Global Free Press | IraqGate UK: Microsoft Word bytes Tony Blair in the butt

Deception Dollars

t-shirts

Sections

Main

- About
- FAQ
- Discussions
- Journals
- Messages
- Topics
- Authors

- GFP HOF
- My GFP
- Older Stuff
- Past Polls
- Submit Story

- Video
- mp3
- SGTV

SGTV/INN

MUST SEE: 911 Documentry

Watch SGTV, our TV show, every Thursday on MNN webcast, 8 PM EST

Watch INN World Report, our new cooperation partner, every Friday (Repeats on Saturday + Sunday) on Free Speech TV, MNN and many other Public Access Channels, 6 PM EST.

INN is also our new breaking news partner. Their news shows incl. Interview Highlights with John Pilger, Joe Conason, Michael Meacher, Bev Harris, Cynthia McKinney, Sander Hicks and many others...

911 Encyclopedia

Ewing2001 Has compiled a comprehensive list of links an articles pertaining to 911.

This is required reading for anyone interested in understanding that horrid day ESPECIALLY since the presstitutes refuse to their job.

more...

9/11 News and GFP-911 Archive

Liberal Talk Radio

Mike Malloy

Mike Malloy pulls no punches with the FLYING MONKEY RIGHT. If you want to hear a REAL liberal tell it like it is don't miss his show!

Listen Daily 9pm to 12pm

One Year Later

Text
Audio (4:00) - RealPlayer required

Peter Werbe

Tune in to get a liberal helping of the TRUTH. Peter Werbe stands up to the neo-cons and for liberal cause daily while keeping us all informed on the daily events that are shaping our world.

Listen Daily 2pm till 5pm

Archive

Liberal Talk Radio In Florida!

Spread the word. Tell your friends to listen in. Call the station every Saturday and give them your supportive comments (239-732-9369). Call The Guy James Show live on the air (239-530-1660).

The Randi Rhodes Show

more...

Internet Radio/Tv For Progressives

Books

All Books

Greg Palast:
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

Updated: with %40 more pages than the hard cover.

War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know
By William Rivers Pitt

The Greatest Sedition Is Silence:
Four Years in America
More...

Alex Jones Video

MUST SEE: Video

From infowars.com
psst... pass the word

Global Outlook

Michel Chossudovsky's Magazine on 911 and Post-911 Analysis

Issue No.5-out now:

Bush's "Project for a New American Century"

Was 9/11 a Hoax?

Diving up the Spoils of War

Website Topics of the month:

Was Kelly assassinated for "pulling the plug"

The Forged Intelligence on Iraq

Who's Who on the 9/11 "Independent" Commission

Hot ranking thread:

CIA closed friend with the finanzsystem of Al-Quida!

GLOBAL RESEARCH (CANADA) : FEATURE ARTICLES

25 November - 3 December 2003

Iraq: The Truth on the Convoy which was attacked while driving through Samara

The Rise of a New Dictatorship in Iraq , Firas Al-Atraqchi

The FTAA Protests: This is What Democracy Looks Like in Miami, Al Crespo

Enforcing Globalization: New World Order Weapons, John Valleau

Police State in America: Bush�s Operation Clean Sweep: World War IV in 2004? John Stanton

Manipulating Pathologic Evidence: The David Kelly Story: Turning Murder into Suicide, Rowena Thursby

The Legend of 9/11: Coincidence or Conspiracy: The Tale of The Millennial Bomber, Chaim Kupferberg

Assassination of Reuters Cameraman, who had uncovered evidence of Mass US Casualties in Iraq, Felicity Arbuthnot

Legal Scam in Denmark: Danish government lawyers removed preconditions for invasion of Iraq, Coil�n Oscar �hAiseadha

Le G�n�ral Franks doute que la Constitution survive � une attaque aux ADM (armes de destruction massive) , John O. Edwards

Who�s Holding All the Cards?... The Bipartisan War Agenda, Michel Chossudovsky & Ian Woods

Being "Against the War" is now a "Terrorist Act": FBI Targets Anti-War Activists

Counterpunch

Political Newsletter

(Open Headlines Popup Window)

IraqGate UK: Microsoft Word bytes Tony Blair in the butt

posted by ewing2001 on Tuesday July 01, @05:22PM
from the Computerbytesman dept.

Microsoft Word bytes Tony Blair in the butt

June 30, 2003

Computerbytesman

Microsoft Word documents are notorious for containing private information in file headers which people would sometimes rather not share. The British government of Tony Blair just learned this lesson the hard way.

Back in February 2003, 10 Downing Street published a dossier on Iraq's security and intelligence organizations. This dossier was cited by Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations the same month. Dr. Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, quickly discovered that much of the material in the dossier was actually plagiarized from a U.S. researcher on Iraq.

You can read Dr. Rangwala's original analysis of the dossier from Feb. 5, 2003 at this URL:

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg00457.html

Blair's government made one additional mistake: they published the dossier as a Microsoft Word file on their Web site. When I first heard from Dr. Rangwala about the dossier, I decided to try to learn who had worked on the document. I downloaded the Word file containing the dossier from the 10 Downing Street Web site (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/) and found the following revision log in the file:

 Rev. #1: "cic22" edited file "C:\DOCUME~1\phamill\LOCALS~1\Temp\AutoRecovery save of Iraq - security.asd" 
 Rev. #2: "cic22" edited file "C:\DOCUME~1\phamill\LOCALS~1\Temp\AutoRecovery save of Iraq - security.asd"
 Rev. #3: "cic22" edited file "C:\DOCUME~1\phamill\LOCALS~1\Temp\AutoRecovery save of Iraq - security.asd" 
 Rev. #4: "JPratt" edited file "C:\TEMP\Iraq - security.doc" 
 Rev. #5: "JPratt" edited file "A:\Iraq - security.doc" 
 Rev. #6: "ablackshaw" edited file "C:\ABlackshaw\Iraq - security.doc" 
 Rev. #7: "ablackshaw" edited file "C:\ABlackshaw\A;Iraq - security.doc"
 Rev. #8: "ablackshaw" edited file "A:\Iraq - security.doc" 
 Rev. #9: "MKhan" edited file "C:\TEMP\Iraq - security.doc" 
 Rev. #10: "MKhan" edited file "C:\WINNT\Profiles\mkhan\Desktop\Iraq.doc"

Most Word document files contain a revision log which is a listing of
the last 10 edits of a document, showing the names of the people who
worked with the document and the names of the files that the document
went under.  Revision logs are hidden and cannot be viewed in Microsoft
Word.  However I wrote a small utility for extracting and displaying
revision logs and other hidden information in Word .DOC files.

It is easy to spot the following four names in the revision log of the
Blair dossier:

P. Hamill

J. Pratt

A. Blackshaw

M. Khan

In addition, the "cic22" in the first three entries of the revision log
stands for "Communications Information Centre," a unit of the British
Government.

Back in February, I passed along these 4 names to Dr. Rangwala who then
provided them to a number of reports in the UK.  One reporter
quickly identified the four individuals as:

Paul Hamill - Foreign Office official

John Pratt - Downing Street official

Alison Blackshaw - The personal assistant of the Prime Minister's press secretary

Murtaza Khan - Junior press officer for the Prime Minister

During the week of June 23, 2003, the British Parliament held hearings
of the Blair Dossier and other PR efforts by the UK Government leading
up to the Iraq war.  Alastair Campbell of the UK Communications
Information Centre was put in the hot seat and had to explain the
dossier plagiarism and details of
the revision log.  

One of the interesting tidbits that came out of the hearings is that
John Pratt provided the dossier on a floppy disk to Alison Blackshaw to
give to Colin Powell for his presentation before the United Nations. The
revision log shows the document being copied from Pratt's hard drive to
a floppy disk in revisions #4 and #5.

The Word version of the dossier was recently removed from the 10 Downing
Street Web site, but I archived a copy of the Feb. 6 version here:

IRAQ - ITS INFRASTRUCTURE OF CONCEALMENT, DECEPTION AND INTIMIDATION

http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/blair.doc

The Blair government learned its lesson well with regard to publishing
Microsoft Word documents.  Another report on Iraq that was published in
June 2003 was only available as a PDF file.  PDF files do not contain
revision logs or hidden author information.
Links

 Dr. Glen Rangwala's analysis of the Iraq dossier, Feb. 2003
 
 http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg00457.html


								
 Dr. Glen Rangwala's paper submitted to Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, June 16, 2003
 
 http://middleeastreference.org.uk/fac030616.html



 Iraq's Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis, Sept. 2002

 http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html



 Downing St dossier plagiarised, Feb. 6, 2003

 http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/02/week_1/06_dossier.html



 Britain Admits That Much of Its Report on Iraq Came From Magazines, Feb. 8, 2003

 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20B1EFD395F0C7B8CDDAB0894DB404482



 Straw's letter to WMD inquiry
 
 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,983396,00.html



 Campbell: In the line of fire
 
 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=418480



 The key backroom players
 
 http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/5475182



 WD97: How to Minimize Metadata in Microsoft Word Documents
 
 http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/Q223/7/90.ASP



 Dr. Glen Rangwala's Web site
 
 http://middleeastreference.org.uk



 10 Downing Street Web site

 http://www.number-10.gov.uk

Copyright (C) 2003 Richard M. Smith

Questions? Comments? Hot Tips? Click Here 
 


 <  Afghan Rebel Leader Vows to Oust U.S.

Global Free Press Login

[ Create a new account ]