Alternative?

Alternative?

Posted Sep 11, 2003 20:02 UTC (Thu) by error27 (subscriber, #8346)
In reply to: Alternative? by jamienk
Parent article: An opening for OpenOffice.org

* only allows certain people to read the document

* allows document expiration

Both of those are technically impossible tasks. For example, either one could be defeated by a digital camera.

I think it's a matter of what should computers do. My feeling is that computers should do whatever the owners want them to do. (So long as it doesn't endanger anyone physically).

For example, if there is a document on my computer, I don't want the document to expire. My computer should transparently not let it expire.

If I'm sharing a document, I might want it to expire. However that's not technically even possible. It's best not to be a pain in the arse trying to do things that aren't even possible. The best I can do is to only make it available to people I trust through encryption. Another solution would be to modify each copy of the document slightly so that tracking down leaks would be faster.

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