Litigation - source code viewer?

[nicholasbach]

Hi,
Our company is in the process of some litigation. Our president heard of a product (but doesn't know the name) that allows someone to view the source code but not copy it. This way an idependant arbitrator could view our source code but couldn't make an electronic copy of it. I have no idea but thought someone might know something.

 

[phax]

Try PDF with encryption on??
Or paper copies???
Unfortunately I don't know other tools.
regards

 

[chipperMDW]

How about paper?

Print the code on some paper, then watch the arbiter as he looks over it, making sure he doesn't use a Xerox machine or scanner or camera. Then get the paper back when he's done with it.

Pretty much anything you tried to do to make a "read-only copy" via computer could be subverted somehow. If the arbiter really wanted to, he could take screen shots of your code whatever format it's in. All you can do is make it difficult for someone to make the copies via conventional means.

Now, if there's some legal backing to this product... i.e. any arbiter who unlawfully makes a copy of the material is subject to blah blah blah... that might be different story. I'm not a lawyer, though.

 

[B00gyeMan]

PDH with encryption "On" (irrespective of the version) is easy to break (see pdf2text and pdf2img under any newer Linux distribution, they don't care about encryption, since the PDF document isn't really encrypted, it just stores a password and asks for it when needed. As for copy/print/etc... permissions, these are just some flags in the PDF file...)

 

[Salem]

If you're using a professional arbitration service, then normal commercial Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) ought to be sufficient.

For a more hardened approach, take an oldish laptop and copy the source code (and any arbiter requested code viewing tools) to it.
Then
- Remove the CD and floppy drive,
- Remove drivers for networking, printers, Infra Red, Bluetooth etc
- Internally sever all communication ports (serial,parallel,LAN,video) etc
- Use tamper resistant paint/tape to mark anything which may allow physical access to the inside of the laptop once you've put it back together.
The most they'll be able to do is point a camcorder at the screen.

The only other thing is supervised access only, as chipperMDW says.

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