From: Tim Brody <tdb2 AT ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:02:23 +0000
| Threading: | ↑ [EP-tech] Gdome Debian Segmentation Fault from Joseph.Yamada AT oicr.on.ca • This Message → [EP-tech] Re: Thesis : Locking PDF files or not ? from J.Delasalle AT warwick.ac.uk → [EP-tech] Re: Thesis : Locking PDF files or not ? from minh-thu.nguyen AT polymtl.ca → [EP-tech] Re: Thesis : Locking PDF files or not ? from b.wheeler AT ulcc.ac.uk |
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech *** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/ On Tue, 2009-03-10 at 15:55 -0400, Minh Thu wrote: > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech > *** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/ > Hi all, > > We are in a situation where department staff deposit all theses, not > students. We do ask students not to password lock their files, however we > are going to ask staff to lock these files (by the same password). > > What are your thoughts as to whether we should lock PDF documents or not ↵ to > prevent modifications & copy ? I would argue against adding security settings to PDFs for the following reasons: - It doesn't protect you against determined abuse i.e. any password-protected file can be cracked with the appropriate tools - It will prevent the PDF being indexed by EPrints and other search engines - It prevents legitimate scholarly use (e.g. quotation) - It prevents meta-analysis - It hinders plagiarism detection - It hinders digital preservation (+ all the other potential interesting uses that no one has thought of yet) All the best, Tim.