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authorjvoisin2019-05-11 00:19:17 +0200
committerjvoisin2019-05-11 00:19:17 +0200
commitdd9ead4ebeb04a82e8d1e7c72be319520aacd4d1 (patch)
treefdc11e744e3f42a90d5598b70381e5edc4f7496b /doc
parentd0ab2c3023fd3be4e2eb1f76a8d8b273a099257b (diff)
Document how mat2 compares to other software
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1# Exiftool
2
3mat2 is in fact using exiftool to extract metadata from files,
4but not to remove them. The previous iteration of mat2, MAT,
5was using exiftool to remove metadata, which lead to several cases where
6they weren't correctly removed, if at all.
7For example, [Exiftool's documentation](https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/PDF.html)
8states the following with regard to PDF:
9
10> All metadata edits are reversible. While this would normally be considered an
11advantage, it is a potential security problem because old information is never
12actually deleted from the file.
13
14To remove metadata, mat2 usually re-render the file completely, eliminating
15all possible original metadata. See the `implementation_notes.md` file for
16details.
17
18
19# jpegoptim, optipng, …
20
21While designed to reduce as much as possible the size of pictures,
22those software can be used to remove metadata. They usually have very good
23support for a single picture format, and can be used in place of mat2 for them.
24
25
26# PDF Redact Tools
27
28[PDF Redact Tools](https://github.com/firstlookmedia/pdf-redact-tools) is
29a software developed by the people from [First Look
30Media](https://firstlook.media/), the entity behind, amongst other things,
31[The Intercept](https://theintercept.com/).
32
33The tool uses roughly the same approach than mat2 to deal with PDF,
34which is unfortunately the only fileformat that it does support.
35It's interesting to note that it has counter-measures against
36[yellow dots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code),
37a capacity that mat2 [doesn't possess yet](https://0xacab.org/jvoisin/mat2/issues/43).
38
39
40# Exiv2
41
42[Exiv2](https://www.exiv2.org/) was considered for mat2,
43but it currently [misses a lot of metadata](https://0xacab.org/jvoisin/mat2/issues/85)
44
45
46# Others non open source software/online service
47
48There are a lot of closed-source software and online service claiming to remove
49metadata from your files, but since there is no way to actually verify that
50they're effectively removing them, let alone adding unique markers, they
51shouldn't be used.