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Don't pixelate text (or blur or swirl) text to hide it

Started by Jason, August 15, 2022, 02:16:01 PM

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Jason

Pixelation isn't a good way of hiding underlying text. The video and article on this website show how the author created a tool to un-pixelate text. He also suggests that blurring or swirling aren't any better (although doesn't go into why). The video is just over 4 minutes long. Watch it at 1.25 speed and it's still watchable and quicker. :)

https://bishopfox.com/blog/unredacter-tool-never-pixelation

Using black bars is the only surefire way of obfuscating it, assuming you actually lay a bar over it and don't just change the background and foreground colours in a word processor document which is useless.

It's an interesting foray into why pixelation is such a bad idea as well as how the tool works.

I need to try this sometime when I see someone pixelate someone's name on a screencap of a Facebook post. I'll let you know if I do.
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i5-8600 3.1 GHz 6-core processor, dual 22" displays, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB Nvme and a Geforce 1060 6 GB card
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ssfc72

Good info to know, about using pixelation on a text document. Thanks Jason.

In my photo of my car, I used a Cut tool, to remove the licence plate info. This results in a black bar being used to replace that area of the photo, so I would think that information would not be recoverable.
Mint 20.3 on a Dell 14" Inspiron notebook, HP Pavilion X360, 11" k120ca notebook (Linux Lubuntu), Dell 13" XPS notebook computer (MXLinux)
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Jason

* Zorin OS 17.1 Core and Windows 11 Pro on a Dell Precision 3630 Tower with an
i5-8600 3.1 GHz 6-core processor, dual 22" displays, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB Nvme and a Geforce 1060 6 GB card
* Motorola Edge (2022) phone with Android 13