Locked PDF Doc - Please help

[leetay2]

Hi everyone

I'm new on here, looks like the place to get PC advise!!

I have a PDF document that is my own work, i put a password on approx 1 year ago and have not got a clue what it is!!
Looking on google there are loads of password recovery programmes, however, they require a purchase in the region of £20, I will only ever use this programme once to unlock my doc.
Anybody know of any other way of unlocking it??

Please help

Thanks

Lee

 

[Zhoul]

So theres this company out there, that steals code/ideals from other people, makes small little packages, such as the PDF password removers, sells it themselves, but also releases an SDK (software development kit) , so that other people can re-package their work and sell it with a different name.

These SDK's contain the API in DLL form *with* demo's. (I'm sure the only word you got out of that was 'demos')

In the case of the demo for their PDF password remover, There is 1 program, plus 2 demo PDF's, and the demo decrypts them both. I would imagine, if someone were to replace the right PDF, that they could decrypt well... *any* PDF. Just a thought

http://www.shareup.com/downloading-12693.html

That is a zip of the SDK.

- Unzip the SDK (keeping folder names)
- Navigate to the folder... 'pdfpasswordrecovery_com_trial_2.2' then 'bin'
- When I looked at the VB code, it appears that encrypt1.pdf is the example that is password protected 'On Open'
- So, I would imagine if someone were to... ooh i don't know... delete that .pdf and copy theirs in there, then name it encrypt1.pdf... Then run demo.exe... That the files decrypt_owner.pdf or decrypt_user.pdf would be the decrypted versions of encrypt1.pdf

(You see, you can password protect PDF's on two levels. One being the 'general editing and modification' level, AKA "User" level... The other being the 'Can open or not' level, AKA Owner)

But, thats all hypothetical


*Edit*
Seems that user level is the "Can open or not" level, while owner level is the "Can open but not modify" level.

I also found that the PDF SDK *may* only feed 1/2 of your document into the output. Damn, they got us again ..