elibaum.com
on the incomplete redaction of sensitive information
24 Nov 2024
You wake up, dazed, in a dusty cubicle. Silence, save a dull throbbing in your head. Foggy memories of a suburban office park trickle into your consciousness. Across the floor are strewn thousands of sheets of papers – you reach for a few, straining to focus your vision – all identical, a letter, corporate stationary, the signature line redacted with heavy black ink. You become suddenly convinced, inexplicably, that if you could decipher this hidden name, everything would be made clear. You could leave this place, return to… where, exactly?1
Image credit Gemini
Looking closely, you realize the censor has been sloppy, perhaps in a rush to vacate this haunted place of commerce. An arm pokes out of the right corner of the blackened rectangle, a beckoning clue. That must be a K, an X? No, a Y – no leg to match. And the left side isn’t fully redacted, either. There’s the edge of a full-height vertical bar. That would belong to the first letter – it must be one of:
B D E F H I K L M N P R
Ah, no, not an M. Elsewhere on the page you see the slight slant in this font’s capital.
Rifling through a desk drawer you find some standard-issue office supplies, including a micrometer. That’ll come in handy. You scribble down the clues you’ve amassed so far using a very-nearly dead ballpoint pen:
1. A Last Name, written in all capitals
2. Ends in a "Y"
3. Starts with one of "B D E F H I K L N P R"
4. Probably about 8-12 letters long.
There are just too many names this could be – there’s no way you could narrow this down any further, is there?
A pang of hunger in your stomach. When was the last time you ate? Perhaps in the supply closet… but alas, just more office supplies. Blank papers. Decomposing styrofoam coffee cups. And mysteriously, a moving box labeled 2010 U.S. Census in loopy cursive. That’s strange – has 2010 even occurred yet? You seem to remember Reagan being president.
Inside the box, neat stacks of papers, it must be thousands of sheets. You peer at one brittle sheet: FINANCIAL CHARACTERISTICS FOR HOUSING UNITS WITHOUT A MORTGAGE. A shriek down the hallway. A rusty office chair, surely. You blink twice. Tossing the paper aside, you extract a thick packet entitled Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census. Much more useful. But you don’t have all day. There must be a hundred thousand surnames here.
Bringing the faded packet out into the main office floor, the omnipresent gray light, you collapse into a lopsided chair. A smashed computer terminal before you, glass shards on the desk. But wait - is it broken? A dim line pulses, weak, like the breaths of a sick animal. Shielding the screen with your hand you can just make out some text:
Python 3.10.2 (v3.10.2:a58ebcc701, Jan 13 2022, 14:50:16) [Clang 13.0.0 (clang-1300.0.29.30)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> _
How inviting, unexpected, the cursor. Three arrows promising to propel you forwards, towards, towards…
You get to work. There are far too many names in the Census data to consider by hand, but a simple computer program can make quick work of them. Grabbing the micrometer and a fresh copy of the letter you begin to take measurements.
The redacted name is about 1190 thou wide. Elsewhere you measure that letters range from I (only 60 thou) up to M (180 thou), with about 20 thou of kerning space. You can’t find every letter of the alphabet – not a Q in sight – but presumably the font is relatively consistent, so you make a few estimates. Laboriously you punch a program into the computer.
#!/usr/bin/env python
import math
import pandas as pd
MYSTERY_LEN_PX = 1191
FLAT_LEFT = "ERIPDFHKLBN"
# includes one kerning space ~ 20 thou
WIDTHS = {
"A": 117, "B": 120, "C": 125, "D": 120, "E": 95, "F": 84, "G": 130,
"H": 100, "I": 60, "J": 105, "K": 112, "L": 128, "M": 180, "N": 100,
"O": 150, "P": 105, "Q": 150, "R": 112, "S": 93, "T": 128,"U": 131,
"V": 117, "W": 180, "X": 117, "Y": 128, "Z": 125,
}
# last letter doesn't have kerning after it. per measurement, "I" is
# about 1/3 letter and 2/3 space.
SPACE_WIDTH = round(WIDTHS["I"] * 2/3)
MYSTERY_LEN_PX -= SPACE_WIDTH
max_letters = math.ceil(MYSTERY_LEN_PX / WIDTHS["I"])
min_letters = math.floor(MYSTERY_LEN_PX / WIDTHS["M"])
df = pd.read_csv("~/Downloads/names/names.csv", header=1)
names = df[df.columns[0]].dropna().tolist()
L = filter(lambda x:
(len(x) < max_letters and len(x) > min_letters and
x.endswith('Y') and any(x.startswith(s) for s in FLAT_LEFT)),
names)
C = map(lambda name: (name, sum(WIDTHS[k] for k in name)), L)
result = list(C)
result.sort(key=lambda x: abs(MYSTERY_LEN_PX - x[1]))
print("Target:", MYSTERY_LEN_PX)
for i, r in enumerate(result):
n, L = r
diff = L - MYSTERY_LEN_PX
print(f"{n:16} {L:4} {diff:3}")
if i+1 >= 100:
break
By the power of deus ex machina, you realize the census data is in fact already loaded onto this computer’s hard drive. With the program keyed in, breath held, you press ENTER to run the program. A door slams shut upstairs. A few anxious seconds, and output begins to appear, slowly, one line at a time. You strain to recognize any names. Nothing clicks. Who are these people?
Target: 1151 thou
HUNTZBERRY 1151 0
ROTENBERRY 1152 1
NAKONECZNY 1152 1
BOURJOLLY 1152 1
FOXWORTHY 1149 -2
NEMIROVSKY 1147 -4
BEREZOVSKY 1147 -4
KOSLOWSKY 1146 -5
RUTKOWSKY 1146 -5
LANDAVERRY 1146 -5
DEMONTINEY 1156 5
HUMENANSKY 1156 5
PALANISAMY 1145 -6
ROMANOSKY 1142 -9
KAMENETSKY 1160 9
BRAUDAWAY 1142 -9
FORTENBURY 1160 9
BROADAWAY 1161 10
NOSWORTHY 1141 -10
LEVANDUSKY 1141 -10
DILLAHUNTY 1140 -11
KINSWORTHY 1163 12
LEVENDOSKY 1138 -13
DOMBROSKY 1165 14
HOCKENBERY 1137 -14
BOBROWSKY 1165 14
KOSTELECKY 1166 15
HOLTSBERRY 1166 15
ECHEAGARAY 1136 -15
DERRYBERRY 1134 -17
PENDLEBURY 1134 -17
LOUNSBERRY 1169 18
...
You suddenly feel very sleepy. Just a quick nap, a̷n̴d̴ ̴t̴h̸i̷n̴g̵s̵ ̴w̷i̵l̵l̷ m̵̜̎̎̾a̴͔͒͘̕k̴̤͊͗̓ë̶̝́̈́͌ ̴̤̅̄̽̕m̵̧̖͓͖̂̑ó̵̯̬̥̱̌̕r̸̭̋̎͊͛e̶͍̾̈́́ ̷͔͖̜̔͌̇͜s̷̟̲͂͊e̴͈̩͙̜͛n̶͔̗̜͙̅͘s̷̞̊̒̽̓e̵̪̓̄̊.
Update: On 5 Dec 2024, Boston University renamed the Center for Computing & Data Sciences after the Duan Family. DUAN FAMILY. Two words. Not on my horizon.
We still have no idea who the Duan family is. Maybe this guy?
-
Immediately after writing this paragraph, I whacked my head on my kitchen cabinet. This is what they call method writing. ↩