RANT: Fairchild datasheet encrypted!? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: jolshefsky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 06:20:53 pm
content: I am stupefied that, after finding a Fairchild part and looking it up on their site, that their datasheet is actually encrypted. TheFSUSB30is a USB data switch and the datasheet on the Fairchild site won't even open using several of Adobe's PDF viewers.I did find the device on Mouser (512-FSUSB30MUX) and its datasheet at least opens. But I like to do something as simple as naming the file with the part's description (e.g. "FSUSB30 Lower-Power, Two-Port, High-Speed USB 2.0 Switch.pdf") but upon selecting the title in the datasheet, I had to strangely go to select "Edit:Copy" as the hotkey doesn't work and were greet with an error: "Without the owner password, you do not have permission to copy portions of this document."I—oh my-god—am so friggin' mind-blown, I can't even think straight right now. This is beyond daft. It's the kind of insane logic of the Joker in Batman. No reason at all but to perhaps drive engineers mad. What is the reason? As copy protection, this is pathetic—it is merely to keep the honest man frustrated and annoyed.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 06:30:12 pm
content: Quote from: jolshefsky on April 21, 2017, 06:20:53 pmFrankly, are you first day on the internet? In me experience about half of PDF documents have copying disabled.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 06:34:19 pm
content: BTW datasheet from the fairchild website opens completely fine in chrome and adobe reader.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 06:39:54 pm
content: I have had no trouble saving complete files like this. I can understand manufacturers wanting to prevent edits on their datasheets, and I actually want it too. Can you imaging the problems if a pranking script kiddy decided to do a little editing on pin assignments? Or any of a number of other devilish things that I won't publish for fear of putting ideas in peoples heads.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 07:59:21 pm
content: Quote from: jolshefsky on April 21, 2017, 06:20:53 pmI've not had any problems with this myself, see quote below. Just don't use Adobe Acrobat reader. I use Fire Fox's built-in PDF reader, which renders most PDF files fine, even though it is a bit slow.Quotehttps://www.fairchildsemi.com/datasheets/FS/FSUSB30.pdf

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 08:41:45 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on April 21, 2017, 07:59:21 pmOpened right up with Chrome and whatever the embedded .pdf reader is.

author: Farley
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 21, 2017, 08:49:33 pm
content: QuoteI downloaded the specification from the OP's original link. Firefox saved it to my downloads folder where I was able to open it in Adobe Reader. After shutting down Adobe Reader I renamed the downloaded file and opened it again. I didn't experience any issues.The file does indicate it's "Secured" but that didn't keep me from viewing it or renaming it.Is it possible your download was corrupted in some way?

author: thermistor-guy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2017, 09:16:22 am
content: I just opened the datasheet on the Fairchild site, without a problem, using a Linux laptop (Mint 17.3 distro).

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2017, 09:25:35 am
content: Quote from: evb149 on April 21, 2017, 09:36:43 pmLike what?I think you'll find quite a bit of resistance to the notion that .PDFs are the "bane of documentation."

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2017, 09:27:43 am
content: Can confirm, Chrome reader and Foxit Reader both work fine. Text is selectable and readable. (The bullet point characters on the left side of the title page show up as "?", but that may be a character set thing for me, I don't know.)Tim

author: capt bullshot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2017, 09:33:04 am
content: Pretty much normal for most every datasheet. Just use a PDF reader that doesn't care about the protection flags.

author: senso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2017, 11:01:18 am
content: Using Evince, just because of those stupid you cant copy paste this text, that and adobe updates 3 times a day and just a massive security hole if installed in a pc..

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 03:05:18 am
content: Well, you know, we all want to change the world...

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 05:23:38 am
content: evb149 is exactly right, but it seems totally impossible to me, given the current mentality in the software world.It would be far too complex to be possible. Even the most trivial things escalate to complex catastrophes today.OTOH, it could just actually happen one day, if a manufacturer accidently hired a bright, sane individual, and even more accidently let him/her do the job freely.It could start from something really simple, like someone converting all the pin mappings, tables and curves to CSV files for some components, then uploading them to their web server and letting the web server generate the file listing page... Think about it! Parsing, utilizing, modifying these formats by writing small pieces of software or scripts would be utterly trivial to considerable percentage of EEs. Open source tools would start to appear. Later, industry mammoths would start to integrate the support into their $10000000000000000 tools, which we all use, because "the open source community" (whatever it means) is incapable of doing a big tool like a PCB design suite.But as long as people dream about a "dataformat", it's not going to happen. Too complex, will be a battlefield about which industry giant makes the best vendor lockin; and even if it was open, designing a dataformat invites the wrong people to "design" it, and soon it will be a cloud xml applet snipplet portlet bubblet ascii-encoded-binary-in-xml-and-xml-inside-sql cloud big data and some more xml, designed by idiots who are not EEs and have no clue about the actual needs. I have seen too much of this. Very little sane information technology design in last 15 or so years.Someone just has to start somewhere, and a good solution will spread.

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 05:58:18 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on April 21, 2017, 06:39:54 pmExcept, as already explained, this is classic DRM -- it isfarmore likely to annoy an average Joe EE than it is to hamper a dedicated hacker's efforts. Not to mention that it's not even real protection, literally just a "please disallowing copying" bit in the file which can trivially be ignored or flipped off.We should just be pleased that semiconductor companies are smart enough to realise that only the very gentlest, lightest DRM makes sense; while music studies continue plodding along making life difficult for people who want to play their music in their car while absolutely, completely, spectacularly failing to put the slightest dent in piracy for the most obvious of reasons.

author: julian1
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 07:27:20 am
content: On debian, and pdfinfo says the following,Code:/Downloads$ pdfinfo FSUSB30.pdf | grep EncEncrypted: yes (print:yes copy:no change:no addNotes:yes algorithm:AES-256)It opens immediately in Firefox in the embedded viewer, or evince when downloaded, and pdf2ps and pdf2txt also work fine to generate postscript or dump the text.I honestly don't think I've ever come across a manufacturer's pdf that doesn't open. I would blame the client.

author: samnmax
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 01:37:19 pm
content: Quote from: evb149 on April 27, 2017, 02:32:17 amI just wanted to point that there is an awesome tool to interpolate plots from an image, and obtain X and Y data from points manually sampled with the mouse. It can manage logarithmic axes.WebPlotDigitizer:http://arohatgi.info/WebPlotDigitizer/app/But yes, I agree with you that manufacturers should publish the data in a more computer-friendly way. Alas, I can only dream of them releasing proper SPICE and RC network thermal models...

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 02:12:13 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 27, 2017, 05:23:38 amthere are 14 competing standards. lets make a uniform one. now there are 15 ....i don't like this thing. let's fork it and make another flavor...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 02:49:25 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 27, 2017, 02:12:13 pmLet's just stick with this thing we've been using for 20 years, nothing better can possibly be made.

author: GreggD
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 03:09:57 pm
content: While I would not upload un-encrypted pdfs I do un-encrypt them for my own use. I use Elcomsoft Advanced PDF Password Recovery (APDFPR) unlocks Adobe Acrobat PDF documents and removes editing, printing and copying restrictions instantly.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 03:12:42 pm
content: Quote from: julian1 on April 27, 2017, 07:27:20 amWhy would they use AES256 on a file that is meant to be viewable by anyone? It's the equivalent of delivering the documents in a good safe, but with the combination printed on the outside so that anyone can open it.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2017, 04:51:40 pm
content: Quote from: GreggD on April 27, 2017, 03:09:57 pmIf you don't mind a command line, you can use QPDF, which is open source:http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/qpdf --decrypt input.pdf output.pdf

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2017, 12:44:51 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on April 27, 2017, 03:12:42 pmI think the answer is: so that a 10-year old can't write a program to just flip bit 1 of byte 326 in the file to enable copying. But of course, a 10-year old can use qpdf, so indeed it is hard to argue that it's truly an effective strategy.