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Bad Encryption?

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2009-04-29 06:54:36
alexpapa
Registered: Nov 25 2008
Posts: 68

Hi everyone,

I had a PDF that has been encrypted with 128-bit RC4 by a third party set of Java libraries.

When testing on a PC using any version of Adobe Reader, 6,8,9 to be exact, reader prompts for a password as expected (only user password is set).

However, the Apple Mac preview application does not prompt for a password and is still able to open the PDF. It is not limited to the preview application as this also happens on using PDF Complete (Special Edition).

When opening the PDF in an Ascii editor I can see that it has been encrpted, plus the following footers are in there:

/Filter /Standard
/V 2
/R 3
/Length 128
/P -4
/O <27C36CB5FBBFFF633765563BB31C2904752734814E72B56597F774CF9003971F>
/U <8E3B69F64C7F37812A5C5D8BEE290E1D28BF4E5E4E758A4164004E56FFFA0108>

trailer
<<
/Root 1 0 R
/Info 4 0 R
/ID [<099C8099DFA56852F4E5213AD5AE6242> <099C8099DFA56852F4E5213AD5AE6242>]
/Size 40
/Encrypt 39 0 R
>>

Has anyone seen this before or have any idea as to why this would be happening?

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2009-06-19 14:26:11
#1
Matisse
Registered: Jan 31 2007
Posts: 1
I'm having a similar issue.

When I open a PDF file in Preview App, the content is all garbled. I know the PDF was created on a PC, using Word, (Acrobat PDFMaker 9.0 for Word) and that it is password encrypted (level 128-bit RC4). I'm currently investigating the issue.

If I find anything, I'll post the info.

Check the following link: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf -- page 55 (all about encryption).
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