We require a PDF because those can't be edited

[Exterous]

I was submitting some financial paperwork and my initial submission was rejected because they only accept PDFs because "you can't edit PDFs"

Right - its not like there is a huge swath of products that do just that or anything

 

[Billb2]

You trust people for financial advice/help that don't know how to edit PDFs nor how to make them uneditable? ...move on!

 

[Fritzo]

PDF's can't be edited without evidence. They're a HIPAA compliant form of document transmission.

 

[Zeze]

PDF's can't be edited without evidence. They're a HIPAA compliant form of document transmission.

This. Pdf is part of a recognized safety establishment

 

[Exterous]

PDF's can't be edited without evidence. They're a HIPAA compliant form of document transmission.

Not necessarily. Some PDFs with digital signatures\security settings sure but otherwise you're left with comparing created\modified times. Worst case scenario you make the changes, export to work and print to a PDF and now your C and M times match. This is a request for me to use another institutions systems to generate data to give to another institution so a recent creation date is of no consequence.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Well you do need really expensive software for it, but considering there are free PDF readers, I imagine someone by now must have the format figured out, so they'd be able to write an open source editor that also does not leave traces. That would probably be super illegal due to IP laws though, which is why it has not been done.

Anything done can a computer can be edited without leaving any traces, it's just a matter of how hard it is to do.

For something that absolutely needs to be tamper proof nothing beats a physical media, like paper with some kind of tamper seal. Suppose even that is not going to be 100% secure though.

Seems to me this is not a document format thing but a protocol thing. The bank's process of accepting documents needs to be more secure if they are scared someone can edit it in transit.

 

[momeNt]

Fax it. It is the safest way to send documents.

 

[soulcougher73]

I edit PDFs almost daily. For realz. Bluebeam software

 

[Rifter]

PDF's can very easily be edited.

 

[Skunk-Works]

"We require at least 8 characters with a least one letter. No spaces, underscores, etc And to really piss you off, we don't offer 2FA"

BTW- We don't Bcrypt the database at all.

 

[Skunk-Works]

Fax it. It is the safest way to send documents.

 

[Skunk-Works]

Anything done can a computer can be edited without leaving any traces, it's just a matter of how hard it is to do.

Consider meta data and computer forensics.

 

[Skunk-Works]

Financial institutions should use PGP at least.