and that is a good thing. JM Garcia, Why would you want to prevent that?
Joseph
There are certain things we don't want people to print. Too back there is no way to prevent this. I guess we would have to create external html and encript those and call it from moodle. I was trying to avoid this step.
Thanks for the reply.
If you do encrypt some html to make it unprintable please send me a link via pm and I'll send you a pdf of the page that is unprintable, just to prove that anything is possible.
duh!
Of course someone can take a pic with a digital camera. That is not the point. Whoever WANTS TO DO WRONG will do it anyways and find it's way. I know what I can and can't do and the extent of protection I can have and if I can prevent pdf of it too. You are taking this issue through the wrong path.
My question was if WITHIN moodle a page could be protected/encrypted as an outside html could. So the answer is either Yes or No. So no debate as to how much protection can be possible or if it could be protected 100%. I am not a computer ignorant, only new to moodle.
So, since I already know the answer regarding moodle, you don't need to answer further. Consider the issue resolved. Thanks.
"I believe I consider DRM evil because it is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. First you have to make TC pervasive, then you have to lock down all computers all the way for DRM to work; in the process you must shut down all those pesky researchers, or any loophole will get exploited to death. Distribution of source code is not possible and deployment of new binaries is unthinkable.
When all music is locked down, it is the day that we go back to pre-CD-ROM days. We lose the convenience of digital music, and we lose fair use. So we probably stop buying music."
Source: http://lwn.net/Articles/200666/
Many people have a misconception regarding what "fair use" use. Even if you download (illegally or unauthorized by the owner) a piece of music for your own enjoyment is illegal and is not protected under 'fair use'. Fair use doesn't mean anyone is allowed to copy things from the net for personal use.
Besides, I don't know where someone got the idea I was talking about music!
I have used something similar for selling sheet music - you can only print the music once (a bit stupid when photocopiers and scanners exist but there you go).
If it is a client, then it will probably work fine in Moodle - just upload the "encrypted" html as a moodle resource. You may have trouble with mime types, but that should be fixable.
As far as I can tell that just "obfusticates" the HTML (using a Javascript function) to make the HTML source hard to read. I don't think that's what he was after.
EDIT...
...although one of the ones he cites is similar. It "forces" Javascript to be used to display the material (the material is encrypted/unencrypted in Javascript), so if you turn off javascript then you don't get the material at all.
Devious.
I'm morally affronted that you would actually want to do this to your students, but if that's your thing it's interesting. I suppose the next thing is for me to work out a hack for these
Howard,
I really would never encrypt anything from my students but if there were such information that must be encrypted/protected it could be useful to have a method to do it. On the contrary I usually try to explain people what those different tags in html mean - this encrypted html is a little too hard to read even for me 
So your students have to a) run Windows, b) run Internet Explorer, and c) run a closed-source executable created by some anonymous guy who doesn't even put his name on the site? No thanks!
http://www.mtopsoft.com/encryptpro/index.htm
This one can be defeated in less than one minute.
Seriously, all this stuff does is annoy legitimate users while doing nothing whatsoever to stop "bad guys" from saving the material.
"Digital files cannot be made uncopyable, any more than water can be made not wet."
-- Bruce Schneier
Yet http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,995740,00.html
and we have virus scanners, passwords, .htaccess-files etc "protection" although they may be useless for attacks of some "bad guys" - we use them because they do work fully satisfactory in most cases. I don't see anything wrong if JM wants to try to control the copyright of his/her own material.
As we all said, including JM, digital files cannot be made uncopyable but they can be made to look like uncopyable 
I don't consider a system that requires me to run an untrusted executable from an anonymous source to be "fully satisfactory", nor one that attempts to prevent me from making a fair-use quote of a portion of the material.
We won't even go into the havoc that these schemes often play with screen readers for the blind or other assistive technology.
I'll bet that shoplifting would go down dramatically if stores started requiring a strip search before one left the premises, but that wouldn't make it a good idea.
You are absolutely right, Tony!
I meant these other "protection methods"...
Don't go there, don't waste your time thinking about it. If you don't want them to be able to capture and print it, don't put it on a web page. I have been thinking about this since the very first graphical web page was available (actually the first time I used the web there were no graphics).
maybe He or She should be prevented to print and copy each other production...
I felt a bit questioned by that other thread.
I couldn't help usefully I fear. Would you Joseph ?
Hi JM,
in fact there IS a very simple way to protect your material in moodle: include all your texts to quizzes that are shown in secure window.
The "secure" window tries to provide a little more security for quizzes (making copying and cheating more difficult) by restricting some of the things that students can do with their browsers.
What happens is that (for students):
- Javascript is made a requirement.
- The quiz appears in a new fullscreen window.
- Some mouse actions on the text are prevented (mouse right click and selecting text).
- Some keyboard commands are prevented (for example print screen!).
Saving document is not possible for students ... and if you want to have extra options you may add some javascript to your theme header.html or footer.html
I just tested this and there is only one "bug": ctrl + print screen is not disabled but it could be done with extra script...and it is also possible to delete the contents of the user's clipboard with extra javascript so that you let people to copy things but copied things are cleaned from clipboard immediately.
Hi Mauno,
Thanks for replying. You just answered what I wanted to know. I will look into the header.html and footer.html.
I don't know where some people here got the idea that what I wanted to encrypt was music. Oh well, anyways thanks. You understood my original question.
John,
it is in quotes: Show quiz in a "secure" window
(nobody said that it would be possible to totally prevent people to copy...there are many other ways to do it like paper and pencil)
And I will reinforce -- if it is on the screen it can be copied. Especially with OS X 10.4 and higher.
Printscreen is so primitive it is useless for any real screen capture needs.
Waiting anxiously for the answer......
Tony D.
Hi Tony D,
although I have not protected my own course material some of my collegues have an I can very well understand them. That's why I wanted to add this (and there is nothing secret...):
If you use several months to make perfect series of lectures and I steal it, make 100 copies and sell those copies is it right? Even if you make a course without any material of your own you have a copyright to that course and I may not use that course without your permission.
Every person whether teacher, researcher, student, person in administration or person outside the school/university has right to decide how his copyright protected material may be used. Copyright protected material is freely available only to the extent the exceptions of the Copyright Act provide. Teacher’s rights are not transferred to the school/university as an employer otherwise agreed upon separately.
An "original work" needs to have a minimal amount of creativity. Each one of us creates new protected works when we write journal articles, produce videotapes, create works of art, or write computer software. In fact, under today's law, copyright also applies to notes that we dash off at meetings, letters home to family, and photographs that we take on vacation. Ideas and information in the work as such are not protected.
The whole work as well as part of the work may be protected if the part of the work may be considered as copyright protected work in itself. If someone creates a literal or artistic compilation by combining works or parts of works he has copyright to the compilation. Copyright to compilation does not give copyright to the works gathered in the compilation but the compilation and the works in the compilation are protected separately.
If the material is made together with other persons the other persons have also copyright to the material and if permission is needed to use the material it has to be asked from each creator. If the work is not regarded as work containing works joined together, meaning that each work contribution may be separated from each other, it is a joint work and individual teacher may not alone decide how the material is used.
Interesting this, in the UK certainly for Schools and Colleges EVERYTHING is copyright to the school / college unless otherwise agreed in advance of production. While under contract to a school or College, they own everything you do. This is precisely so that they do own the rights to work produced by you that they have in effect paid for, so that it can be used by others within the institution. This has raised a few interesting situations, re the authoring of books, re staff moving to a new post, re sharing stuff between institutions. The old old battle between sharing and competition.
Well, that really seems to be true and UK is not the only country where copyright of teachers work is owned by employer...
I requested an ammendment so that any programs I wrote that were not part of my work could belong to me. They prevaricated a great deal, not because they particularly wanted to own it, but it was just any change means some work and that work seemed unnecessary to them.
However I insisted and they changed the contract and I got my clause.
My point is that it is reasonable for your employer to get copyright on what you create as part of your job, but if they ask for it on stuff you produce on your own time, ask for a change of contract. Ask for it before or just after you start your job and if you don't get the change, say you will look for another job.
Hi,
It is actually possible to prevent people capturing screen information while the webpage is open as much as is physically possible.
It's a very simple Javascript applet that is place in each page you need protecting.
I found this useful when I developed interactive websites for Schools where, (I assume it's the case in most countries) it is illegal to take photos or copy photos of Children without the consent of their Parents/Guardians.
As these site had some images of the kids they wanted a way to protect these images. By placing the javascript on the pages I was able to:
Disable the Save toolbar that IE pops up for images over a certain size on a page.
Disabled the right mouse click.
Disabled Control C
Disabled Print Screen
For extra measure I also just put a transparent gif over the images using a floating layer, so that if they did manage to access right click all they downloaded was a blank file.
Now, I had built a small LMS in ASP last year soley to create online quizzes and to manage them. I was informed later by the Training manager of the tricks the students were getting up to:
Logging in using bogus Usernames and passwords
Copying the Questions and answers to word documents, or taking screen prints and passing them around to incoming exam takers later on.
Then, logging in using their own details, doing the tests. ( I didn't say my LMS was secure!!)
Using moodle I implemeted my old tricks, and this has no longer occured.
Granted, now all the tested are done in a Test room with a person to keep an eye on them.
They would be suspicious if someone whipped out a digicam and started snapping away and Snagit is not installed in the training room!
Also each quiz is set to pull 25 questions from a choice of 300, so this also reduces copying.
There are ways to make it basically not worth the hassle, but, What man makes, man can undo...eventually.
Just have to keep on top of it.
cheers