--- From: "Richard M. Smith" <rmsat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: Microsoft Word "bytes" Tony Blair in the butt Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 08:56:05 -0400 Hi, Microsoft Word documents are notorious for containing private information in file headers which people would sometimes rather not share. The British government of Tony Blair just learned this lesson the hard way. Last week, Alastair Campbell, Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy, was in the hot seat in British Parliament hearings explaining what roles four of his employees played in the creation of a plagiarized dossier on Iraq which the UK government published in February 2003. The names of these four employees were found hidden inside of a Microsoft Word file of the Iraq dossier which was posted on the 10 Downing Street Web site for use by the press. The "dodgy dossier" as it became known in the British press raised serious questions about the quality of British intelligence before the second Iraq war. I wrote an article for my Web site about how a bit computer forensics analysis played a role in this controversy: http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com/privacy/blair.htm Richard M. Smith http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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