document that incriminates their own leader.

It also goes some way towards showing how unlikely it is that Epstein was murdered and with no evidence/perpetrators of his murder showing up in the last 6 years.

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 9 points 1 day ago

They can't even blot out a document that incriminates their own leader.

Either that, or someone made a deliberate 'mistake' for reasons unkown.

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[–] DirtPuddleMisfortune@feddit.org 15 points 18 hours ago (5 children)

And nothing will happen. Magats are ging to maga. Democrats are ging to democrat.

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[–] ssfckdt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

The Guardian referred to these acts as "hacks." I think I know where the real hacks are -- at The Guardian.

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[–] Lasherz12@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This looks like the basis for the claim that Trump was alone with Epstein and a 20 year old victim on his plane. I don't think this was actually a search yielding redacted information.

Also it's worth mentioning that even in this text the victims were properly redacted. More likely this is just where the FBI failed to redact Trump. With how many pages were redacted you can bet your bottom dollar that Trump is almost as prevalent in there as Epstein himself. This isn't a smoking gun though by the look of it so don't get your hopes up.

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