Metadata and Security

[lizdunn]

I am trying to understand the "metadata" issue. How does hidden information get into a document. Do you have to actively put it in, or does the system put it in? If I type just a plain word document, what's hidden in there, besides what you can see in properties?

All documents are created in Word 2002, on a Windows XP machine.

I appreciate any info on this subject so I can make recommendations on how to handle it.

Thanks.

 

[macropod]

Hi,

Word, rather than Windows, creates the metatdata automatically. Much of this metadata can't be seen with Word itself but, if you open the document with Notepad, you'll see a lot of header data about the file (much of it in binary format), your 'plain' text, the text formatting information (again much of it in binary format), and then the 'metadata', typically in Unicode format with empty spaces between the characters.

Cheers