Talk:Plaintext

message: A brief tour around WP didn't turn up an article covering plain text (as in the second section of this one). There is document file format which is the obverse in some sense, but nothing quite on point. I suggest that the second section of this article be made into a plain text article and referenced from the appropriate places (eg, binary file format, text file format, document file format, file format, ....). Comments, thoughts? ww 17:52, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest we merge it into Binary and text files instead. — Matt 20:20, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Matt, I agree that would be a reasonable place to put it, just as this article is, I suppose. But the point of my suggestion is to allow the ordinary user to avoid cryptographic (and other, are there any?) meanings when trying to figure out what 'plain text' is; as for instance in a Web submission form instructing to 'paste in plain text here'. A redirect pointer to binary and text files would do, but would likely require the reader to wade through more than necessary (and probably than desired) to ferret out the information. Here, I think, is needed no more than a pointer to wherever this stuff ends up. Reactions? ww 16:23, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Matt, Have gone ahead and tried to disentangle cleartext, plain text, and plaintext. Lots of fiddly stuff all over. I think it's done, but if you see anything.... ww 16:16, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: plain text different from plaintext? put section somewhere else?

message: "Unerased files (including any plaintexts which may have been present) will still be readable; several enterprising projects have demonstrated this recently. Perhaps the most famous was a MIT student project which found a wide variety of personal/proprietary/confidential information on discarded, and on recycled, computer equipment." it says "several", but only refers to one incident. No details or references are given about the MIT student project. Source please, along with more details. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:30, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't write this originally, but I think I've found the reference, and I've hopefully now clarified it slightly. — Matt Crypto 15:33, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification requested 

message: The article by Guttman talks about data being recovered despite it being overwritten. As far as I know no one has been able to recover any data even in the lab, even with the drive density of 1990 or earlier. I think it's wrong to suggest in this wikipedia article that it's a threat considering that it's not reproducible in artificial conditions. See Can Intelligence Agencies Read Overwritten Data? A response to Gutmann. and SHSC.info wiki on Data Recovery. It seems that data recovery this way is nothing but urban legend.
Is there any —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.135.231.49 (talk • contribs) 
:No, I'm not aware of any public sources on this actually happening. But legend or not, cryptography has for a long time been about protecting against "what is theoretically possible", not "what we have conclusive proof that the attacker is doing". That's like saying "no, we don't need strong cryptography because I haven't heard of anyone who is trying to crack it". -- intgr [talk] 09:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peter Guttman of the University of Auckland 

message: The current English Wikipedia explains "plaintext" as referring only to cryptography matters, and "plain text" as referring only to general computing matters, but is this really appropriate?
Is it possible that they are actually homonyms spelled with both "plaintext" and "plain text"? (I'm not sure.)
If so, shouldn't they be titled with parenthetical disambiguation, such as Plaintext (cryptography) and Plaintext (computing)? And in both articles, write "also spelled plain text", for example.--126.253.184.23 (talk) 08:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, if indeed "plaintext" more often refers to unencrypted text and "plain text" more often refers to unformatted text, then I think we should keep the current titles and state in the body of both articles that "different spelling is sometimes used, but it is generally used to mean a different thing". 126.253.184.23 (talk) 09:02, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plaintext vs plain text 

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