Tracling Who Created a File

[dana.johnson]

Is it possible to decompose a word.doc file into it's component parts
and find out when and where it was created? I work in a high school
and we need a way to check to see that students do their own work. Any
ideas? My assumption is that a word.doc file must be made up of
component files that tell who created it and when, where it has been,
text, formatting, images, etc.. Any idea's?

 

[Oz Springs]

Hi Dana

You can check ³Properties...² under the File Menu in Word, but if you want
to ³decompose² the document, open it in BBEdit. Scroll down to the end of
the document where you will see a few interesting things including who had
worked on that document. If you close the document without saving it, it
will stay a Word document (or duplicate it before opening it in BBEdit).

However, this is not foolproof, unfortunately. Mom could open the document
using her son¹s/daughter¹s userid. I once worked with someone who was quite
proud of the fact that she wrote her children¹s papers. She thought she was
a loving mum, but she was preventing her children from developing skills
essential for working and later study, as well as letting them know that
cheating is OK.

If images are embedded - and most of them are in Word - I don¹t think you
can check out their origins, but other people on this list will probably
know more about that than I do. I guess that one thing you can do is insist
that students show a verifiable origin trail for images - but you have
probably thought of that already.

Hope you find out the nitty gritty - if there is any.

Kind regards



Oz

 

[John McGhie]

No.

You can try all sorts of mischief that might show you who created a
particular document, but it is not reliable. Anyone trying to cheat will
quickly find a way to remove the information, or alter it to be meaningless.

There is no way to track the creator of individual components within a
document.

Cheers

Is it possible to decompose a word.doc file into it's component parts
and find out when and where it was created? I work in a high school
and we need a way to check to see that students do their own work. Any
ideas? My assumption is that a word.doc file must be made up of
component files that tell who created it and when, where it has been,
text, formatting, images, etc.. Any idea's?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Bill Weylock]

Hmmmmm....

Is there a completely reliable way to remove identifying information so that
someone will NOT know a document came from me?

It doesn¹t come up often, but I have tried once or twice. Every time I
rechecked Properties, it seemed that Word had restored my name and company
name. One time it was because a client did not want upper managers to know
the names of her consultants.

Thanks.


Best,


- Bill

No.

You can try all sorts of mischief that might show you who created a
particular document, but it is not reliable. Anyone trying to cheat will
quickly find a way to remove the information, or alter it to be meaningless.

There is no way to track the creator of individual components within a
document.

Cheers

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bill:

Yes, there is.

In Word 2004>Preferences on the Security tab there's an option to "remove
personal information on save."

That's normally sufficient: it's remarkably thorough. Just be aware that
you should normally run with it turned OFF because it disables the function
of things such as Tracked Changes and Comments. The tracked changes and
comments remain in the file, but you can no longer tell who said what, which
sort of defeats the purpose a bit

The other way to do this is to set up a Blind Machine with no network
connection. You specify a login user of "Anonymous User", no email
addresses or contacts or anything else that might identify anyone.

Basically, you would set this up on a spare partition of you have only one
machine.

You then open the document you want to anonymise, and copy all except the
last paragraph mark.

Create a new blank document in the Blind Machine and Paste. Save, close and
Zip the result.

I'm not convinced that this actually does a better job than "remove personal
information". But the effort gives you such a feeling of accomplishment

Cheers

Hmmmmm....

Is there a completely reliable way to remove identifying information so that
someone will NOT know a document came from me?

It doesn¹t come up often, but I have tried once or twice. Every time I
rechecked Properties, it seemed that Word had restored my name and company
name. One time it was because a client did not want upper managers to know the
names of her consultants.

Thanks.


Best,


- Bill







Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410