@edit re: why would anyone remove the hidden data?
It makes sense when you mostly want to read the thing and/or put it on an e-book reader. I'm not saying you HAVE to use this version, it's just that if you don't plan to look at the hidden data at first, I'd download it.
I don't understand why you would remove the hidden data. I understand that size is a concern for somebody who might just be interested in reading a pdf. But this is totally beside the point when studying weird machines. The whole idea is to poke around within the polygot. https://twitter.com/travisgoodspeed/status/92539248920853708...
> The latest (pocorgtfo16.pdf) is a polyglot that is valid as a PDF document, a ZIP archive, and a Bash script that runs a Python webserver which hosts Kaitai Struct’s WebIDE which, allows you to view the file’s own annotated bytes ...
I mean, the polyglot thing was cool the first time, cool the second time, only slightly less so the third time, and and so on. But by the 16th time, when the PDF size has blown up to 48MB hosted on a slow server, and I’m watching a seemingly-endless spinner as my phone tries to download the whole thing over a poor LTE connection, just so it can throw away all the extra stuff and let me read the few KB worth of text in the issue… as best as I can, at least, when (as with all PDFs) their fixed line width is terribly suited for phone screens, and not all that well suited for any commonly used electronic display…
…well, I start to think that they could do a better job of showing off their savvy and old-school-ness by using a plain old HTML page. Maybe without any CSS - that seems like their style.
if you reply to comments instead of editing your original post it makes it easier to read.
Large parts of this document size is due to other pdfs inside the top-level pdf, along with source code to PoC and exploits ... even whole sections of Kant's philosophy (not part of the top level pdf as html) (see my post on https://blog.valbonne-consulting.com/2017/11/01/what-kant-ca...) ... IMO what you removed was the envelope and threw the actual letter away.
As a side note the acronym POC is widely used in the humanities to mean "people of color". Combined with 'GTFO', well er, I wasn't sure what I was going to find upon opening the PDF.
Funny how different communities use language differently.
The few times I've encountered that usage of PoC, it took me a minute to figure out that we weren't talking about proof of concepts having unique challenges.
I find the nostarch press printing[1] which is printed with the same paper as a bible to be quite fun. An interesting discussion this past weekend about what I would have thought if I had come across it in the drawer at a hotel.
> Technical Note:
This file,
pocorgtfo16.pdf, is a polyglot that is valid as a PDF document, a ZIP archive, and a Bash script that runs a Python webserver which hosts Kaitai Struct’s WebIDE which, allowing you to view the file’s own annotated bytes. Ain’t that nifty?
The polyglot'al nature of PoC||GTFO is one of the very reasons to read this fine periodical, indeed. If you have not acquainted yourself with this aspect of literature, you most certainly have a wonderful adventure ahead of you - I suggest starting with issue #1, and moving forward with as much haste as can be mustered - put it all in a VM if you must - but for sure, inspecting the nature of polyglot publishing can lead to some wonderful, wonderful adventures ..
Here's a Google Docs mirror, stripped down to 15MiB by removing hidden data:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DASC25AIlHPdzOYs2-eB3iVqfjN...
@edit re: why would anyone remove the hidden data?
It makes sense when you mostly want to read the thing and/or put it on an e-book reader. I'm not saying you HAVE to use this version, it's just that if you don't plan to look at the hidden data at first, I'd download it.