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Published Incidents Involving Hidden Data 
This page contains links to articles about hidden data that has caused embarassment or problems.  Only a very small subset of these incidents are published by the press.  Many more go undetected or unreported.  Studies done by numerous agencies indicate that the occurance rate of  hidden data in electronic document is extremely high.

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    New items posted December 2009

  1. "Air security document posted in error on Net," Associated Press International, 8 Dec 2009.
    Original Story | Archive

  2. Terdiman, Daniel, "Bad PDF formatting reveals Google Voice numbers," CNET News, 30 Oct 2009.
    Original Story | Archive

    New items posted 2 October 2009

  3. Nakashima, Ellen , "Soldiers' Data Still Being Downloaded Overseas, Firm Says," Washington Post, 2 Oct 2009.
    Original Story | Archive

  4. Moscaritolo, Angela, "First lady's safe house location leaked on P2P," SC Magazine, 29 July 2009.
    Original Story | Archive

  5. Krazit, Tom, "Slip-up spills beans on Dell notebooks," CNET News, 1 Feb 2006.
    Original Story | Archive

  6. "Google gaff exposed user log-in data," The INQUIRER, 23 Jan 2007.
    Original Story | Archive

  7. Hales, Paul, "Google gaff outs GDrive plans ," The INQUIRER, 7 Mar 2006.
    Original Story | Archive

  8. Lipowicz, Alice, "DOD: Controlled but unclassified data is leaking," FCW, 27 Oct 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  9. Turton, Stuart, "Photographs contain digital fingerprints," PCPro, 18 Nov 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

    New item posted 12 August 2009

  10. Gedda, Rodney, "Oops, e-mail security vendor McAfee spills 1400 private names Recipients asked to
    delete the leaked data," ComputerWorld, 29 July 2009
    Original Story | Archive

    New items posted 8 June 2009

  11. Giordano, Maria, "Student ID breach embroils thousands," Tennessean.com, 11 July 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  12. Beard, Jeff, "Yet Another Redaction Infraction," LawTech Guru Blog, 5 Jun 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  13. Malan, Douglas S., "GE Suffers a Redaction Disaster," The Connecticut Law Tribune, 28 May 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  14. Chastain, Sue, "TechTV's Cat Schwartz Exposed: Is Photoshop To Blame?," About.com, 26 July 2003.
    Original Story | Archive

  15. Modine, Austin, "Metadata ruins Google's anonymous eBay Australia protest," The Register, 30 May 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  16. Young, Jeffrey R., "Microsoft Word's Hidden Tags Reveal Once-Anonymous Peer Reviewers," The Chronical of Higher Education, 21 April 2006.
    Original Story | Archive

  17. Kopytoff, Verne, "Google's gaffe reveals internal secrets," SFGate, 8 March 2006.
    Original Story | Archive

  18. Kincaid, Jason, "The AP Reveals Details of Facebook/ConnectU Settlement With Greatest Hack Ever," Tech Crunch, 11 February 2009.
    Original Story | Archive

  19. Vijayan, Jaikumar, "E-mail snafu exposes names of confidential witnesses in federal probe," ComputerWorld, 8 January 2009.
    Original Story | Archive

  20. Vijayan, Jaikumar, "Colorado state Web site dishes out SSNs of CEOs, other top execs," ComputerWorld, 8 October 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  21. Bill Gertz, Bill, "Inside the Ring: Classified spillage," The Washington Times, 8 January 2009.
    Original Story | Archive

  22. Moses, Asher, "I'm a PC' made on a Mac," The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 September 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  23. Naraine, Ryan, "Washington Post Caught in Metadata Gaffe?," eWeek.com, 22 February 2006.
    Original Story | Archive

    24. ------------------------------ End of New Items ------------------------------

  24. Stine, Stephen, "Electronic Document Redaction and the FTC," American Bar Association, Undated.
    Original Story | Archive

  25. "Ex-Clintonite sends out press release from new organization with Hillary contact info," CNN Newswire, 7 May 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  26. Wait, Patience, "Army Shuts Down Site for Scrubbing," FederalNewsRadio, 4 April 2008.
    Original Link | Archive

  27. Ball, Craig, "Clumsy Redaction Can Spell Negligence," Law Technology News, 25 Feb 2008.
    Original Story | Archive

  28. Weller, Robert, "Report: Official Sites, Not Bloggers, Breaching Army Security," The Associated Press, 22 Aug 2007.
    Original Story | Archive

  29. Jones, Ashby, "Doh! FTC Gaffe Spills Beans on Whole Foods," Wall Street Journal, 16 Aug 2007.
    Original Story | Archive

  30. Rugaber, Christopher S., "Error by FTC Reveals Whole Foods' Trade Secrets," Associated Press, 15 August 2007.
    Original Story | Archive

  31. "Military Files Left Unprotected Online," Associated Press, 12 July 2007.
    military.com

  32. Hillhouse, R, J.,"Office of Nation's Top Spy Inadvertently Reveals Key to Classified National Intel Budget," thespywhobilledme.com, 3 June 2007.
    www.thespywhobilledme.com | Archive

  33. Cashmore, Pete, "Joost’s Deal Plans Hidden in PDF Presentation," Mashable Social Networking News, 18 May 2007.
    Original Story | Archive

  34. Moore, Pete, "The secret Iraq documents my 8-year-old found," Salon.com 18 May 2007.
    www.salon.com | Archive

  35. Acohido, Byron, "Cyberspies exploit Microsoft Office," USA TODAY, 23 Apr 2007.
    www.usatoday.com | Archive

  36. Nakashima, Ellen, "U.S. Exposed Personal Data," Washington Post, 21 Apr 2007
    www.washingtonpost.com | Archive

  37. Chan, Wade-Hahn, "Census Bureau accidentally exposes personal data," FCW, 8 Mar 2007.
    www.fcw.com | Archive

  38. Bloys, David, "The Truth About Redaction," News for Public Officials, undated.
    www.davickservices.com | Archive

  39. Walker, Jessica M., "What's a Little Metadata Mining Between Colleagues?," Daily Business Review, 21 April 2006.
    www.law.com | Archive

  40. Burt, Brandon, "So You’re Thinking of Becoming a Cheat," Salt Lake City Weekly, 17 Aug 2006.
    www.cityweekly.com | archive

  41. OFFICE WATCH, Vol. 11 No. 33, 17 Aug 2006.
    www.office-watch.com | archive

  42. Brewin, Bob, "Navy: Exposed personal data was Katrina-related," FCW, 27 Jun 2006.
    http://www.fcw.com/ | archive

  43. Liptak, Adam, "Prosecutors Can't Keep a Secret in Steroid Case," New York Times, 23 Jun 2006.
    http://www.nytimes.com/ | archive

  44. McCullagh, Declan, "AT&T leaks sensitive info in NSA suit," CNet News, 30 May 2006.
    http://news.com.com/ | archive

  45. Ewalt, David M., "When Words Come Back From The Dead," Forbes.com, 13 Dec 2005.
    http://www.forbes.com/ | archive

  46. Ferguson, Iain, "Hit send...and regret it," ZDNet Australia, 4 Nov 2005.
    http://www.zdnet.com.au/ | archive

  47. Wait, Patience, "White House accidentally exposes data in PDF file," GCN Magazine, 5 Dec 2005.
    http://www.gcn.com/ | archive

  48. Lederer, John, Discussion regarding Microsoft Marketing Memo, American Bar Association, 28 Mar 2004.
    mail.abanet.org | archive

  49. Zeller, Tom, Jr., "Beware Your Trail of Digital Fingerprints," New York Times, 7 Nov 2005.
    http://www.nytimes.com/ | archive

  50. Wait, Patience, and Onley, Dawn S., "Document security flap at U.N. causes uproar," GCN Magazine, 25 Oct 2005.
    http://www.gcn.com/ | archive

  51. Millman, Rene', "Expert blasts Home Secretary email blunder," SC Magazine, 16 Sep 2005.
    http://www.scmagazine.com/ | archive

  52. Sturgeon, Will, "Blunder in Word shows government terror doubts, When will they learn?," Silicon.com, 16 Sep 2005.
    software.silicon.com | archive

  53. Leyden, John, "Pentagon uber-hacker rap sheet spills attach details," The Register, 11 July 2005.
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/ | archive

  54. Hamburger, Tom, "Nonpartisan Testimony Gets White House Edit," Los Angeles Times, 19 May 2005.
    http://www.latimes.com/ | archive

  55. Jesdanum, Anick, "Military Mistake caused data leak," Associated Press, 2 May 2005.
    http://www.businessweek.com/ | archive

  56. Hayes, Simon, "Canberra crackdown on Office leaks," Austrailian IT News, 20 May 2004.
    australianit.news.com.au | archive

  57. Raimondo, Justin, "Redaction Alert! White House edits Aug. 6 presidential briefing, then claims it's been 'declassified.,'" Antiwar.com Behind the Headlines, 14 April 2004.
    Orignal Story | Archive

  58. Foss, Kurt, "PDF Secrets Revealed: PDF file redaction snafu exposes agents' identities," Planet PDF, undated.
    http://www.planetpdf.com/ | archive

  59. Foss, Kurt, "Washington Post's scanned-to-PDF Sniper Letter More Revealing Than Intended," Planet PDF, 26 October 2002.
    http://www.planetpdf.com/ | archive

  60. Jardin, Xeni, "P2P in the Legal Crosshairs," Wired News, 15 March 2004.
    Note: Skip to paragraph 5 to see why we listed this article.
    http://www.wired.com/ | archive

  61. Shankland, Stephen and Ard, Scott, "Document shows SCO prepped lawsuit against BofA," CNET News, March 4, 2004.
    news.com.com | archive

  62. Smith, Richard M., "Microsoft Word bytes Tony Blair in the butt," Computer Bytes Man Website, June 30, 2003.
    http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/blair.htm | href="http://www.stg.srs.com/eds/docdet/archive/Tony_Blair.htm">archive

  63. Johnson, Nick, "Alcatel [Expletive Deleted] Up Bigtime," Morons in the News, Apr. 14, 2001.
    web.morons.org | archive

  64. "Danish Prime Minister Gets Bitten by Word," The Sydney Morning Herald (smh.com.au), January 13, 2004.
    http://www.smh.com.au/ | archive

  65. Poulsen, Keven, "Justice e-sensorship gaffe sparks controversy", Security Focus, 22 October 2003.
    http://www.securityfocus.com/ | archive

  66. McCarthy, Michael J. "Beware, 'Invisible Ink' Inside Computer Files May Reveal Your Secrets." Wall Street Journal (Eastern Ed), Vol. 236, Issue 78 (October 20, 2000). p. A1.

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