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Subject:RE: Distributing Word docs to customers From:"Jonathan West" <jwest -at- mvps -dot- org> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 8 May 2007 15:05:38 +0100
>
> Regarding password protection for Word docs, Jonathan wrote:
>
> <<This is no protection. It can be got round extremely easily. All you
> need to do is insert the protected document into a blank unprotected
> document, and all the content becomes immediately available with no
> protection.>>
>
> Hmmm... So why does Word give us password protection that offers no
> protection?!
It is a protection against accidental modification. It serves some sort of
purpose in that respect. But I suspect the real reason it is that way is
that it didn't occur to Microsoft that the protection could be broken in
such an easy fashion, and by the time they realised it, the protection
method was well-established and couldn't be changed without breaking
backwards compatibility.
>
> I'm so cautious that I apply security settings to PDF documents (in
> Adobe Acrobat Professional, it's under "Secure ... Show Security
> Settings for this Document"). How effective is this password protection?
> Any way to get around it too?
I'm not as knowledgeable about Acrobat as about Word, so I can't answer that
question. I do remember some years ago there being a great hullaballoo about
somebody who cracked PDF security, but I don't remember the details.
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