Slashdot Mirror
PDF Tracking On the Way
(el)Capitan.Nick writes "PDFzone reports that the company Remote Approach has launched a service to track the movement of PDF documents with its tool Map-Bot. The purpose of this service is to allow PDF publishers the ability to measure their audience, as web publishers can already. Though personal information is not gathered from machines, IP addresses are. PDFs can require users to be connected to the Internet in order to read them, and every person you email the PDF to is subject to the service. As PDFzone's opinion article states, while 'the chances of running into a Remote Approach PDF right now -- and in the near future -- are pretty remote ... the potential for the technology to tarnish PDF's image [of security] is staggering.'"
Websites only collect the IP of the machine that downloaded the page. This technology would distributors to collect the IP of every machine in which the PDF is *viewed*.
On the evil side, getting on the conspiration mood, it would also allow the FBI or the gov to diffund pseudo-dissident bait documents and then check and track anyone who reads it, anywhere he reads it.