I'm fairly sure the differences can largely be put down to the Guardian using OpenOffice[1]. The differences look more like conversion errors, rather than any deliberate change (other than redaction).
* Red PRISM background should probably be rendered as transparent (as in the WaPo version)
* Typesetting on the Guardian version looks incorrect
* Guardian map looks to be misaligned/scaled, rather than changed (notice that the company logos are in America on the WaPo version, and the blue circles overlap fibre connections, but are not on the Guardian version.
This is where my mind jumped to as well. Especially with regards to the images being comprised of vector graphics, which has always been a pain in the ass to get standard among difference office suites.
Also, if you look between the two versions, you'll see that the Guardian's failed to render the transparency behind the PRISM logo. This definitely points towards rendering mishaps, rather than some sort of editing on their part.
Exactly, one or both of these slides has been edited. I doubt that someone went back to the NSA to get "the latest version" that makes me wonder who did the editing and what was their motivation? Did the guardian change the map to make it more relevant to the "global nature" of their coverage? Did someone change it for WaPo to make it seem more credible? And the redacting part, who redacted it and why? Neither slide would have been released as part of a FOIA request it seems, so why the redactions? To make it look more "confidential" ? (there have been suggestions that redactions add 'authenticity' to purported documents from governments). Frankly it raises a lot more questions than it answers.
I would guess WaPo edited the map. For the Guardian's version of slide it seems easy to guess that those are the names of secret programs use to tap fiber-optic cables in certain regions. NSA wanted 2 names of those programs to remain secret. (i have some theory why..). WaPo published the names but edited the map not to give precise locations of those programs. Just my theory ofc.
I think the OO.o/MS Office explanation is perfectly reasonable and applicable in this case. Even I suggested that was what the difference was when PRISM was first leaked, and I've not exactly been on Greenwald's side throughout all of this.
I could be wrong, but I think we are looking at screencaps of documents which have been captured on different screen sizes, where there was word wrapping occuring. I dont see evidence of editing.
Ah, so that's what it is. This morning, we got an e-mail : "If you open this link on any computer, including your home computer, you are required to report this through Security channels as a classified spillage. " I was wondering why the Post was being singled out. (I had not yet had a chance to look at it.)
Hey tomgirl1, welcome to Hacker News. Good to have you here.
It might be a good idea to read up on the guidelines [1] a bit though, since it seems your comments, while generally with good intent, often don't contribute much to the discussion at hand, like the comment I'm replying to here.
Another good way to get a feel for what is appreciated and what not is to check a bit of pg's comments [2]. You'll quickly get a feel of what's considered proper discourse and what isn't.
It's the same picture, but the Guardian one is compressed horizontally to fit, the Post one is not. It's obvious that whoever made that slide used a larger image but positioned it so that only part of it was shown. Post opened it with PowerPoint and it rendered correctly while Guardian opened it with OpenOffice which mangled it (look at the arrows and circles too). Most likely it's the Guardian that redacted the name of the two programs for whatever reason (they said they are curating the leaks to not cause unnecessary damage and not just dumping everything).
It isn't, in some way. PowerPoint let's you "mask" images. That is, bundle the entire image in the PPT but crop and zoom it. Of course, whoever did that slide zoomed into the US. It isn't a purpose-made image, but rather, one illustrating how traffic flows to and from the U.S.
Fits perfectly with the "different software" idea. Pages, Google Docs, OpenOffice and even different versions of Office produce different results with the same PowerPoint.
That would be congruent with the dropshadow displaying on the "You Should Use Both" text in the (presumably) PowerPoint-rendered one that is masked correctly. It doesn't seem to appear in the other.
EDIT: Also, on the US-zoomed/masked one, it makes the ellipses line up correctly with all the cable landings at the coastlines. I'm now sold that these differences are just PowerPoint-specific renderings.
These come from the NSA originally - so it's probably SOP to make slight changes to every page of every document each time it is released to someone, so that they can track the exact source and path of any leaks.
I don't doubt they version things like this, but I do doubt the watermark is easily found. A bit here, a bit there and you can bury a lot of info in a graphic with no one the wiser.
On the US-map one, the ellipses line up correctly with the cable landings, and the PRISM-partner logos are over the US, not floating in the ocean. Also, the arrowheads on the cable-bundle ellipses aren't all distorted, and the drop shadow on the "You Should Use Both" text displays correctly.
I'm marking this one down to PowerPoint-specific rendering (vs, say, OpenOffice).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server...