If I can see it, I can copy it
The U. S. Army has published to the web a report on Operation Iraqi Freedom, “On Point”. It’s the report you’ve heard about that reveals how the famous toppling of the Saddam statue was staged, among other things. The surprising thing is that it starts with this disclaimer:
This document has security features enabled to prevent printing, downloading, cutting and pasting. Printable PDF files will be released at a later date, and links will be posted when they become available.
And it’s true! The document is “protected” by exactly the same amateur-grade mechanisms that a 14 year old would use to stop you from stealing his Pokemon secrets. Setting aside the extreme technial ineptitude in their attempt, and the fact that what they are trying to do is fundamentally not possible anyway, you have to wonder what their motivations are. What kind of convoluted thought process could possibly lead to even wanting to try to do something like this? I can’t fathom it.
Working around these laughably ineffective mechanisms is left as an exercise to the reader. Or you can just get the copy of the report from GlobalSecurity.org, they’ve mirrored the entire thing, minus the script-kiddy-esque context menu blocking and half-broken Javascript redirection tricks. (aside: I wonder what these bogus countermeasures do to the accessibility of this document? Are they not required to comply to some accessibility guidelines?)
REPLY))
Funny that doesn’t even work in Opera either, the context-menu blocking that is.