[gonzo]

With tales of how ACH fraud is reaching massive proportions read this post to see one way its happening....

Why blurring sensitive information is a bad idea

Undoubtedly you have all seen photographs of people on TV and online who have been blurred to hide faces.

For the most part this is all fine with peoples' faces as there isn't a convenient way to reverse the blur back into a photo so detailed that you can recognise the photo. So that's good if that is what you intended. However, many people also resort to blurring sensitive numbers and text. I'll illustrate why that is a BAD idea.

Suppose someone posted a photo of their check or credit card online for whatever awful reason (proving that I earned a million dollars, showing something funny about a check, comparing the size of something to a credit card, etc.), blurring out the image with the far-too-common mosaic effect to hide the numbers

Seem secure because nobody can read the numbers anymore? WRONG. Here's a way to attack this scheme:

rest of story