this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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Technology

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49
Dangerzone will convert possibly insecure files like PDF, DOCX into a safe PDF (dangerzone.rocks)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Penguincoder@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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Literally one of the worst formats I deal with daily, from a security standpoint are PDFs. Very useful and predictable for the end user; yes, but very dangerous for the capabilities it allows.

Dangerzone works like this: You give it a document that you don't know if you can trust (for example, an email attachment). Inside of a sandbox, Dangerzone converts the document to a PDF (if it isn't already one), and then converts the PDF into raw pixel data: a huge list of RGB color values for each page. Then, in a separate sandbox, Dangerzone takes this pixel data and converts it back into a PDF.

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[–] Penguincoder@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, definitely increases the size and removes some functionality that others may rely on. But for presentation of content which is what a PDF SHOULD BE, then it has typically worked fine. I've been using pandoc and some home grown scripts to do this sort of thing for a while.