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▲ jacquesm 2 hours ago

Nice sleuthing!

We do a similar thing to mark documents that are still under embargo and one day I forgot to remove the watermark. The customer complained they had not received the document (a day or two after I sent it), and much searching was done. Finally we found a line in an outlook log on their end that said that the watermark was the reason the file had been put in indefinite quarantine until someone would take a look at it.

That's when I realized my error, and of course it was soon fixed afterwards. It is the first proof that it worked though, so I'm kind of happy about that.

▲saidnooneever an hour ago | parent [-]

pretty crafty i must say hats off. i will steal this idea if you dont mind!

▲jacquesm an hour ago | parent [-]

Feel free! The easiest way to do this is white text on a white background on the last page of the document. If you want to do it on every page do it in the header or the footer. Font size '1' for bonus points ;)

▲nxobject 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Now I'm curious: what was in the watermark that would trigger Outlook? (I'm having some fun speculating. My guess right now is a ye olde "bu¥ vi@gr@ ch33p!!!!" spam trigger.)

▲miki123211 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

remember about aria-hidden or equivalent, otherwise you are making the text visible to screen reader users.

I have read many snide comments and personal ID numbers that way, mostly in public and public-ish documents.

▲jacquesm an hour ago | parent [-]

Oh, that's funny. I don't mind people with screen readers reading it. The Venn diagram with 'people with screen readers' on one side and 'people that are about to break an embargo' must be an interesting subset.

▲trinari 44 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What's the benefit? It appears that the outlook rejection was unintended. So against llm processing?

▲strbean 17 minutes ago | parent [-]

The embargo was enforced. This slightly mitigates scenarios where someone accidentally sends a document via email while it is under embargo.

▲apublicfrog an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Amusingly Nathan For You did this in a humourous way back in 2014 (S02E06 - "Party Planner").