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  • Threat Model
    ============
    The Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit 2 adversary has a number
    of goals, capabilities, and counter-attack types that can be
    used to guide us towards a set of requirements for the MAT2.
    
    This is an overhaul of MAT's (the first iteration of the software) one.
    
    Warnings
    --------
    
    Mat only removes standard metadata from your files, it does _not_:
    
      - anonymise their content
      - handle watermarking
      - handle steganography
      - handle any non-standard metadata field/system
    
    If you really want to be anonymous format that does not contain any
    metadata, or better : use plain-text. And as usual, think before clicking.
    
    
    Adversary
    ------------
    
    * Goals:
    
        - Identifying the source of the document, since a document
        always has one. Who/where/when/how was a picture
        taken, where was the document leaked from and by
        whom, ...
    
        - Identify the author; in some cases documents may be
        anonymously authored or created. In these cases,
        identifying the author is the goal.
    
        - Identify the equipment/software used. If the attacker fails
        to directly identify the author and/or source, his next
        goal is to determine the source of the equipment used
        to produce, copy, and transmit the document. This can
        include the model of camera used to take a photo, or
        which software was used to produce an office document.
    
    
    * Adversary Capabilities - Positioning
        - The adversary created the document specifically for this
        user. This is the strongest position for the adversary to
        have. In this case, the adversary is capable of inserting
        arbitrary, custom watermarks specifically for tracking
        the user. In general, MAT cannot defend against this
        adversary, but we list it for completeness.
    
        - The adversary created the document for a group of users.
        In this case, the adversary knows that they attempted to
        limit distribution to a specific group of users. They may
        or may not have watermarked the document for these
        users, but they certainly know the format used.
    
        - The adversary did not create the document, the weakest
        position for the adversary to have. The file format is (most of the time)
         standard, nothing custom is added: MAT
        should be able to remove all meta-information from the
        file.
    
    Requirements
    ---------------
    
    * Processing
        - The MAT2 *should* avoid interactions with information.
        Its goal is to remove metadata, and the user is solely
        responsible for the information of the file.
    
        - The MAT2 *must* warn when encountering an unknown
        format. For example, in a zipfile, if MAT encounters an
        unknown format, it should warn the user, and ask if the
        file should be added to the anonymised archive that is
        produced.
    
        - The MAT2 *must* not add metadata, since its purpose is to
        anonymise files: every added items of metadata decreases
        anonymity.
    
        - The MAT2 *should* handle unknown/hidden metadata fields,
        like proprietary extensions of open formats.