Redacted documents are in the news again. Visually I quite like them with their strong black obscuring lines inviting mystery and speculation, but they could do the same job whilst being more interesting with a few simple modifications.
Red, Green, Yellow & Bluedacted WIth The Odd Letter N is the
name given to the results of these improvements.
The first improvement is the provision of solid coloured bars to obscure the blocks of text. Using any simple image processing software such as photoshop, it would be very easy to replace all of those black bars with much nicer multi-coloured ones.
The next modification I propose is entire word length bars and spacings instead of complete line lengths.
The third modification is the retention of some random single letters in their correct positions within the document.
Is that letter "N" on line two in the half inch long block of yellow "N" for nuclear???
The net effect of all this is to make the documents a source of visual intrigue and speculation without revealing anything. At some stage in the future when full disclosure is harmful to no one, both sets of documents can be exhibited side by side and their content speculators can say "see - told you that "N" was for........"