[ox] Blair stolperte über M$-Sicherheitslücke
- From: cr iac-research.ch (Christoph Reuss)
- Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 22:20:58 +0100
http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/blair.htm
Microsoft Word bytes Tony Blair in the butt
Richard M. Smith (rms computerbytesman.com)
June 30, 2003
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.
Back in February 2003, 10 Downing Street published a dossier on
Iraq's security and intelligence organizations. This dossier was
cited by Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations the same
month. Dr. Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in politics at Cambridge
University, quickly discovered that much of the material in the
dossier was actually plagiarized from a U.S. researcher on Iraq.
You can read Dr. Rangwala's original analysis of the dossier from
Feb. 5, 2003 at this URL:
http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg00457.html
Blair's government made one additional mistake: they published the
dossier as a Microsoft Word file on their Web site. When I first
heard from Dr. Rangwala about the dossier, I decided to try to learn
who had worked on the document. I downloaded the Word file containing
the dossier from the 10 Downing Street Web site (http://www.number-
10.gov.uk/) and found the following revision log in the file:
Rev. #1: "cic22" edited file
"C:\DOCUME~1\phamill\LOCALS~1\Temp\AutoRecovery save of Iraq -
security.asd" Rev. #2: "cic22" edited file
"C:\DOCUME~1\phamill\LOCALS~1\Temp\AutoRecovery save of Iraq -
security.asd" Rev. #3: "cic22" edited file
"C:\DOCUME~1\phamill\LOCALS~1\Temp\AutoRecovery save of Iraq -
security.asd" Rev. #4: "JPratt" edited file "C:\TEMP\Iraq -
security.doc" Rev. #5: "JPratt" edited file "A:\Iraq - security.doc"
Rev. #6: "ablackshaw" edited file "C:\ABlackshaw\Iraq - security.doc"
Rev. #7: "ablackshaw" edited file "C:\ABlackshaw\A;Iraq -
security.doc" Rev. #8: "ablackshaw" edited file "A:\Iraq -
security.doc" Rev. #9: "MKhan" edited file "C:\TEMP\Iraq -
security.doc" Rev. #10: "MKhan" edited file
"C:\WINNT\Profiles\mkhan\Desktop\Iraq.doc"
Most Word document files contain a revision log which is a listing of
the last 10 edits of a document, showing the names of the people who
worked with the document and the names of the files that the document
went under. Revision logs are hidden and cannot be viewed in
Microsoft Word. However I wrote a small utility for extracting and
displaying revision logs and other hidden information in Word .DOC
files.
It is easy to spot the following four names in the revision log of
the Blair dossier:
P. Hamill J. Pratt A. Blackshaw M. Khan
In addition, the "cic22" in the first three entries of the revision
log stands for "Communications Information Centre," a unit of the
British Government.
Back in February, I passed along these 4 names to Dr. Rangwala who
then provided them to a number of reports in the UK. One reporter
quickly identified the four individuals as:
Paul Hamill - Foreign Office official John Pratt - Downing Street
official Alison Blackshaw - The personal assistant of the Prime
Minister's press secretary Murtaza Khan - Junior press officer for
the Prime Minister
During the week of June 23, 2003, the British Parliament held
hearings of the Blair Dossier and other PR efforts by the UK
Government leading up to the Iraq war. Alastair Campbell of the UK
Communications Information Centre was put in the hot seat and had to
explain the dossier plagiarism and details of the revision log.
One of the interesting tidbits that came out of the hearings is that
John Pratt provided the dossier on a floppy disk to Alison Blackshaw
to give to Colin Powell for his presentation before the United
Nations. The revision log shows the document being copied from
Pratt's hard drive to a floppy disk in revisions #4 and #5.
The Word version of the dossier was recently removed from the 10
Downing Street Web site, but I archived a copy of the Feb. 6 version
here:
IRAQ - ITS INFRASTRUCTURE OF CONCEALMENT, DECEPTION AND INTIMIDATION
http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/blair.doc
The Blair government learned its lesson well with regard to
publishing Microsoft Word documents. Another report on Iraq that was
published in June 2003 was only available as a PDF file. PDF files do
not contain revision logs or hidden author information. Links
Dr. Glen Rangwala's analysis of the Iraq dossier, Feb. 2003
http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg00457.html
Dr. Glen Rangwala's paper submitted to Foreign Affairs Committee of
the House of Commons, June 16, 2003
http://middleeastreference.org.uk/fac030616.html
Iraq's Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis, Sept.
2002 http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html
Downing St dossier plagiarised, Feb. 6, 2003
http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/02/week_1/06_dossier.html
Britain Admits That Much of Its Report on Iraq Came From Magazines,
Feb. 8, 2003
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20B1EFD395F0C7B8CDDAB0
894DB4 04482
Straw's letter to WMD inquiry
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,983396,00.html
Campbell: In the line of fire
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=418480
The key backroom players
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/5475182
WD97: How to Minimize Metadata in Microsoft Word Documents
http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/Q223/7/90.ASP
Dr. Glen Rangwala's Web site http://middleeastreference.org.uk
10 Downing Street Web site http://www.number-10.gov.uk
Copyright (C) 2003 Richard M. Smith
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