![]() Any watermarks that are added can also be easily removed in a PDF editor. Most systems don’t provide any copy protection measures for downloadable files – they are only protected if viewed in the browser.Some screen grabber tools even use optical character recognition (OCR) to convert images into text and therefore making it possible for users to copy and paste it. Screenshotting is also very hard to prevent in the browser, so users can take high-quality screenshots of each page of your document using any screen grabbing tool and make a copy of it that way.If you want users to be able to print documents, for example, data rooms can’t stop them from making an unprotected copy by printing to a PDF file driver instead.While data rooms can enforce some controls, they struggle with others. A neat idea, but does it really make a PDF not copyable? Users log in and access it through their web browser with a number of limitations on how they can interact with the document. Instead of protecting the document itself, you upload it to a hardened cloud server that is only accessible with the right username and password combination. Virtual data rooms take a very different approach to your standard PDF protection tools. The problem with secure virtual data rooms You can then duplicate the document as many times as you like and share it with whomever you like. There will always be those looking to circumvent the controls, whether for malicious reasons or not, or developers who just can’t or won’t follow Adobe’s restriction model.Īlternatively, you can just upload the PDF to an online password removal service and it will exploit flaws in the Adobe Security handler to remove the anti-copying and editing controls instantly. This is obviously never going to be the case. The assumption that every application out there that can read PDFs will respect these controls and implement them in a secure way. Unbelievably, Acrobat’s anti-copying protection relies almost entirely on trust. Adobe even warns you that these restrictions aren’t effective: You set a permissions password, untick the “Enable copying” option, disable printing, and you’re seemingly good to go. If you don’t dive into it too deeply, Adobe Acrobat’s “no copy” option seems pretty bulletproof. Why Adobe Acrobat anti copy protection is useless ![]() Most PDF software doesn’t – including the ever-popular Adobe Acrobat. However, even an application that enforces PDF “no copy” features has to do it the right way – using strong technical and cryptographic foundations. You need a lot more control over what the user can and can’t do when interacting with their documents – more, for example, than is possible in the browser. Techniques such as these are a lot harder to remedy. It’s possible, for example, to print a PDF to a file using a print driver (such as the ‘Save as PDF’ option in MS Word, or Adobe Acrobat Distiller) or screenshot and use an OCR tool to make it editable. Some methods to copy a PDF are obvious: copy/pasting, duplicating the file, printing and scanning it, etc. Why most PDF anti-copy protection doesn’t work To understand why this happens, you first need to recognize the various avenues users have to copy or copy from a document and why popular PDF protection solutions cannot prevent them. Ineffective protection methods lead to documents leaking to the press, competitors, or even just unauthorized parties inside the company. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens on a daily basis. Whether it’s board meeting minutes, customer details, or financial accounts, the last thing you want is somebody copying the document and sharing it with unauthorized parties. At some point or another, every business has to share PDFs that contain private information.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |