Adobe PDF/Acroforms & Digital signatures/Integrity/Authentication/Non repudiation

Hi folks,
I have been investigation the feasibility of using PDF as a customer-facing data collection mechanism, starting with Acroforms for a pilot, initially at least (we may consider XFA/Livecycle in a later phase).
I've got a demo application up and running using the FDF toolkit, presenting PDF forms to the web user, collecting and processing/storing the collected data etc.
My question is around how this process can be secured.
(Q1) (This may be strictly a web dev question, please ignore if considered not relevant here) : If the web application communicates over HTTPS, then the conversation between client & server is secure (encrypted at least, so that others cant sniff the content?) - but it does not necessarily authenticate the end user to the server?
(Q2) If we wish to ensure that the FDF data Submitted from the PDF form (via submit button to an ASP.NET url) is (a) known to be authentic from a particular known user, and (b) signed in some way to be non-repudiatable ... how can be do this with FDF ? If we re-generate a flat PDF document from the data they entered, is there any digital signature mechanism that can be employed for the public end-user to "sign" the PDF document in a manner that ensure Integrity/Authentication/Non repudiation ?
any pointers to Adobe or Third party toolkits, products etc. ?
best regards & thanks,
Aidan.

Q1. That's right. But if the form includes fields for a username/password, this could be sent along with the rest of the data and used to authenticate the user. Or you could use other common means, but as you said, this has nothing to do with Acrobat.
Q2. FDF can contain digital signature data. So the form would have to contain a signature field and the user would have to sign it. Assuming a self-signed signature, it's up to you whether to trust such a signature. The signed PDF is constructed from the original PDF that was served by concatenating the appended saves contained in the FDF. You can then validate the signature.
George

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Adobe PDF/Acroforms & Digital signatures/Integrity/Authentication/Non repudiation

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