"Clean Up After Your PDFs"

Clean Up After Your PDFs

"...The latest: Like Richard Nixon running amok with his tape recorder, the Acrobat users at the Oval Office weren't quite in tune with the ramifications of their technology: Before posting a 38-page Iraq policy document to the Web—from which the President's speechwriters derived the headline-grabbing "Plan for Victory" speech Nov. 30 at the U.S. Naval Academy—the White House left "feaver_p" as "Author" in the document metadata. Read the story [Greg: No NYTimes registration need if you read it here] to see what developed after that, if you're really curious. ...

There are many potentially embarrassing or unnecessary things one could put in a PDF that could later result in your own "feaver_p" incident. Here are some of the biggies:

Document Metadata
...

Image Metadata
Another interesting place to look for hidden clues about the making of a PDF can be metadata in images, he continues. Some digital cameras actually imprint GPS coordinates (longitude and latitude) of where a picture was taken, in addition to the usual date-and-time stamp. Acrobat can conveniently add this to your PDF without your noticing. ...

Clean Up After a Review
Guess what? If you send a PDF through your company for review and comment before publishing, those changes will remain in the document until you deal with them. ...

Redaction
... "

I've seen people push PDF's "because they are safer"... Well if you don't understand the technology you are using, nothing is safe.

Though I have to admit, the GPS image metadata did grab my attention. Damn, I never thought of that being an issue with PDF's.

There's a good bit of metadata/EXIF tags that can be in a pic from a digital camera, camera phone, etc. And as GPS is embedded into more things, this is going to trip someone up big time in the somewhat near future...

(via PDF for Lawyers - Clean up your PDFs Before Publishing Them)