Save as WWF? No thanks

After the "Harry Potter" thread I started earlier, words fail me:

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/145563/index.html#threa...

Looks like all those who commented are spot on as well.

A no-print format seems a bit silly anyway. Some people are thoughtless and wasteful, and even if this hadn't already been cracked it wouldn't work. Nike and Tektronix both had high-end color printers and plotters, and the print trays were always full of expensive abandoned print jobs. Resumes, yard sale ads, kid photos, you name it, sent to the printer and then abandoned. It drove managers nuts, and they tried everything-- big signs reminding people to not waste, and restricting permissions. But anyone who got cut off could easily find someone else to do it for them. So much energy devoted to foiling sensible procedures...

Agree absolutely "tuxchick"........I have just had information from a friend of mine who read the first Beez article and the comments. He tried to conserve paper at a school by implementing a step in the printing process which forced the children to check if what they had asked to be printed was the correct item and the correct number of copies. As he remarked, it also tried to prevent Word from having its normal network hysteria and then print a couple of hundred copies instead of one. He indicated that it has at least partially succeeded in cutting down paper usage.

However, the "mindless fools" amongst them soon worked out how to bypass the process so that they could continue to print numerous copies of pages that just had endless LOL's on them or similar garbage because *they* thought it was clever. He reckoned that the problem is a combination of education, trained habits and intelligence. It's something like DRM if you think about it: the vast majority of users don't wish to do the wrong thing and try to comply; there is however, a minority that will not. And in each case, it is quickly demonstrated that "the procedures put in place to force compliance" can be broken at will.

As I said earlier, I support the concept that the WWF had in wishing to cut down on paper usage ~ but in my opinion, WWF went about it in completely the wrong way.

Maybe this is related, maybe not, but let me post it anyway. I'm a subscriber to Fortune. They send so much paper each issue, and I usually read through it, but I was thinking to check if they have a version for an ereader. Turns out that you can get a version for the iPad, if you pay $5 per issue, even if you're a subscriber. It's a business magazine, yet they have a strange understanding of the economics. Maybe they haven't yet figured out how to load it up with advertisements in the electronic version.

So, they just put a new extension (*.WWF) on a no-print PDF & that's supposed to do the trick? People will just crack it with a ghostscript based reader, print it & be done with it. ... just 'cause they can...

A better way to save trees is to support things like hemp paper, not available (easily that is) in the USA. Another is for any company (like the one I work for) to create economic incentive for going paperless to its customers, in the form of discounts & waived fees for going to paperless billing. Another is to support more tablet based computing (for reading Documents & taking notes).

The WWF should publish statistics on the cost of tablet based computing against the cost of old-fashioned note taking (both economic & ecological). If someone sees a $$$ advantage in going green, they'll be more receptive.

As this organization is apparently concerned about the environment, they should definitely like the low power use of tablet computers.

Hmm, anyone have the metrics for the percentage of paper that comes from non sustainable unrecycled sources?

way to focus on sound bites instead of facts :/

The wiki on paper recycling has some;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_recycling

erm, in regards to my question?

In honesty it was a rhetorical question, I know the answer to it already. Knowing this crowd though, on non technical issues some will argue one way and some the other unless they are made to do their homework and come up with the facts for themselves.

Proof that the WWF was deliberately out to frustrate less savvy users (Translated from German):

That's what it's all about. Of course you can specify that a PDF cannot to be printed. However, many people are not familiar with this feature. But those who are not computer savvy should be made aware of their choices.

There are messages on the Facebook page that the OS/X driver "phones home". No official answer from WWF yet.

They have certainly, and predictably, not responded to my email.

It is actually exceptionally easy to create a document in WWF "format", a simple export from OpenOffice.org, as PDF, with a few permissions like print revoked, and password protected, and renamed to filename.wwf does it.

So yes, creating this new "format" does indeed look like an attempt to frustrate less savvy computer users.

It is confirmed by WWF that the OS/X driver "phones home". Allegedly only to check for a new version. It is still unclear whether the program explicitly asked permission when it was installed or at least informed the user of this behavior or whether it can be disabled.

Oh dear, proprietary operating systems, they are so naughty.

My personal opinion, so what if they phone home, so what if this "feature" can't be disabled.

I don't like my machine going behind my back. BTW, this is not the only the problem of a proprietary OS, but also of a proprietary program (non-FOSS).

Quoting:I don't like my machine going behind my back.

There is a simple solution. It's your choice.

A question for Windows and OS X admins: Can the firewall rules block the "phone home" misfeature?

Or is that why this Creature from the Gooey Logon only runs on proprietary OS's? Because I expect this idiocy would be blocked with a single Linux iptables or *BSD pf statement.

FYI: (a) I don't need a proprietary driver that adds no functionality; (b) We're not talking about me here. We're talking about ordinary users who think a firewall is a panacea for all internet ills - if they even know what it is. I don't think it's ethical even for an organization like WWF to release software that (a) doesn't inform users of this "feature", (b) doesn't offer a possibility to disable it, (c) doesn't Open Source it so nobody CAN establish (a) what is sent, (b) why it is sent.

Quoting:I don't think it's ethical even for an organization like WWF to release software that (a) doesn't inform users of this "feature", (b) doesn't offer a possibility to disable it, (c) doesn't Open Source it so nobody CAN establish (a) what is sent, (b) why it is sent.

I agree, in principle. However you appear to be conflating 2 separate issues here. One is already part of the OSX system, the other is merely a way of creating PDF files, there's nothing special about it, and it doesn't even require special software.

These, so called, WWF format files can easily be created on any operating system using the PDFCreator pseudo printer (and as I've already mentioned OO.o export to PDF. And probably any other export to PDF pseudo printer). In fact a simple change to the PDFCreator GUI would make the whole process one of entering an encryption password, and saving to a file.

So for those bloggers who have been complaining there is no Linux version of this rather silly idea, there already is.

Maybe we're not as smart as we think we are. I just tested a Print disabled PDF file on Windows and Evince (on Windows) honoured the no Print flag, while Evince (on Linux) ignores it.

tracyanne, which Windows? Vista/7, or XP/earlier?

XP, Vista and Win7

GSView (GhostView) on Windows ignores the Print flag.

Another thing, I noticed when opening this file. Evince refused to open the file when it has the .wwf extension stating

Quoting:File type - (application/octet-stream) is not supported

Which means it's using the file extension to determine the file type (a very Windows paradigm), and not checking the file headers, while on Linux it is correctly determining the file type from the headers.

GhostView, on Windows, correctly doesn't care what the file extension is.

I asked that, wondering if maybe Vista's DRM was kicking in. I guess it's something else.

It's M$ S.N.A.F.U. (situation normal...). I only have one Windoze installation in my house & no desire to waste my time figuring out why it doesn't work. As long as I can get around the craziness (should any of my clients adopt this), I'm golden. That I can open & convert them in Linux is fine by me.