Copy protection

[bunn]

Someone has sent me a pdf document that is encrypted to prevent it being edited.

I am supposed to print, sign and return this document.

I was sooo strongly tempted to print it, scan it, and sign it using my whizzy new pen and touchpad thing and then email it back to them, just to show I could.  I could have edited the text as well if the whim took me.

But that seemed a bit mean, so I have found an envelope, and a stamp. Such faith in technology, it's rather sweet.

Comments

[chainmailmaiden]

*grin*

That would have been evil, (but fun) ;-)

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I would have just responded to them that they need to send an unprotected copy or provide the password, if they want it signed. I can be even more awkward than the other person if needed. :-)

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

If they want a signed hard copy, then why was their approach inappropriate?

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

If they explicitly wanted a printed, and subsequently signed, copy then it wasn't. However, expecting somebody else to print your documents for you is a little cheeky.

What is wrong with an electronically signed document? It is more difficult to forge an electronic signature; it saves paper, toner or ink, the environment, storage space, etc.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

"...expecting somebody else to print your documents for you is a little cheeky."

Depends on the situation. Round our way it's common practice: saying "I have the document here, it's all ready for you to sign, but please wait an unecessary day or two for it to come through in the post instead of getting in in 5 seconds" seems a bit daft.

The probelm with electronically signed documents is that lots of officialdom requires ink signatures.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I prefer not to annoy my lovely clients. Particularly when this document was a confidentiality agreement that they wanted me to sign so they could fly me all expenses paid to Boston for a training course.

Doing something that they thought was impossible, in an effortless kind of way, to make the point that I know dark secrets that they do not wot of, is sometimes good client relations.

But I wouldn't risk anything that made them think of me as awkward. That's a bad, bad reputation to have for a small business that depends largely on recommendation.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Our IT department's stated policy is that documents should be pdfed to stop people tampering with them. I pointed out that it doesn't stop people at all, but they replied that they're only trying to stop the sort of numpty that doesn't realise that changing a document without telling the originator might cause a problem. That sort of person actually believes that pdfs are inviolable, so job is done. After all, if you get someone who's determined to cause problems then they will, so there's no point trying to stop them.

There also seemed to be the subtext that most of the people said IT department are dealing with would be unable to understand anything more complex than "Pdf it! Whatever it is, pdf it! Or things will Go Wrong!!".

I have a certain sympathy with that, ever since someone asked me if there was a way of getting text from one Word document into another without having to (get secretary to) retype it.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely: it's a lie, but an extremely useful one, and I've used it myself in the same situation.

Of course there's no good way of protecting documents from being altered, now everyone has access to scanners and printers and an array of cheap and effective tools. But it is awfully handy to pretend there is.

However, I am not sure what the point of the encrypted protection thing is. If the thing hadn't been protected as well as PDF, I could have quickly signed it using my 'pen' (not a digital signature, an actual signature, just not written in ink) and sent it by email to fax. They would never have known the difference, it'd have got there quicker and I wouldn't have had to wander into the other room and fiddle with the printer.

I would have thought that just making it PDF would be enough to numpty-proof it, and then I could have edited the PDF to add my (picture of a) signature.

But with encrypted PDF, I could still have altered the document, but it would have taken me slightly longer to do so. In fact, if I'd sent it back by fax rather than post, I'd have had to pretty much make it editable anyway (print out then scan in, as I don't have a fax machine).

So, it didn't add security, it just made the process rather more tedious and used some extra paper.