I disagree. A password-protected PDF will deter the vast majority of clients from altering it because they just don’t know how to go about it, don’t have the right tools and, in most situations, it isn’t worth it to them to figure it out. Instead, they’ll simply run into the password and stop there.
Now if someone absolutely wants to lock down a PDF for whatever reason so that even savvy, determined people can’t alter its contents, well, that’s another matter.
Well, if this is a client that simply has access to Illustrator, as opposed to someone who is an experienced Illustrator user, it would probably be enough to encase everything in a clipping mask. For a couple extra layers of befuddlement, you can lock the resulting object, and the layer it’s on.
Where it differs: Typically security is about encryption, so you need to do something like picking a lock to crack it.
PDF security is like a sign “no trespassing” or “beware of dog”. Yes, most people will observe it. But not all. And people who can’t read, don’t even know about it.
That’s why PDF security is not security, it’s based on the tool to respect the security. And Apple’s Preview several times (in minor updates) has ignored it, probably due to a bug. That means that the most used PDF viewer on MacOS could just save a protected PDF as a new PDF and thus removing all security. I don’t call that state-of-te-art.
So back to topic, I’d just rasterize the vector art or save the whole page/layout as an image and you have good security, are not hindering your client and allow everything they should be doing with it.
Of course PDF passwords are a type of security.
Security does not necessarily involve encryption, as you’re claiming; it can just as easily involve deterrence, inconvenience and obscurity. And nobody here claimed that PDF security was state-of-the-art or was even meant to be.
Inhibiting a casual client (for whatever reason) from editing a PDF proof, for example, requires a far lower standard of security than protecting something of greater value or risk.
If the vast majority of those receiving a PDF can’t or won’t bother to figure out how to edit a password-protected PDF, that creates a level of security that inhibits those people from doing so. If this is all that’s needed, this is exactly what a PDF password is meant to do.
If someone needs higher levels of security, a PDF password won’t pass the test. But then again, as I’ve said, not all security protection measures are meant to be, nor do they need to be highly secure.
Security measures do not need to have bullet-proof effectiveness in order to be effective for the level of security they were meant to confer. Most anyone could bypass the lock on my backdoor by simply breaking the window. Dozens of people in town, just based on averages, have the same four-numeral passwords to their garage door openers as I do. The key to my desk drawer could easily be found by most anyone rummaging through my office.
Despite those deficiencies, each of those security measures still do their jobs at deterring people from breaking into my house, opening my garage door or snooping through my desk drawer, which is exactly all they’re meant to do.
So despite the glitches, lack of encryption, or ability to be bypassed by some software, PDF password security works just fine for those purposes that it was meant to be used for.
Thanks, everyone, for the additional helpful information.
I’ve decided to rasterize it.
Locks only keep honest people honest.
Rasterizing however, takes all the fun out of it.
