Researcher ‘reverses’ redaction, extracts words from pixelated image
When publishing sensitive images online, pixelation or blurring is often used as a redaction technique by media outlets and researchers alike. However, Dan Petro, Lead Researcher at offensive security firm Bishop Fox has demonstrated how he was able to completely recover text from an image redacted via the pixelation method.
Further, the researcher has released a GitHub tool that can be used by anyone to reconstruct text from obscure, pixelated images.
Although similar solutions have existed for enhancing pixelated photos of people or landscapes, no concrete real-world solutions released thus far promised accurate recovery of text present in pixelated images, while simultaneously cutting out the noise.
Source: Researcher ‘reverses’ redaction, extracts words from pixelated image
