Disable access to a file at a certain date

[Psyber]

Hi,
I was wondering if someone knew of a way to disable access to a file after a certain date. For example, have a PDF or MS word document not be able to be opened after a certain date (have it expire). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Psyber

EDITED
There was a suggestion about a DRM wrapper that might work. I found one for PDF, but do others know of one for Office documents and other media files?

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Psyber
Hi,
I was wondering if someone knew of a way to disable access to a file after a certain date. For example, have a PDF or MS word document not be able to be opened after a certain date (have it expire). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Psyber

Not really possible without DRM (which there are DRM wrappers for PDF and MS documents). With DRM, not really possible without a trusted platform, but does make it more annoying for honest users.

 

[Psyber]

I was able to find a DRM wrapper for PDFs, but could you list some links to DRM wrappers to Office documents and/or other media files?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Remove the file

 

[Psyber]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
Remove the file

Yes, planning on doing that at the server level, but once the file is downloaded, we wanted to have the downloaded file expire as well.

 

[Nothinman]

What do you plan on doing if they print it?

 

[Psyber]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
What do you plan on doing if they print it?

I'm hoping that whatever suggestions are given, it would prevent them from printing it. I know that pdf can have security that can prevent them from printing. Of course someone familiar with computers might be able to work around it. ie - they can take screenshots, or even take pictures of their computer screen; but the key is that we want to make it difficult to distribute.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm hoping that whatever suggestions are given, it would prevent them from printing it. I know that pdf can have security that can prevent them from printing. Of course someone familiar with computers might be able to work around it. ie - they can take screenshots, or even take pictures of their computer screen; but the key is that we want to make it difficult to distribute.

The only PDF I wasn't able to print via Acrobat I was able to print just fine via evince in Linux. So really all they'd need to do is boot a LiveCD and there's their hard copy.

 

[Ken g6]

Or, worst case, they can do a print-screen of each page of the document. Unless you put it in a DRM-ed Windows Media Video file or something.

How top-secret is this, anyway? And where are you distributing it?