Apple's Preview unnoticed transported data fragments

Apple's Preview unnoticed transported data fragments

As a standard part of Mac OS X on any Mac application represented "preview" has a more privacy-related errors on the circumstances. It copies into PDF files not only a marked passage with the Selection tool, but also takes over the full content of the rest of the page - hidden and unnoticed - into a newly created document from the clipboard. The hidden part is also available on the subsequent storage and further processing of the new PDF file. This problem indicates the developer Christian Kienle. He demonstrated in a video.

In preview 5.5 on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion can be hidden the rest of the PDF document only see when turning in older preview versions (for example, version 5.0.3 under Mac OS X 10.6.8) the application discloses, however, the entire rest of the page once it is selected in the View menu to display the PDF "document" instead of the default view "neckline".

While trimming the preview of a selected passage clearly indicates that "the selection of deleted content outside" but is merely hidden, this warning is missing when you copy the selection. Therefore, users could pass on difficult or sensitive content, without realizing it. Users who create PDF documents in this way with the Preview app or process should necessarily consider that despite specific selection will complete pages and view their contents with specific applications is also, until Apple corrects the error.

Kienle has forwarded the issue in a bug report to Apple in the near future and wants to offer a tool that examines the PDF files on such back and these hidden components, if present, indicates.