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Why did you choose to publish your slides in PDF when PDF documents are a main tool for security attacks?

Update: If PDFs are a major source of security attacks, and author cares about security, and author publishes document in PDF form, then why would you downvote this question?




Because it's a completely nonsensical question.

If balaclavas are used in bank robberies, and you care about the safety of your money, why would you wear a balaclava on a mountain climbing expedition?

PDFs are not a tool for security attacks because they are PDFs, they are a tool for security attacks because of vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader. Any given PDF is not a danger, only PDFs with exploits are dangerous.

And including a buffer overflow exploit, rootkit and phone-home code isn't something you're going to do accidentally while publishing your talk slides, is it?


I do not have the power to downvote, and I hate when people downvote because of disagreement but do not explain their stance -- I learn nothing from it; I can give you my perspective on your comment. (It would be nice to have a personal downvote message feature or something; the anonymity helps us avoid embarrassment, I guess.)

First, your point is irrelevant. Whatever the medium, this discussion is about cryptography. There is not a real case of hypocrisy here. Cryptography is certainly related to security, but as far as I can tell, that is not the thrust of this discussion.

Second, while the technology can be abused, as you point out, that is a far cry from this particular author abusing it and using it as a security attack. The author's PDF is fine.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, btw.

In other words, I can see that this comment was downvoted because it did not meaningfully add to the discussion. I usually see downvotes on posts that include offtopic personal axe grinding. I may receive the same, myself, for this post, but I just wanted to help you avoid it in the future.




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