November 3, 2009

Straight Talk about PDF & Digital Signatures - ISSE 2009

Jim King, PDF Architect, senior principal scientist at Adobe and one of the key drivers behind the PDF format and its adoption and continuing development by ISO as a standard (ISO 32000), recently delivered a keynote presentation to the ISSE (Information Security Solutions Europe) 2009 Conference in The Hague, Netherlands.  He discussed the evolution of the PDF format and standard, and spent most of his talk introducing the new PAdES signature standard and what it encompasses.

During that conference, Jim sat down with Roger Dean, executive director of eema UK, for a conversation about PDF, the need for digital signatures, challenges of communicating the benefits of digital signatures, and finally a description of the PAdES standard.  This interview is now available below (and here)...enjoy!


Posted by John B Harris at 7:58 AM |

October 13, 2009

Acrobat and Reader 9.2 update

On October 13, 2009 - Adobe released critical updates to Acrobat and Reader. All users are recommended to update their systems to the these releases as soon as possible.

Continue reading "Acrobat and Reader 9.2 update" »

Posted by John Landwehr at 9:34 AM |

September 27, 2009

McAfee and Adobe Team on Automated Data Protection (DLP + DRM)

McAfee and Adobe today announced their global strategic partnership across enterprise and consumer businesses. For enterprises, the companies are developing an integrated solution to expand data protection across the enterprise using data loss prevention and rights management technologies. For consumers, McAfee's free diagnostic tool, McAfee Security Scan, is available as an optional download to customers when installing Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player.

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Posted by John Landwehr at 9:01 PM |

September 23, 2009

Eliminating the Pen...One Step at a Time: PAdES PDF Advanced Electronic Signature Standard Released for EU

Building on the delivery of the PDF format to the International Standards Organization (ISO) as ISO 32000-1, Adobe has been collaborating with standards bodies around the world to make it easier for companies, organizations and individuals to leverage the ubiquity of PDF to make business processes quicker, easier and more reliable.  However, the rush to go paperless has often fallen short of its true potential because signing a document oftentimes brings business critical processes crashing to a halt, requiring users to print out the previously electronic document in order to apply their nom de plume with an ancient writing implement.  Electronic signatures are obviously the solution, but there’s still the question of interoperability and the use of electronically signed documents within certain legal frameworks, such as the European Union (EU).  With last week’s announcement of an ETSI open standard for PDF digital signatures, that question can now be answered.

ETSI/ESI Technical Standard (TS) 102 778, better known as PAdES (pronounced with either a long or short a), documents how the digital signature format described in ISO 32000-1 meets the needs of the 1999 EU Signature Directive (see previous blog entry), and then goes on to describe how that format can be expanded to take advantage of certain capabilities such as long-term document validation, where digital signatures placed on documents today can be validated five, ten and even 50 years later.  (The standard can be downloaded free of charge from the ETSI website at http://pda.etsi.org/pda/.)

Continue reading "Eliminating the Pen...One Step at a Time: PAdES PDF Advanced Electronic Signature Standard Released for EU" »

Posted by John B Harris at 12:29 PM |

September 22, 2009

Canon introduces imageRUNNER ADVANCE with LiveCycle Rights Management

Canon announced today their imageRUNNER Advance Series to seamlessly bridge the distance between user and multifunction printer (MFP). These models have a tighter collaboration with Adobe technologies, by offering the ability to print and scan into a variety of Adobe PDF formats and integration with Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management ES to bring secure collaboration to PDF documents.

Integration with LiveCycle Rights Management is provided directly on the imageRUNNER ADVANCE control panel to easily select document security policies that persistent protect the electronic document after it is scanned on the device.

Posted by John Landwehr at 7:29 AM |

September 21, 2009

History...signed with Adobe products: US District Court Judge issues first digitally signed judicial order

For the first time in history, the Honorable John M. Facciola, Magistrate Judge for the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, signed a judicial order, not with paper and pen, but with a digital signature!  Press release here.

 

Judge Facciola viewing his just-digitally signed order in Adobe Acrobat.  Courtesy National Notary Association (NNA). 

Talk about setting precedent--while electronic filing has been required for some time, orders are typically printed out, signed, and then re-scanned into systems for filing.  Not until now has there been such a vote of confidence in the legal significance and weight of a digital signature.  By keeping the generation, signing and filing of the order completely electronic, the process is made much more efficient, potentially driving costs down and making the court’s systems work more effectively.  This is the latest example of organizations understanding not only the integrity and authenticity benefits of digital signatures, but the resource savings also.  Remember, it’s not so much the signature event that consumes time and money--it’s the processes around it.

Continue reading "History...signed with Adobe products: US District Court Judge issues first digitally signed judicial order" »

Posted by John B Harris at 8:51 AM |

September 14, 2009

Contracts @ the speed of light: Adobe's new Click-to-Accept solution

Recently, Adobe launched its C2A (Click-to-Accept) service, providing partners and customers with the ability to electronically sign certain Adobe agreements without a lengthy approval and review process.  And what’s more, not only was it developed with the cross-functional support of product, information technology and legal teams within Adobe, it’s also based on off-the-shelf Adobe server and client products, including Adobe LiveCycle® ES, Flash, and Adobe Reader®.  We’ve talked in this blog about Adobe’s capabilities to support a wide range of electronic signatures within a single workflow, and here’s a clear example of that in production right here at Adobe.

Continue reading "Contracts @ the speed of light: Adobe's new Click-to-Accept solution" »

Posted by John B Harris at 12:46 PM |