PDF documents can easily reveal the author name , date and time on which the document was created and PDF software used , which can be used to guess the identity of person , time zone and operating system and PDF software version used in computer. I found a simple way to hide these basic information from PDF documents using Notepad++.
Get a PDF document , make sure it is of PDF version 1.5 or below. For PDF 1.6 and above , we can just downgrade them using software like Imagemagick by converting PDF to images and converting them back to PDF of version 1.5.
View the PDF metadata in a browser or exiftool and check information present before removal of Metadata.
Search for Author, Creator, Creation date after opening PDF document in notepad++.
Remove lines containing words creator , date , etc as shown in the image above.
Ensure that all lines which contained identifying metadata in plaintext are removed and save it as new copy to avoid corruption of data.
Finally Details like creation date, Author are hidden from casual ordinary computer user.
WARNING:
This method is irreversible and cannot be undone . This method may lead to data loss.
Always try this method after keeping a copy of document for safety.
NOTE: This can protect you from a non-technical person but can’t protect you from a forensic analysis.
Take a look at MAT2 ( https://0xacab.org/jvoisin/mat2 ) which removes most metadata, my method does not guarantee removal of all metadata , it just prevents most users from getting this information.
Conclusion:
The above method can be used to efficiently hide creation date and original author for casual use enough to hide from teachers , professors , parents and fellow students who want to see source and date of creation PDF document.
For high risks users this method is strictly not applicable.
Originally published at https://outflaw.blogspot.com on November 21, 2019.
