Leak Ledger is our weekly roundup of leaked documents, images and video. Five leaks this week, most from people with access to the material, and only some of them traceable.
Qualcomm's layoff memo reaches Reuters within a day
Staff heard on Monday that worldwide, performance-based cuts are coming, and Reuters was quoting the chief executive's memo by Tuesday morning. A memo to staff will get out. Sent as an attachment watermarked for each employee, the copy a reporter holds points to one person; quoted or retyped text points to no one.
Source: CNBC
A federal judge emails sealed court papers to about 140 people
Refusing to take part in a misconduct inquiry, Judge Ada E. Brown sent judges, lawyers and reporters confidential papers from her case and sealed papers from two attorney-discipline matters the committee says appear unrelated, according to a Fifth Circuit special committee order. For sealed files, a copy watermarked for each person cleared to read them points to whose copy got out.
Source: Fifth Circuit Judicial Council
Secret recording of Peter Thiel's closed lecture reaches Politico
Politico obtained a recording of a closed lecture Thiel gave in Nashville on October 12, in which he said the U.S. should not have gone to war with Iran. Nothing that was handed out leaked, and no watermark reaches a recording someone makes themselves.
Source: Politico
Former Eminem studio employee pleads guilty to selling unreleased songs
The man who helped run the studio's storage pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement; prosecutors say he copied 10 or more tracks from its password-protected drives and sold them for about $50,000. A password says who could get in, not who made a copy. We don't watermark audio, so this is a leak our watermark wouldn't have traced.
Source: CBS News
Contractor charged with leaking top-secret information to a Substack writer
The Justice Department says a developer with a Top Secret clearance passed national defense information to a writer he was close to; he is charged by complaint and presumed innocent. The complaint cites access records and phone logs. A watermark wouldn't have helped: prosecutors say what reached her articles was information relayed and rewritten, not a copy of a report.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Why it matters
None of this week's leaks needed a hack. A company memo, sealed court files, studio tracks and classified reports each sat with people who had access to them, and a closed lecture was secretly recorded.
Access records say who could have taken a file. They can't say whose copy turned up. When each recipient gets a copy with its own invisible watermark, detection reads the unique forensic ID from the leaked file, and you match it to the recipient you recorded. That covers documents, images and video. It doesn't cover audio, retyped or relayed text, or a recording someone makes themselves, and it doesn't stop a leak. Our guide to invisible watermarking covers where it works and where it doesn't.