WOOT! Fu*k Meta-data! New tool from Tor: "MAT"

[tor-talk] [GSoC] Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit
https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2011-August/020949.html

Hello,

the end of the GSoC is near, and I think I have almost achieved my objectives (except for zip files, but I'm working on a patch). My project is also meant to run well on Tails; dependencies are python-core and python-parser; optionals dependencies are python-mutagen for more audio format support, and python-poppler and python-cairo for pdf support.

I need some testing/usability comments of my project.

Thank you, and have a nice day ! -- VOISIN Julien

| pgp key : C48815F2 <http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x9768FD3CC48815F2>
| dustri.org

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https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/jvoisin/mat.git/blob/HEAD:/README
METADATA:

Metadata consist of information that characterizes data. Metadata are used to provide documentation for data products. In essence, metadata answer who, what, when, where, why, and how about every facet of the data that are being documented.

METADATA AND PRIVACY:

Metadata within a file can tell a lot about you. Cameras record data about when a picture was taken and what camera was used. Office documents like pdf or Office automatically adds author and company information to documents and spreadsheets. Maybe you don't want to disclose those informations on the web.

WARNING :

Mat only remove metadata from your files, it does not anonymise their content, nor it can handle watermarking, steganography, or any too custom metadata field/system.

If you really want to be anonym, use format that does not contain any metadata, or better : use plain-text.


DEPENDENCIES:

1. python2.6 (at least)
2. python-hachoir-core and python-hachoir-parser
3. shred (should be already installed)

OPTIONALS DEPENDENCIES:

1. python-poppler and python-poppler : for pdf support
2. python-mutagen : for massive audio format support

USAGE:

• • [command prompt] python cli.py --help
• or
  • [command prompt] python gui.py

SUPPORTED FORMAT:

• Portable Network Graphics (.png)
  • support : full
  • metadata : textual metadata + date
  • method : removal of harmful fields is done with hachoir

• Jpeg (.jpeg, .jpg)
  • support : full
  • metadata : comment + exif/photoshop/adobe
  • method : removal of harmful fields is done with hachoir

• Open Document [i.e., LibreOffice; formally OpenOffieOrg] (.odt, .odx, .ods, ...)
  • support : full
  • metadata : a meta.xml file
  • method : removal of the meta.xml file

• Office Openxml (.docx, .pptx, .xlsx, ...)
  • support : full
  • metadata : a docProps folder containings xml metadata files
  • method : removal of the docProps folder

• Portable Document Fileformat (.pdf)
  • support : full
  • metadata : a lot
  • method : rendering of the pdf file on a cairo surface with the help of poppler in order to remove all the internal metadata, then removal of the remaining metadata fields of the pdf itself with pdfrw (the next version of python-cairo will support metadata, so we should get rid of pdfrw)

• Tape ARchive (.tar, .tar.bz2, .tar.gz)
  • support : full
  • metadata : metadata from the file itself, metadata from the file contained into the archive, and metadata added by tar to the file at then creation of the archive method : extraction of each file, treatement of the file, add treated file to a new archive, right before the add, remove the metadata added by tar itself. When the new archive is complete, remove all his metadata.

• Zip (.zip)
  • support : .partial
  • metadata : metadata from the file itself, metadata from the file contained into the archive, and metadata added by zip to the file when added to the archive.
  • method : extraction of each file, treatement of the file, add treated file to a new archive. When the new archive is complete, remove all his metadata

• MPEG Audio (.mp3, .mp2, .mp1)
  • support : full
  • metadata : id3
  • method : removal of harmful fields is done with hachoir

• Ogg Vorbis (.ogg)
  • support : full
  • metadata : Vorbis
  • method : removal of harmful fields is done with mutagen

• Free Lossless Audio Codec (.flac)
  • support : full
  • metadata : Flac, Vorbis
  • method : removal of harmful fields is done with mutagen

LICENSE:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.


THANKS:

Mat would not exist without :
- the Google Summer of Code,
- the Python language
- the amazing (and messy) hachoir library,
- poppler and cairo's python bindings,
- and the mutagen library many thanks to them !


KNOWN BUGS:

Zipfiles are not totally cleaned, I know. I am working on a patch for zipfile.py

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