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#259650 - 02/07/2005 14:05 PDF Security Question
CrackersMcCheese pooh-bah Registered: 14/01/2002 Posts: 2489	I've got Adobe Professional 6 and have a quick question about the security options. I can have it so that my pdf's text cannot be copied and theres a drop down box for compatability where I can select acrobat versions 3, 5 and 6. So my question is if I select 6 and later, will someone with version 3 be able to bypass the security? Or how does it work?
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#259651 - 02/07/2005 14:59 Re: PDF Security Question [Re: CrackersMcCheese]
tfabris carpal tunnel Registered: 20/12/1999 Posts: 31584 Loc: Seattle, WA	I can't answer your specific question for certainty, but I'm guessing that if you target the document to Acrobat 6, then Acrobat 3 won't even open the file, so your question might be moot. I did want to clarify this point, though: Security is a relative term. No matter what you do, anyone can take a screen shot and print that. Or OCR it or whatever. The only thing you're protecting is whether they can select the text with their cursor and press CTRL-C to easily paste it into an email in text form. But there's nothing to stop them from working with the image. If their eyeballs can see it, they can capture it. _________________________ Tony Fabris
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#259652 - 02/07/2005 15:09 Re: PDF Security Question [Re: tfabris]
CrackersMcCheese pooh-bah Registered: 14/01/2002 Posts: 2489	Oh yeah I know they can use OCR etc but I was just wanting to put in place all I could. The security section is different to the other compatibility sections though. I can select that the PDF can be opened with 5 or higher, but make the security options compatible with 3 or higher. Hmmmm I dunno now! I guess its not that important - it was just so I knew.
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#259653 - 02/07/2005 18:14 Re: PDF Security Question [Re: CrackersMcCheese]
jmwking old hand Registered: 27/02/2003 Posts: 770 Loc: Washington, DC metro	You can secure it so they can't edit it, print it, or copy and paste. We routinely do this for our PDFs, usually invoices and proposals that we don't want them to change or share (well, yes - they can forward the entire thing, but then it still has our copywrite). OCR is an entirely different problem, pretty much impossible to stop. I think most of the security bits require 5 or later to open at all; 4 and before won't open them. -jk
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#259654 - 02/07/2005 18:21 Re: PDF Security Question [Re: jmwking]
DWallach carpal tunnel Registered: 30/04/2000 Posts: 3810	Quote: I think most of the security bits require 5 or later to open at all; 4 and before won't open them. I think many if not most of the features worked just fine circa 1993 or 1994. I remember my dad sending me some kind of PDF that wouldn't let him print it. I dug into the PDF spec and the "encryption" and protection bits were already there. I forget the details, but at the time I recall saying that I could have hacked up something to remove the security in a day or two, and couldn't he just use screen captures, which he then did. It's a good thing, in hindsight, that I didn't hack the tool together, or it would have been me instead of Skyarov...
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#259655 - 03/07/2005 10:52 Re: PDF Security Question [Re: jmwking]
CrackersMcCheese pooh-bah Registered: 14/01/2002 Posts: 2489	So if I set the security compatability for 5 and later, does that mean that v4 won't even open the document?
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#259656 - 03/07/2005 11:59 Re: PDF Security Question [Re: CrackersMcCheese]
mlord carpal tunnel Registered: 29/08/2000 Posts: 14487 Loc: Canada	The only way to secure your document is to not release it electronically. If you are going to release it, then it can be copied (if anyone wants to bother). Cheers
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#259657 - 03/07/2005 14:48 Re: PDF Security Question [Re: DWallach]
Daria carpal tunnel Registered: 24/01/2002 Posts: 3937 Loc: Providence, RI	Quote: Quote: I think most of the security bits require 5 or later to open at all; 4 and before won't open them. I think many if not most of the features worked just fine circa 1993 or 1994. I remember my dad sending me some kind of PDF that wouldn't let him print it. I dug into the PDF spec and the "encryption" and protection bits were already there. I forget the details, but at the time I recall saying that I could have hacked up something to remove the security in a day or two, and couldn't he just use screen captures, which he then did. It's a good thing, in hindsight, that I didn't hack the tool together, or it would have been me instead of Skyarov... Derek Noonberg released xpdf in the mid 90s; Let's just say my memory is that for early PDF it was precious easy to disable the security. I haven't looked since, because, oddly, I haven't needed to care.
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