Special attention is paid to the quality of the prose of the unique language, in the hopes that the suspect will repeat it verbatim in the leak, thereby identifying the version of the document.
Roddenberry was retained as an "executive consultant", due to the high regard the series' fans held him in; while he had little real authority he was still kept involved in the creative process.
So, before any drafts of the screenplay for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock were circulated, Bennett arranged for each individual copy to have subtle clues distinguishing it from the others.
[3] After a series of leaks at Tesla Motors in 2008, CEO Elon Musk reportedly sent slightly different versions of an e-mail to each employee in an attempt to reveal potential leakers.
[5][6] In December 2020, Andrew Lewer, a Member of Parliament and Parliamentary Private Secretary in the UK government, was fired after a canary trap in the form of a letter reminding staff not to leak was published on the website Guido Fawkes.
[7] According to the book Spycatcher[8] by Peter Wright (published in 1987), the technique is standard practice that has been used by MI5 (and other intelligence agencies) for many years, under the name "barium meal test".