"Our vision is to encourage collaboration around Microsoft documents--but to do it securely. Collaboration is a very important part of today's working practices, but it does present some new risks." says Matthew Brown, Workshare product manager, according to a CNET News.com article by David Becker  (Software maker exposes hidden data, August 23, 2004).

One particular type of risk prompted Workshare to establish a new website, Metadatarisk.org. The site provides information and downloadable tools to address "the dangers posed by hidden metadata in documents," including metadata containing deleted text. Victims as diverse as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Linux adversary the SCO Group have experienced these dangers directly already.

'Word and other Office applications include tools for removing such metadata before a document is shared with others, but those capabilities are used inconsistently at best, Brown said. "It's something where it really needs to be part of company policy--how you deal with metadata," he said. "If you don't create and enforce a good policy about cleaning up after yourselves, there's a real risk."'

This fairly simple issue illustrates how increased collaboration will require organizations to rethink their processes. In this case, even simple email exchanging of Word documents shouldn't be taken for granted.

5:14:08 PM    
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