Is it possible to set expiration date on DWG files?!

Folks,

Is it possible to set an expiration date on DWG files?!

As in "this file will self destruct in 30 seconds" . Nice idea but I don't think it is possible. What exactly did you have in mind as the reason for needing this.

Our office sends off lots of drawings to different contractors and would like to ensure that drawings are not valid after project life-time say one year after date of production.

I found this one (looks a bit dodgy though)

Define high security expiration date and/or working time limitations for your drawings.

Good luck with that. The contractor could easily print any drawings you send them and retain those long after any cad file self destructed. What are you going to do then?

Guys, drawings do not contain any super duper high value information. Of course we all know every kind of protection is somehow vulnerable. What I am looking after is implementing some sort of protection on our drawings. Something better than nothing !

Will this include marching down to the contractor's office and demanding they destroy any printed copies as well? While you may be well intentioned I think it is a bit of an over reaction.

Dude, let's focus on topic's question and forget about the bullet-proofness of this approach.

The main reason for asking this question is the fact I recently heard from a peer that same principle is achievable in Revit (not sure how maybe via Vault). I have not investigated the truthfulness of the claim yet but was hoping to be true about AutoCAD.

A peer told you the feature was available in Revit but you can't verify the truthfulness of the claim? Did you ask any follow-up questions of this peer? Did you contact your local AutoDesk reseller and inquire?

Have you looked into Information Rights Management?

Maybe this would suit the needs of your company and ease your mind....http://www.seclore.com/seclore-filesecure/

It's certainly not built in, who knows what will be possible when the cloud takes over, I certainly have never heard of anything like it, so that prgram you show is new to me, I don't know how reliable it would be, but I can't see how it works when you send drawings out, unless the receiving contractor agrees to allow some extra software to be installed on their system. I have worked with various project management softaware packages, that keep everything organised and available to all concerned, but once you download a file it is yours to alter if thats what you want to do. We work as main contractor and sub contractor, and in both cases have been called upon to use drawings from years ago in order to carry out repairs or refurbishments.

EDIT - yeah something like REMark just posted, I have used "asite" and "chapoo" but people with the correct permissions are allowed to download files, so you cannot keep total control over content.

Protecting/locking drawings or content has been discussed here many times. The consensus is that it is a waste of time. There is always someone that can duplicate your AutoCAD work. What needs protecting is the design.

Protecting/locking drawings or content has been discussed here many times. The consensus is that it is a waste of time. There is always someone that can duplicate your AutoCAD work. What needs protecting is the design.

My answer to the original question is that there's nothing that I've seen on the market that does this. I'm not saying it's impossible, but FWIW I would think there would have to be some sort of executable programming action of some kind. This would probably not be able to happen since most companies do not have admin rights to their computers anyways. Not only that but it's sneaky, and probably illegal, bordering the line of trojan-type virus software.

But Rob is right... it's a waste of time, which is a waste of money. And why would anybody want to do this anyways? People can still use archived CAD files for many purposes.... tracking down a log of changes, calculating job progression, comparing issued drawings, forecasting the next phase, etc. Sub-contractors need to be referred to as "trade partners", not "contractors". Inhibiting them from containing archived authoring files can really cut the legs out from underneath a team who's contracted to build a building. Just unfortunate that people would even consider this....

As a Revit user, I have never heard of this function for Revit files. Granted, I'm not one to scour the web for add-ins and plug-ins, but given my amount of knowledge and time on the RFO.org community, I figured it would have came up. So I'm unsure about the claim that Revit does this.

- TZ

Exactly.

 

My answer to the original question is that there's nothing that I've seen on the market that does this. I'm not saying it's impossible, but FWIW I would think there would have to be some sort of executable programming action of some kind. This would probably not be able to happen since most companies do not have admin rights to their computers anyways. Not only that but it's sneaky, and probably illegal, bordering the line of trojan-type virus software.

 

But Rob is right... it's a waste of time, which is a waste of money. And why would anybody want to do this anyways? People can still use archived CAD files for many purposes.... tracking down a log of changes, calculating job progression, comparing issued drawings, forecasting the next phase, etc. Sub-contractors need to be referred to as "trade partners", not "contractors". Inhibiting them from containing archived authoring files can really cut the legs out from underneath a team who's contracted to build a building. Just unfortunate that people would even consider this....

 

As a Revit user, I have never heard of this function for Revit files. Granted, I'm not one to scour the web for add-ins and plug-ins, but given my amount of knowledge and time on the RFO.org community, I figured it would have came up. So I'm unsure about the claim that Revit does this.

 

- TZ

Fair enough. Well said.

But that's the bottom-up view. I am afraid managers won't necessarily agree with that. We all know they, sadly, don't care about small guys in the market !

Ok, let's separate our discussion into following two branches:

1. My direct manager has asked me to find him some sort of DATE-based protection (generally speaking some sort of protection) for his business drawings;
   
2. If so, how logical, feasible, counterproductive above solution would be
   

My purpose for creating this thread was mainly #1. Considering the power of Javascript in recent versions of AutoCAD, I was hoping to find a path toward that direction.

But that's the bottom-up view. I am afraid managers won't necessarily agree with that. We all know they, sadly, don't care about small guys

If they don't agree or don't care, they aren't doing their job.

how logical, feasible, counterproductive above solution would be?

already answered

Fair enough. Well said.

But that's the bottom-up view. I am afraid managers won't necessarily agree with that. We all know they, sadly, don't care about small guys in the market !

 

Ok, let's separate our discussion into following two branches:

 

1. My direct manager has asked me to find him some sort of DATE-based protection (generally speaking some sort of protection) for his business drawings;
   
2. If so, how logical, feasible, counterproductive above solution would be
   

 

My purpose for creating this thread was mainly #1. Considering the power of Javascript in recent versions of AutoCAD, I was hoping to find a path toward that direction.

What kind of protection? Can you give us an example of how you would want it to work and for what reason? Thanks.

What kind of protection? Can you give us an example of how you would want it to work and for what reason? Thanks.

For instance 'close the drawing if certain date condition is satisfied'. Is it possible?

For instance 'close the drawing if certain date condition is satisfied'. Is it possible?

Is it possible? Not unless you convince your client, contractor, etc. to install some sort of executable file on their system that would monitor the drawing and shut it down on a specified date. I don't think anyone in their right mind would agree to that though.

Forget your quest for a Mission Impossible solution. You should be looking at: Digital Rights Management for CAD.

Check out a product called CADVault by CADLock. It does not create a timedself-destructing CAD file but it will protect and control your drawings.

http://www.cadlock.com/

Option of last resort: Digital Signatures.

Forget your quest for a Mission Impossible solution. You should be looking at: Digital Rights Management for CAD.

 

Check out a product called CADVault by CADLock. It does not create a timedself-destructing CAD file but it will protect and control your drawings.

 

http://www.cadlock.com/

 

Option of last resort: Digital Signatures.

There we go!

That's sort of thing I was talking about. Thanks for the reply

I will investigate it further...

Ah, relief was just a swallow away...Alka-Seltzer.

Glad to hear you're feeling better already.