Encryption for Powerpoint?

Hi,

Caveat: I have no idea how this cool stuff works.

I have MS Powerpoint presentations I want to have someone show for me
in my absence. However, I'm not willing to share!

I can convert the PP into a .exe file, so my specific needs are:

1. Seperate user and administrator passwords
2. User password is only good for 1-2 file showings
3. File becomes unusable after a set amount of time.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

CR

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

craviation@gmail.com wrote:
> Caveat: I have no idea how this cool stuff works.
> I have MS Powerpoint presentations I want to have someone show for me
> in my absence. However, I'm not willing to share!
> I can convert the PP into a .exe file, so my specific needs are:
> 1. Seperate user and administrator passwords
> 2. User password is only good for 1-2 file showings
> 3. File becomes unusable after a set amount of time.
> Any suggestions?

Yes: forget that.

If you don't want to share, don't give away.

Yours,
VB.
--
At first there was the word. And the word was Content-type: text/plain

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

On Sat, 20 May 2006 08:09:24 +0200, Volker Birk wrote:

> craviation@gmail.com wrote:
>> Caveat: I have no idea how this cool stuff works.
>> I have MS Powerpoint presentations I want to have someone show for me
>> in my absence. However, I'm not willing to share!
>> I can convert the PP into a .exe file, so my specific needs are:
>> 1. Seperate user and administrator passwords
>> 2. User password is only good for 1-2 file showings
>> 3. File becomes unusable after a set amount of time.
>> Any suggestions?
>
> Yes: forget that.
>
> If you don't want to share, don't give away.
>
> Yours,
> VB.

Publish your slides in an online format. Make them available via
secure web server until you don't like the people you shared them with
any more. Then make them unavailable again.

There are numerous enough formats and restrictive web widgets to keep
people from being able to right-click, save, print, etc. PITA if you
ask me, but they DO exist. As do methods of circumventing them, not the
least of which are screen captures.

Long story short, if they want to steal your content they are going to
steal your content. Best you can do is make it a little less
convenient. I'm sure you can find a commercial web host out there
someplace that will be more than happy to sell you "secure, theft-proof
presentation hosting." Maybe Web-Ex or some such.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

Hey.... Secure web server is something I hadn't considered!

Thanks for the suggestions - I'll be looking into it.

Cheers,

CR

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

Hello CR,

I'm afraid that I don't completely understand your concern. First, you
want to show something to a lot of people, that's why you have that
presentation. On the other hand you don't want anyone being able to
re-read it??? If your real aim is is to prevent the redistribution
instead, I would consider using a digtal watermark technique. This way,
you prevent that someone is using your content pretending it is his own,
what seems to make more sense to me.

Kind regards,
Christian Huetter

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

Watermarking doesn't work either.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

That an analog copy will always be possible is inherent and we may
assume that everyone is aware of this fact. But nevertheless I would be
interested in the answer of the question why "Watermarking doesn't work".

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

Christian Hütter wrote:
> That an analog copy will always be possible is inherent and we may
> assume that everyone is aware of this fact. But nevertheless I would be=

> interested in the answer of the question why "Watermarking doesn't work=
".

It's provable that at least one of the three: noise adding, statistical
discrimination and perceptual reencoding always works.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

sudo namei wrote:
> Publish your slides in an online format. Make them available via
> secure web server until you don't like the people you shared them with
> any more. Then make them unavailable again.

What about making copies while available? Again, forget that.

Yours,
VB.
--
At first there was the word. And the word was Content-type: text/plain

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

On Thu, 25 May 2006 09:11:14 +0200, Volker Birk wrote:

> What about making copies while available? Again, forget that.

Answered in the next paragraph, which you snipped. There are plenty of
formats that can be published online and remain difficult to copy. If
you want to be double-plus-super-secret I suppose you could host a locked
down VMWare image and make an RDP session available only to whoever is
wearing the Dick Tracy code ring. *shrug* But probably a couple of
annoying lines of javascript to disallow printing or saving, in
conjunction with a graphical presentation rather than text - would
suffice to keep the average schmoe from copying the data.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

sudo namei wrote:
> On Thu, 25 May 2006 09:11:14 +0200, Volker Birk wrote:
>
>> What about making copies while available? Again, forget that.
>
> Answered in the next paragraph, which you snipped. There are plenty of
> formats that can be published online and remain difficult to copy.

Bullshit.

> If you want to be double-plus-super-secret I suppose you could host a locked
> down VMWare image and make an RDP session available only to whoever is
> wearing the Dick Tracy code ring. *shrug* But probably a couple of
> annoying lines of javascript to disallow printing or saving, in
> conjunction with a graphical presentation rather than text - would
> suffice to keep the average schmoe from copying the data.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

sudo namei wrote:

>> What about making copies while available? Again, forget that.
>
> Answered in the next paragraph, which you snipped. There are plenty
> of formats that can be published online and remain difficult to copy.
>
Bullshit.

> If you want to be double-plus-super-secret I suppose you could host
> a locked down VMWare image and make an RDP session available only to
> whoever is wearing the Dick Tracy code ring.

How is that supposed to work?

> But probably a couple of annoying lines of javascript to disallow
> printing or saving,

Huh? Such a shit doesn't even work in Mozilla.
And I can't even see how you like to stop printing on
common-as-webbrowser-misused MSIE.

> in conjunction with a graphical presentation rather than text

Do you know the PrintScreen key? What about OCR?

> would suffice to keep the average schmoe from copying the data.

Joe Average will get an unprotected copy from Tim Techsavvy.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

On Thu, 25 May 2006 17:24:33 +0200, Sebastian Gottschalk wrote:

> sudo namei wrote:
>
>>> What about making copies while available? Again, forget that.
>>
>> Answered in the next paragraph, which you snipped. There are plenty
>> of formats that can be published online and remain difficult to copy.
>>
> Bullshit.

*yawn* OK, it's all bullshit. Feel better?

>> If you want to be double-plus-super-secret I suppose you could host
>> a locked down VMWare image and make an RDP session available only to
>> whoever is wearing the Dick Tracy code ring.
>
> How is that supposed to work?

You host a VMWare image (or a terminal server or just a standalone
workstation) which has been locked down. You let someone RDP into it
and function only in a controlled environment. What is difficult about
this concept?

>> But probably a couple of annoying lines of javascript to disallow
>> printing or saving,
>
> Huh? Such a shit doesn't even work in Mozilla.
> And I can't even see how you like to stop printing on
> common-as-webbrowser-misused MSIE.

So display it in a java applet. You can't tell me you have not run
across any data which was published online and made to be a pain in the
ass to copy?

>> in conjunction with a graphical presentation rather than text
>
> Do you know the PrintScreen key? What about OCR?

Conceded. Print screens are going to be the downfall of any such
scheme. I suppose the real question is how secure does this need to be?
Does the OP want to protect the ideas themselves, the images, or just
make his untrustworthy colleagues have to work extra hard to knock off
his power-point slide? Nothing is going to stop them sneaking a video
camera into the presentation, or re-creating the whole thing
painstakingly from photographic memory, etc.

>> would suffice to keep the average schmoe from copying the data.
>
> Joe Average will get an unprotected copy from Tim Techsavvy.

And if Joe is ever allowed to *see* the presentation he could just
take good notes and then hire some dime-a-dozen-dipshit PPT master to
recreate it from scratch. The real question is, how paranoid is the OP,
and how sensitive is this material?

P.S. This is my "not really all that interested anymore" face.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

sudo namei wrote:

>>> If you want to be double-plus-super-secret I suppose you could
>>> host a locked down VMWare image and make an RDP session available
>>> only to whoever is wearing the Dick Tracy code ring.
>> How is that supposed to work?
>
> You host a VMWare image (or a terminal server or just a standalone
> workstation) which has been locked down. You let someone RDP into it
> and function only in a controlled environment. What is difficult
> about this concept?

The "locked down" part? VMware offering a fullscreen video and audio
recording functionality? Someone running this stuff in another VM like Qemu?

> You can't tell me you have not run across any data which was
> published online and made to be a pain in the ass to copy?

Made to be, but not actually being.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

Hey all - appreciate the enthusiasm with this discussion!

Perhaps some are interested in hardcore protection for the tech-savvy,
I however just need a fancy-looking deterrant that does a basic job!
;)

Seriously, this thread is getting interesting.

CR

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

CrAviation wrote:
>
> Hey all - appreciate the enthusiasm with this discussion!
>
> Perhaps some are interested in hardcore protection for the tech-savvy,
> I however just need a fancy-looking deterrant that does a basic job!
> ;)
>
> Seriously, this thread is getting interesting.

While I haven't come across any software that will self-destruct
attachments, I have seen a bunch of self-destruct e-mail programs.

Maybe one of them will do?

Google "self destruct email."

Notan

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

Notan wrote:

> While I haven't come across any software that will self-destruct
> attachments, I have seen a bunch of self-destruct e-mail programs.

Outlook and Outlook Express?

> Maybe one of them will do?

What about backuping up the program and the relevant parts of the system
before executing it? What about VMware? Seriously, that's exactly the
only way to treat executeable that doesn't result in simply deletion.

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

Sebastian Gottschalk wrote:
>
> Notan wrote:
>
> > While I haven't come across any software that will self-destruct
> > attachments, I have seen a bunch of self-destruct e-mail programs.
>
> Outlook and Outlook Express?

I'd categorize them more as "destructive" e-mail programs!

> > Maybe one of them will do?
>
> What about backuping up the program and the relevant parts of the system
> before executing it? What about VMware? Seriously, that's exactly the
> only way to treat executeable that doesn't result in simply deletion.

The downside being that file size would be significantly larger.

Notan

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

sudo namei wrote:
> Answered in the next paragraph, which you snipped. There are plenty of
> formats that can be published online and remain difficult to copy.

This is c.s.m. The "s" stands for "security". What do you mean with
"difficulty"?

Yours,
VB.
--
At first there was the word. And the word was Content-type: text/plain

Re: Encryption for Powerpoint?

sudo namei wrote:
> > Do you know the PrintScreen key? What about OCR?
> Conceded. Print screens are going to be the downfall of any such
> scheme. I suppose the real question is how secure does this need to be?

Would you call it "secure", if a simple press on "PrintScreen" just
ignores its "security"? Maybe then you have another definition of this
word.

Yours,
VB.
--
At first there was the word. And the word was Content-type: text/plain