> As I was reading the memo in TFA, I thought "I wonder if this memo has slight differences in it based upon who is viewing it".
> Specifically, I noted one place where I thought a comma should normally have been. Perhaps it's "paranoia", but it seemed like that is one possible "variation" that could have been used.
This is one of the methods taught in "counterintelligence 101" type classes at intel agencies. Create something hot and surprising, salt it with specific phrases, grammar or punctuation, and then leak it into a number of different compartments. If you have access to where the intel is leaking to, obtain a copy after it gets leaked, and figure out which of your compartments it came from.
You would have to be in possession of the index of which unique modification correlates with which person or group it was distributed to, which is usually knowledge only held by the creators of the salted documents.
Not necessarily. You don't need to randomly change the structure of the memo. You just need to leak a version of the memo that someone else received. It's not that hard to believe that someone would leave their account unattended for a moment.
> Specifically, I noted one place where I thought a comma should normally have been. Perhaps it's "paranoia", but it seemed like that is one possible "variation" that could have been used.
This is one of the methods taught in "counterintelligence 101" type classes at intel agencies. Create something hot and surprising, salt it with specific phrases, grammar or punctuation, and then leak it into a number of different compartments. If you have access to where the intel is leaking to, obtain a copy after it gets leaked, and figure out which of your compartments it came from.