Reader 9.3 Security Question

Question

The new version of Adobe Reader (9.3) has some new security restrictions to do with accessing untrusted sites.
This has dealt quite a big blow to my current process which is (in short)...
1) Create PDF with form that sends data to my server
2) Email PDF to client
3) Client enters some information, data gets sent to my server in form submit and I return an FDF to the PDF
4) PDF uses javascript to decipher message from FDF and popup a confirmation
So my problem now is that the security popup (“Options” are “Trust this document one time only” or “Trust this document always”) requires the user to re-enter their password once one the said option is chosen, which seems to re-open the PDF. Because of this closing and opening of the PDF, the FDF data is lost and I don't get any chance to look at that information.
Also, any information that is entered into the form is also lost once the pdf "re-opens"
Has anyone else had any experience with this so far? Is this by design that all form entered data goes missing?

Answer 1

The solution here is to use a cross domain policy file to assign trust. Allow your clients (customers) to trust a pdf, fdf, xfdf, ect. by certifying the doc sent to the client and placing the fingerprint of the certificate used to certify the document to trust in the cross domain policy file.For example, if you returning an FDF with data to your customer's PDFs, certify the FDF and place its cert fingerprint in the cross domain policy file.
This technique is described briefly in the Enhanced Security Guide and more fully in the Cross Domain Security Guide. Both are located here: http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/security/Application+Security+Library.
The big picture is this:
Adobe turned on enhanced security by default to protect users’ machines and data. As with any security restriction, the protection has the possibility to break certain workflows that were designed to function in an unsecure way over a network. However, Adobe is providing several methods for establishing trust between files, folders, and hosts to enable these workflows while retaining a desirable level of security. Workflow onwer actions vary depending on the workflow components you control:
When you control the clients: Pre-configure privileged locations.
You control the server: Use a crossdomain.xml policy file.
You control the entire workflow: Set up a certified document workflow where end users trust the signing certificate for privileged networked operations, configure privileged locations for all clients, use a crossdomain.xml policy file.
You don’t control the client or server: In this case, you have to encourage users to do the right thing prior to interacting with your PDF. For example, prior to having end users fill out a form whose submittal will result in data returning back to that user, have them first trust your server as a privileged location.
These methods are described more fully here: http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/security/Application+Security+Library.