> installing Tails or Whonix (both which solve the metadata problem in OP and a variety of other attacks)
I was surprised the article claims he was using Windows XP. There's a surprising number of leaks when using Windows software. These leaks are functional and can provide cool features, sure, but they're leaks nonetheless.
For example, if you embed a file in a Powerpoint presentation, the PPTX file includes the original full path to the file. "C:\Users\JLewis\SecretWorkForTheNSA\FormattedForPublicRelease.txt". Obviously this isn't exclusive to Windows operating systems, but I feel other OS environments generally don't encourage oversharing like Windows does.
I was surprised the article claims he was using Windows XP. There's a surprising number of leaks when using Windows software. These leaks are functional and can provide cool features, sure, but they're leaks nonetheless.
For example, if you embed a file in a Powerpoint presentation, the PPTX file includes the original full path to the file. "C:\Users\JLewis\SecretWorkForTheNSA\FormattedForPublicRelease.txt". Obviously this isn't exclusive to Windows operating systems, but I feel other OS environments generally don't encourage oversharing like Windows does.