I have reason to believe based on metadata analysis the Project Veritas created an edited document last year to attack Pinterest
I can't prove what was edited but I can prove that something funky did happen
I can't prove what was edited but I can prove that something funky did happen
last year Project Veritas (PV henceforth) uploaded this, a series of document claiming to be from social media companies hate speech policies and limiting conservative speech
web.archive.org/web/2020011121…
web.archive.org/web/2020011121…
the one that is questionable is packet 6 
I ran a tool called exiftool to pull the metadata, the extra data that describes how a file is made, from the pdf
exiftool.org
full output here:
pastebin.com/eF9cu4Q8
(tech break, you can curl -i the original url and get the same info)
exiftool.org
full output here:
pastebin.com/eF9cu4Q8
(tech break, you can curl -i the original url and get the same info)
We can see from the info that a user with name mbruno edited the document and created the document 6-10-2019 which is odd since the front page of the doc says created 2/6/19
Who is Mbruno? that one is easy
Back to the pdf, when you create a PDF using most tools it does what is known as flattening, removes parts of images that aren't seen and removes extra data
of course because this is amateur hour that isn't what happened, this was a "fat" PDF helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/pri…
of course because this is amateur hour that isn't what happened, this was a "fat" PDF helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/pri…
generally because fat PDFs take up more space and might contain info you don't want others seeing you don't send those out, because this was fat I was able to use another tool, pdfimages, to extra the images from the file xpdfreader.com/pdfimages-man.…
reverse image searching the first image brought me to this page, a presentation given by a Pinterest employee at an AWS Loft meetup back in 9/2015
slideshare.net/qubolemarketin…
slideshare.net/qubolemarketin…
That image only shows up a few times in reverse image search, here at another pintrest talk in 2015 infoq.com/presentations/…
otherwise Google, Tineye and Yandex reverse image search don't turn anything else up
now were it gets interesting the left is from the Big Data Platform talk at the AWS Loft event
the right from the PV pdf
now were it gets interesting the left is from the Big Data Platform talk at the AWS Loft event
the right from the PV pdf
why include the same typographical error? Either it was a standard convention inside Pinterest, which seem unlikely, or they only had the one example to work off of and thought to just reuse it to be safe
In fact we can find later Pinterest presentations that use a totally different format slideshare.net/paulpattishall…
The other image shows up cropped in this slide (8/9) (again Fat)
if we search for that image they overlaid the Pinterest logo over the picture found here business.pinterest.com/en/blog/grow-y…
business.pinterest.com/sites/default/…
business.pinterest.com/sites/default/…
Are there non-nefarious reasons they could have done this? If there goal was to remove metadata to prevent exposing their leakier that wouldn't make sense because they exposed him and simply printing as a pdf would remove that data
Can I prove the info in the packet is fake or bad or manipulated? no, but I can offer enough circumstantial evidence to bring it into question and wish the media that bought it at face value had done the same before publishing things like this newsweek.com/i-blew-whistle…
