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Posted by DuffJohnson 9 hours ago

A case study in PDF forensics: The Epstein PDFs(pdfa.org)
222 points | 121 commentspage 2
corygarms 8 hours ago|
These folks must really have their hands full with the 3M+ pages that were recently released. Hoping for an update once they expand this work to those new files.
seydor 4 hours ago|
why do we count this in "pages" when it's mostly an email dump
NoToP 6 hours ago||
This is so incredibly useful to me right now for incidental reasons I am commenting to make sure I can get back to it.
layer8 5 hours ago|
HN lets you mark submissions (and comments) as favorites, no need to spam the thread.
mmooss 7 hours ago||
What is the legal basis for releasing the someone's private files and communications? If they can do it to Epstein, they can do it to you, to the Washington Post journalist, to former President Clinton, etc.

Is the scope at least limited somehow? Generally I favor transparency, but of course probably the most important parts are withheld.

toast0 6 hours ago||
> What is the legal basis for releasing the someone's private files and communications?

An act of congress, for one.

Also, AFAIK, federal privacy generally ends at death, as does criminal liability; so releasing government files from a federal investigation after death of the subject is generally within the realm of acceptable conduct.

mmooss 3 hours ago||
Yes, I forgot about that major part of the story! Still, acts of Congress can't violate Consitutional rights.

It seems unlikely you lose all rights when you die or it would be chaos - imagine all the secrets people die with that affect everyone they know. An integral part of every estate plan would be incinerating records. Wills do have real power.

toast0 3 hours ago|||
Your estate retains many of your rights when you die. However, the federal privacy act explicitly does not apply. Your estate may have privacy rights via the Constitution, although privacy is not specifically enumerated. Your estate may have privacy rights via state law; but that wouldn't bar the federal government from disclosing its investigative materials.

OTOH, there's a 2004 case, National Archives & Records Administration v. Favish[1], which establishes the surviving family's right of privacy to death scene photos, but that's technically not privacy of the deceased.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/oip/blog/foia-post-2004-sup...

cindyllm 3 hours ago|||
[dead]
anigbrowl 6 hours ago|||
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4405...
zahlman 4 hours ago||
I assume this could not have passed while he was alive, because of the "bill of attainder" thing?

(It also surprises me that this passed anyway, given that both sides of the aisle seem to have people with clear reason to keep it covered up... ?)

(Also, Maxwell is specifically named, and is still alive... ?)

pyvpx 6 hours ago|||
I believe a literal Act of Congress…
todfox 5 hours ago|||
He was a pedophile sex trafficker. Epstein and his clients deserve zero privacy.
PantaloonFlames 1 hour ago|||
You’ve sidestepped the important part of the question.
mmooss 3 hours ago|||
Who determines who deserves privacy, and how do they determine it?
dwater 6 hours ago|||
It was passed into law by congress and signed by the president:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epstein_Files_Transparency_Act

streetfighter64 5 hours ago|||
Given what we've seen so far, there's probably some very interesting stuff in Clinton's private files and communications. Not to mention the stuff in current president Trump's. Some random journalist, probably not. Unless it's a very wealthy and/or connected journalist like David Brooks...
pstuart 6 hours ago||
I'd assume it was the nature of the case, and that discovery was done with him being dead.
tibbon 9 hours ago||
That's a lot of PeDoFiles!

(But seriously, great work here!)

ted_bunny 7 hours ago|
Elite PDF File ring
meidan_y 9 hours ago|
(2025) just follow hn guideline, impressive voter ring though
alain94040 9 hours ago||
We're in early February 2025 [edit:2026] and the article was written on Dec 23, 2025, which makes it less than two months old. I think it's ok not to include a year in the submission title in that case.

I personally understand a year in the submission as a warning that the article may not be up to date.

embedding-shape 8 hours ago|||
Less about the age, and more about confusing what they are analyzing, for the files that were just released like a week ago.
petepete 9 hours ago||||
We're in Feb 2026.

I'm not used to typing it yet, either.

GlitchRider47 9 hours ago||||
Generally, I'd agree with you. However, the recent Epstein file dump was in 2026, not 2025, so I would say it is relevant in this case..
michaelmcdonald 9 hours ago|||
"We're in early February ~2025~ *2026*"