File protection

Hi

can anyone please tel me if there is a free version of a software for
password file protection in Autocad. That is that someone can view a drawing
but cannot edit it if one does not know the password.

Thank you very much for your information

 

No. Assuming that when you say "drawing", that you mean an AutoCAD .DWG
file.

CadLock is the only product that does what you want. It is not free.

If alternative file formats are an option - post back for many suggestions.

 

PDF and DWG in pwd protected ZIP file

N.

 

How does a DWG in a pwd protected ZIP file allow someone to "view the
drawing but not edit it"?

 

We use PDF for 2D and 3D views. We use Navisworks Freedom viewer that the
client can install to view and walk around in 3D models we publish for them.
This way we don't have to give them the DWG unless contracted to do so.

Adobe Reader 7 now supports 3D walk through of models when published (so far
microstation supports). AutoDesk's reluctance to accept an industry standard
(PDF) can really hurt them here.
-S

 

LOL - As far as Autodesk is concerned, DWF is the "industry standard"...

 

I read his post to mean "send a pdf" and a "dwg in a pwd protected zip"
- meaning 2 files.

Your answer makes even less sense.

If you give the receipent the password to open the ZIP (so he can view
the PDF), then he will have full access to the DWG file.

If you send the PDF and DWG as separate files (with the DWG in a pwd
ZIP), what's the point in sending the DWG at all?

Screen captures? LOL - That's about the most desparate measure I have
heard of.

PDF's can be easily converted to DXF/DWG files. A PDF created from a
scanner offers slightly more security, but no more than a TIFF or CALS file.

 

of course.

I could imagine a useage for e.g. providing a client or inquiry with a
CD containing several 100mb of pwd protected drawings which you can
allow them to use by simply providing the appropriate pwd of a
dedicated drawing.

converting the format vectors are saved in does not automatically
mean, that the resulting DXF/DWG will show the structure (layers,
attributes, real dims etc. pp.) of the original and thus is, of
course, not much better than a vectorization of a screenshot or raster
export.

N.

 

My point was that PDF's, DWF's, or any other "secure" method is like a
lock on a door. It will keep out the honest folks, but someone
determined to "break in" can and will find a way. Usually, it's more
work in the long run...

It all boils down to the ownership of the drawing. Whether that be the
electronic file, the paper copy, etc. If you are sending a DWG to a
clinet/consultant you don't trust not to steal your work, then maybe you
should find a new client/consultant. Define ownership up front. Define
who will have access to what up front.

 

Another option is to right click on the file name in windows explorer
and change its property to READ-ONLY.

 

Setting the O/S flag to read-only solves nothing in the original request.

This is a good way however to keep *yourself* from writing to a file
that you don't want to overwrite.

 

as I have already mentioned, the PDF does not contain the structures
of a drawing and thus doesn't need to be protected.

Protecting it with the recent encryption options of the PDF format,
"breaking" in is very difficult and time consuming and the targeted
group, the honest fols, will not even try it.

of course, but this is not the point. The point is providing
non-client's as with your intellectual properties for allowing them to
use them if you want to (e.g. if the have paied etc.).

N.

 

**********TANGENT ALERT**********************

Writing to a PDF is what I do. But if this is not secure enough for you
then I think the free market is telling you that your intelectual property
is priced to high. Sorry. That is not going to be a poplular opinion.

If your product were priced "correctly" it would not be worth SO MUCH
EFFORT to steal.

You think?

 

How is this the biggest? Seriously, I protect files I send out. PDF is
sufficient to my needs for protection of my labor being copied. When I pull
my head out will I detect the odor of your insecurities?

I know I am unfamiliar with big business, corporate buffoonery, but just
exactly is it you are afraid someone will steal? ( I know, people will
steal a wet blanket if you let them, that is not the point.)

If someone is willing to go to great effort to steal something, it should
be worth the effort. If that effort is very much greater than the effort to
produce the product in the first place, then the market is telling us that
the product is overpriced, and the person going to the effort to swipe your
goodies COULD have just produced the goodies himself and had nearly the
same profit. In time he will, and the market lowers the price.

I am thinking like Adam Smith here, and he wasn't popular either.

Not trying to get your goat. I do want to know what your opinion is. And I
am myself unsettled about the concept of intellectual property. I tend to
come out on the conservative side. People who think everything should be
free are basically dishonest. With themselves. Present them with turnabout,
and it no longer seems like fair play. Everything costs someone something.
We have many dubious methods to shift the cost to someone else. Thus it is
"piracy" when it's software being stolen, and "intellectual property" when
it was a cad design.

I do not pirate software, I do no download music for "nothing". I will not.
At the same time, I have never seen a truly original design. It is always a
new arrangement of old music. Computer software even more so.

There, a larger load. More verbiage. Sorry for rambling, hope it was worth
the reading.

roy