Idiotic Specifications

I bet they top post as well :-)

Michael Kellett

No they don´t. They remove all contents from previous messages because they use Google.

Except the signature, they always keep it

Regards

Zara

That should make for entertaining reading, nearly as good as reading a European directive.

have they never heard of PDF printers?

Paul Burke

This is aparently independent of the OS. Pdf files can be created to be not printable. That they cannot be saved is dreaming.

Rene

Make sure that you print the secretly patented super-secret spy special attack squirrel secret-agent invisible security code onto each sheet of paper, so that any honorable photocopier or scanner will know its duty when presented with a print-out from one of these documents. Oh, and arm the cleaners.

A relatively innocent omission. Probably they didn't bother to mention it because they just assumed that *everybody* uses CP/M.

They could have simplified the specs dramatically:

"Certain users should be allowed to read the pdf files, but they should not be able to read the pdf files."

I'd say those are not very unusual requirements. There is a number of web services for the document hosting which provide the access rights like that.

Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

How are they able to let the customers download a file to print it, and not be able to save it? How are they able to watch a file (in clear text), and not be copy it? Thats beyond me. If you can create such a system, I bet you get rich. It should be easy to create an obfuscated system preventing grandma from copying , but a somewhat computer literaded person?

Have you ever tried copy and paste from xpdf?

Open-source PDF viewers are not obliged to honor the "disable printing" bit.

For further details, contact Dmitri Skylarov.

It doesn't matter how hard the data is kept, there is always a way to steal it. And every computer literate fool knows that.

The purpose of this document is the demonstration of the strict policy about handling the sensitive information.

The owners of the document access web systems are probably doing OK.

It should be easy to create an obfuscated system preventing

It does not matter. This is a legal document, which requires that all measures whatever possible should have taken.

Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

The last time I checked, there were password/encryption schemes that were are only available in Adobe Acrobat Reader (which honors the don't print, don't "cut/copy" bits).

Of course it's only a matter of time before the open-source viewers add support. Or until somebody hackes Adobe Acrobat Reader to disable the honoring of the various permission bits.

For all practical purposes: if it can be viewed, it can be printed, saved, edited, and copied. Anybody who pretends otherwise is deluded.

Not at all unusual.

Just impossible.

They attempt to.

Yes. It didn't work for some of my documents. I fixed xpdf, now it works for all documents.

That's usually purely accidental - did you give them feedback so they could fix it ?

-jg

I probably should have, but I didn't.

On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 09:05:29 -0600, Grant Edwards wrote (in article ):

It's been a long time since tech pubs people had a clue.

While working as a consultant doing low level stuff, you still must analyze the commercial viability of your customer's requirements, at least if you expect to receive your payment in time :-).

Paul