how to protect files

eurotrotter

hey gang
hope yer all well.
i want to distribute a couple of files among 10 ten ppl but i do not want anyone to be able to pass it onto to anyone else, nor do i want anyone to print anything.

so basically i want a way of distributing the files to the ten people without anyone else getting them passed on either as photocopies, or as soft copies!


any suggestions on how to do this wood be great

thanks very much,
Ed

Capt'n Midnight

get pdfcreator from sourcefourge and print to it
you can set stuff not allow printing and requiring passwords

If you give them a file they can copy it, even if windows prevents it , bootable linux CD's are very available

You would have to use some sort of DRM or have the file hosted on your site and accessible through your program that blocks screen captures. But that won't block captures if they run the app in virtual machine.

No matter what you do they could still take a photo of the screen with a digital camera.

PaddyTheNth

Impossible unless you physically hand them a hard copy of whatever the document is (assuming it's a document/spreadsheet type thing from how you worded it), let them read it, and then take it back from them when they're finished.

If you send it as a password-protected file, they'll be able to forward it and tell the recipient the password. Even if you set up an installer and managed to tie the document to their machine, or hosted the file and provided them with single-use passwords I can't think of any way to prevent them taking screenshots.

Once they have a screenshot they can just print that image.

Even if you managed to hook into the keypress and remap the Print Screen key or monitor/regularly clear the clipboard there are dozens of third party apps which would work around this (any old screenshot program).

And if by chance you did come up with some way to prevent them reproducing/copying what is displayed on the screen, what is to prevent them whipping out a digital camera and taking a picture of it?

I'm afraid its pretty much impossible unless you're monitoring them while they look at it.

Capt'n Midnight

even if you try to restrict physical access
micro SD cards are 11mm x 15 mm x 1mm
cameraphones can send pictures