Hasta La Gadget!

The British Ministry of Defense thought they had done everything right when they released a declassified report on the flaws and design weaknesses in several of their nuclear submarines. Unfortunately, as soon as the declassified – and heavily edited, with a great deal of information redacted – report was released, readers determined that in order to redact much of the text, the background color around the classified text had just been changed to black. 

This meant that while a reader looking at the PDF couldn’t make out what the redacted text said visually, they could still highlight the text and see it, and more importantly they could highlight the entire document’s text, copy it, and paste it into a new document and read it without any of the redaction in place. All of the still-classified information would be visible and plain as day. 

The bulk of the classified information had to do with design flaws in the submarines and their nuclear reactors, and details about how much damage the submarines would have to take before the reactor core would melt down. In addition, classified information on US disaster policies and procedures on-board military vessels were also in the document, and revealed just as easily. 

For their part, the MoD has removed the document and replaced it with one that’s been correctly redacted, but once the information is available, it’s out there forever. To make matters worse, the information is relevant to a current generation of nuclear submarines in service in the British Navy – many of which will be in service for years to come. 

[via BBC]