An Illustrated History of Digital Document Security

An Jlustrated Hlstory of DIGITAL DOCUMENT SECURITY Statistics presented at the 2010 American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) annual conference suggested that 59 percent of employees who left or lost a job admitted to stealing confidential employer information*, and a McAfee study presented at the 2009 World Economic Forum estimated the worldwide cost of data theft to be in excess of $1 trillion**. These numbers are alarming, and only highlight the need for digital document security. CONFIDENTIAL Today, we explore the history of digital document security, evolution of different standards, essential aspects of PDF security, and ways to keep your content safe from prying eyes. 2ND PAPER CENTURY B.C. POSTSCRIPT 1982 1994 PDF 1.0 IRS publishes PDF forms THE 4 QUESTIONS TO ASK There is no "secure" button that will appropriately safeguard your content for every situation. Instead, PlanetPDF.com recommends you ask the following questions to decide how best to secure a digital document: Who is the PDF's Where are you intended audience? distributing the PDF? What kind of information How will readers is in the PDF? use the PDF? Logic dictates that the "closer to home" a document is, the more flexible you can be with security settings. Likewise, the more people a document will be exposed to (or potentially exposed to), the stricter the security should be. Passwords ***** PDF 1.1 1996 Basic encryption: MD5, RC 4 40-bit APPLIGENT Appligent Document Solutions releases Redax 1.0 after 1997 REDAX 1.0 inventing and patenting PDF redaction technology. PDF 1.3 2000 Digital signatures REDACTION Redaction is a powerful tool that enables the complete removal of content from PDF files. It's the digital equivalent of running a black marker over the page. However, it must be implemented properly. The British Navy learned this the hard way when they unintentionally released what they thought were redacted documents, containing highly confidential information about their nuclear submarine fleet. ••......•* Unfortunately, they were not actually redacted. They simply added a black background to obscure the black text, meaning anyone could simply copy and paste the text obscured by the black background. Never assume that simply deleting text or images guarantees complete removal, as visual elements often have underlying data attached that remains in the document file after you "delete" it. 2001 PDF 1.4 128-bit encryption 128 Permissions and usage rights PDF 1.5 2003 2004 Enhancements and clarifications to digital signatures related to usage rights, modification detection, and prevention signatures. Addition of AES encryption. PDF 1.6 DON'T SKIMP ON DOCUMENT SECURITY Following through on your PDF security is extremely important. Consider the high-profile controversy over the release of Barack Obama's birth certificate: "The decision to release U.S. President Barack Obama's birth certificate only fanned the flames of debate when the PDF version made public contained a number of so-called "inconsistencies" – most visibly the presence of layered content, giving the impression the document had been digitally altered." BILL MULLINS, tech blogger Your company's digital documents might never face that degree of scrutiny, but it's still important to invest in document security: Ensure anyone responsible for authoring digital content is well-trained in permissions and the file structures of digital documents. Establish a corporate policy for how digital documents are created, distributed, and updated. Exercise common sense-you wouldn't leave your filing cabinet wide open. ISO PDF 1.7 ISO 32000 PDF published as 2006 ISO Open Standard ADOBE ACROBAT PROFESSIONAL 8.0 PDF solution with redaction capability. Adobe includes Redaction with Acrobat 2006 Professional 8.0 ($449)–the first desktop PDF 1.7 EXTENSION LEVEL 3 2008 256 256-bit AES encryption Nitro releases Nitro Pro 7 ($119.99), 2011 NITRO PRO 7 making redaction accessible at a previously unheard-of price point. nitro Digital document security isn't a walk in the park, but it is essential-and highly effective-so long as the proper precautions are taken. Initro SOURCES Nitro PlanetPDF.com Bill Mullins *AIPLA, Trade Secrets, 22 October 2010: http://www.aipla.org/learningcenter/library/papers/am/2010/Documents/Craycroft_Slides.pdf REFERENCES **MCAfee, Unsecured Economies, 29 January 2009: http://blogs.mcafee.com/corporate/ceo-perspectives/unsecured-economies-%E2%80%93-a-trillion-dollar-headwind