What's up with the locked PDFs on the Defcon CD?

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: What's up with the locked PDFs on the Defcon CD?

time to fire up the tools from Elcomsoft

[paint]

Re: What's up with the locked PDFs on the Defcon CD?

any chance it's a default adobe password that was set by accident?
anyone try "password"?
according to the internetz it's an "owner " password level ( can be read but not copied)

[shrdlu]

Re: What's up with the locked PDFs on the Defcon CD?

Hmm.. they were not supposed to be. We used to lock them to try and prevent plagiarism. Let me see if what is put on-line is locked.

Is it possible then for you to simply share the current password for each of these? I assume it's the same one for all of them. You might also consider a small announcement on the web site.

[Dark Tangent]

Re: What's up with the locked PDFs on the Defcon CD?

I tried random ones, but know for sure that FX and Fyodor were locked. Please note that opening them is not the issue. Cut and paste (or any kind of copying) is the issue. Examine the document properties, and then go to the Security tab (or look at security for the document directly, under the Document->Security menu).

Hmm.. they were not supposed to be. We used to lock them to try and prevent plagiarism. Let me see if what is put on-line is locked.

[shrdlu]

Re: What's up with the locked PDFs on the Defcon CD?

Shrdlu-
which ones were locked?

I have my CD in and am randomly opening speaker's presentation PDFs...
I managed to get into all the random ones I tried and Joe Grand's...

I tried random ones, but know for sure that FX and Fyodor were locked. Please note that opening them is not the issue. Cut and paste (or any kind of copying) is the issue. Examine the document properties, and then go to the Security tab (or look at security for the document directly, under the Document->Security menu).

[DJ Jackalope]

Re: What's up with the locked PDFs on the Defcon CD?

Shrdlu-
which ones were locked?

I have my CD in and am randomly opening speaker's presentation PDFs...
I managed to get into all the random ones I tried and Joe Grand's...

[shrdlu]

A friend of mine had mentioned that some of the PDFs were password protected. He'd been trying to cut and paste into a presentation for a trip report, and discovered it then. I hadn't really paid attention until that, but then went off and looked.

Not some. All. What on earth is that for? Of all things I can think of that were worth spending time on, password protecting the presentations of various and sundry folk was probably one of the least important.

Were the presenters aware ahead of time that this would be done?

As has already been pointed out elsewhere, using any portion of these PDFs appears to be a DMCA violation. Weird it is that Defcon, one of the biggest EFF contributors, would put innocent little me in that position.