alt Hacker News> this type of redaction eliminates the possibility to change text length
This is the only weakness of Barr's method.
> it doesn't eliminate the risk of non-redaction since you can't simply search&replace with machine precision
Anyong relying on automated tools to redact is doing so performatively. At the end of the day, you need people who understand the context to sit down and read through the documents and strike out anything that reveals–directly or indirectly, spelled correctly or incorrectly–too much.
> This is the only weakness of Barr's method.
Of course it isn't, the other weakness you just dismiss is the higher risk of failed searches. People already fail with digital, it's even harder to do in print or translate digital to print (something a machine can do with 100% precision, now you've introduced a human error)
> At the end of the day, you need people who understand the context
Before the end of the day there is also the whole day, and if you have to waste the attention of such people on doing ink redactions instead of dedicating all of their time to focused reading, you're just adding mistakes for no benefit