Issue 95771 - PDF export filter gives a false notion of security
Summary: PDF export filter gives a false notion of security
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: General
Classification: Code
Component: ui (show other issues)
Version: OOo 1.0.0
Hardware: Unknown All
: P3 Trivial (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: AOO issues mailing list
QA Contact:
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-11-02 20:11 UTC by rmh
Modified: 2017-05-20 10:55 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: PATCH
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---


Attachments
patch (2.17 KB, text/plain)
2008-11-02 20:11 UTC, rmh
no flags Details
dialog (31.83 KB, image/png)
2008-11-18 16:45 UTC, rmh
no flags Details
Proposal how to present the note to the user. (30.06 KB, image/png)
2008-11-26 08:59 UTC, frank.loehmann
no flags Details
Corrected spelling. Please ignore first post. (30.06 KB, image/png)
2008-11-26 09:02 UTC, frank.loehmann
no flags Details
revised help part (1.84 KB, patch)
2008-11-26 16:37 UTC, rmh
no flags Details | Diff

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Description rmh 2008-11-02 20:11:06 UTC
The PDF export filter dialog deceives the user into thinking DRM bits
effectively restrict all users of the PDF file being exported.

However, this depends entirely on whether the applications that will be used to
open these files implement user restrictions or not;  in fact, the majority of
PDF viewers don't (evince, kpdf, xpdf, google docs, go-oo...).

Attached patch resolves this by adding a short note in the dialog, and a
slightly longer explanation in the corresponding help page.
Comment 1 rmh 2008-11-02 20:11:49 UTC
Created attachment 57658 [details]
patch
Comment 2 Mathias_Bauer 2008-11-05 11:42:27 UTC
Frank, can you please comment?
Comment 3 rmh 2008-11-18 15:24:54 UTC
Ping :-)
Comment 4 frank.loehmann 2008-11-18 16:11:23 UTC
I do not think that the new string (see below) will fit into current UI and this
will  become even worse in other languages like French or Portuguese:
"~Restrict permissions (only affects viewers that implement user restrictions)"

If a document is not encrypted, one will always have the possibility to
view/change the content of a file by using tooling to pass the restriction.

Years ago I have talked with Legals thinking that content of PDF files could not
be changed by other people at all, because it is a "read-only" format. Therefore
I propose to add a detailed hint to the OOo help, that only content of encrypted
files is secure.
Comment 5 rmh 2008-11-18 16:45:17 UTC
Created attachment 58090 [details]
dialog
Comment 6 rmh 2008-11-18 16:51:22 UTC
Hi!

> I do not think that the new string (see below) will fit into current UI and this
> will  become even worse in other languages like French or Portuguese:
> "~Restrict permissions (only affects viewers that implement user restrictions)"

What do you mean it will fit?  I thought the dialog (screenshot attached) would
simply either adjust its width or break the message in multiple lines.

> Years ago I have talked with Legals thinking that content of PDF files could not
> be changed by other people at all, because it is a "read-only" format.  Therefore
> I propose to add a detailed hint to the OOo help, that only content of encrypted
> files is secure.

Do you think the part of my patch that modifies help files archieves this?  Or
perhaps you'd like something more elaborate, explaining the technical background
or so?  Just let me know, I'll be glad to help.
Comment 7 rmh 2008-11-25 18:04:47 UTC
Hi!

I'd really like to get this solved.  Please consider applying the patch I
provided.  Or if something in it needs to be improved, please give me details on
how you'd like it and I will try.
Comment 8 Mathias_Bauer 2008-11-26 07:34:10 UTC
@rmh: Thanks for your contribution, I really appreciate when people in our
community try to make things better. Your idea is valid, it seems that Frank has
some reservations against the concrete implementation.

Unfortunately we have the problem that our dialogs don't have an automatic
layouting capability. It is being worked on, but we don't have it yet. So indeed
we quite often have the problem that texts in dialogs don't "fit". As some text
in the dialog can be a small hint only, Frank thinks that adding something to
the help content is the way to go. I wonder whether it is possible to add a
FixedText below the two check boxes. Frank, what do you think? Perhaps including
a hint to look into help?

The help content patch looks good, we should add that users that want to make
sure that their PDF is "safe" must use encryption, as Frank mentioned in his reply.
Comment 9 frank.loehmann 2008-11-26 08:59:19 UTC
Created attachment 58309 [details]
Proposal how to present the note to the user.
Comment 10 frank.loehmann 2008-11-26 09:02:36 UTC
Created attachment 58310 [details]
Corrected spelling. Please ignore first post.
Comment 11 frank.loehmann 2008-11-26 09:06:35 UTC
Please see PDF_Note2.png attached to this issue. This would be a way to place a
hint in the UI. Maybe we should think about a note icon that provides additional
information in a tip help on mouse over. That would be easier to integrate into
dialogs.
Comment 12 rmh 2008-11-26 16:28:32 UTC
Thanks.  I'll try to figure out how to provide this layout.
Comment 13 rmh 2008-11-26 16:37:41 UTC
Created attachment 58330 [details]
revised help part
Comment 14 rmh 2008-11-26 16:38:37 UTC
As for the help part, how about this?  (pdf_export_help.diff)
Comment 15 Mathias_Bauer 2009-05-07 15:47:33 UTC
It was a little bit quiet here. :-)
So how shall we move forward?
Comment 16 philipp.lohmann 2010-11-15 13:17:59 UTC
IMHO this would be more a case for an extended help tip
Comment 17 Rob Weir 2013-03-11 15:02:16 UTC
I'm adding this comment to all open issues with Issue Type == PATCH.  We have 220 such issues, many of them quite old.  I apologize for that.  

We need your help in prioritizing which patches should be integrated into our next release, Apache OpenOffice 4.0.

If you have submitted a patch and think it is applicable for AOO 4.0, please respond with a comment to let us know.

On the other hand, if the patch is no longer relevant, please let us know that as well.

If you have any general questions or want to discuss this further, please send a note to our dev mailing list:  dev@openoffice.apache.org

Thanks!

-Rob
Comment 18 Marcus 2017-05-20 10:55:56 UTC
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".