Document Detective is an interactive desktop application that works with Microsoft Office to expose and remove hidden data that could compromise sensitive information. Document Detective also scans Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) and HTML files for hidden content, but it can not remove the hidden content from these file types.

To make their applications user friendly, developers collect information in anticipation of the user's future needs and store the information in the application's data files. This happens automatically without the user's knowledge or consent. ManTech SRS Technologies has discovered proprietary and classified information in unprotected files retrieved from email and the Internet. Federal law requires certain types of information to be protected, and there have been numerous incidents in the press where a company's reputation or financial status has been affected by information that was accidently exposed by hidden data in electronic documents.

Document Detective is a retail product that is sold for $300.00 per license. Volume pricing and Enterprise pricing is available for quantities over 50 licenses. There is a GSA contract price for authorized US Government procurement. Please see our pricing page for more details.

The current release of Document Detective (v3.0) works with Microsoft Office XP and 2003. We are working on an Office 2007 compatible version (v3.1), which should be available before the end of the year. The current release will scan documents saved in the new Office 2007 format using Office 2003 if the appropriate conversion filters are installed.

Document Detective should NOT be installed with on earlier versions of Office.

Document Detective checks for two very dangerous features called the Ad Hoc Review and the Fast Save. Although these Microsoft features have no known benefit, we did not want to make changes to the system without the user's permission. The following dialog boxes will likely appear when opening Microsoft Office after installing Document Detective.

    

The Ad Hoc Review feature automatically adds tracking properties to an electronic document and enables Tracked Changes without warning the user when a Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel document is attached to an Outlook email. This feature was turned on by default in Office XP and some versions of Office 2003.

Fast Save was a feature to reduce the time required to save a document when we were working with slow media, like floppy diskettes. Deleted information in a Fast Saved file can be recovered. Word and PowerPoint both have a Fast Save feature. The Fast Save feature is still turned on by default in most versions of PowerPoint.

There are several sources of training available. The Document Detective installation includes a computer based training package that is listed in the Start menu tree. We also offer classroom training and on-site training. Please contact Ron Hackett for information on these training opportunities. Several online training courses are in development. Additional resources are listed below.

• Introduction to the Threat - This is a 20-minute streaming video that introduces our Top Ten Hidden Data Threats.

• Introduction to Document Detective - This is a 10-minute streaming video that introduces Document Detective.

• Using the Flatten Document feature - This is a 20-minute streaming video that shows how to use Document Detective to flatten a document. Flattening is the process of removing hidden data.

Web based technical support is available 24/7 at the Document Detective Technical Support website. If you can not find the answer to your problem in our knowledge base, please use the Technical Support Contact form on the website. If the website is not available, contact Tech Support via email.

The Document Inspector feature that was added to Microsoft Office 2007 is a reworked version of the free Remove Hidden Data (RHD) plug-in that was available from Microsoft for Office 2003. Like most commercial Meta data solutions, the Document Inspector is a partial solution that fails to fix all of the hidden data issues in Microsoft Office. The new Open XML file formats are neither open nor are they XML. The format is basically the same as saving the Save As Webpage feature found in previous versions of Office, except that the results is archived using PKZip to conserve file space. Both the webpage format and the Open XML formats contain proprietary binary data, and both support most of the hidden data features of the Office 97-2003 format. In fact, the new Open XML format may be less secure, since anyone can now open and tamper with the file contents without using any Microsoft Office applications.

Unfortunately, the quick answer is no. Document Detective leverages the Microsoft Office libraries and the Windows API to process Microsoft Office documents. There are open source implementations that attempt to mimic these libraries, but the developers will admit that they are not complete. We did examine all of the known open source implementations, and they all came up short of finding ALL of the information in an electronic document.

Microsoft did release their file format specifications a few months ago, but we've had them for years under a special license agreement. Our lead programmer described the Microsoft documentation as, “incomplete, inaccurate, and downright misleading.” We don’t think Microsoft could reproduce the libraries from their specification.

Leveraging the Microsoft libraries allows us to harness the same power Microsoft uses to create the documents and the hidden data issues, but it also binds us to the Microsoft platform. We are looking into virtualization as a potential solution that could free us from hardware and host operating system constraints in the future.

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) approved a Certificate of Networthiness (Con) for Document Detective in April 2008. We can provide contact information for this CoN upon request. Send your request to Ronald.Hackett@ManTech.com.

Document Detective will scan any file for keywords, so it does replace Buster. Document Detective will warn you when the file type is not recognized, which means the scan is not reliable. Buster is also unreliable in these circumstances, but it may not warn you.

The requirement for Secure Copy and Flush is a bit more complicated, because it is governed by outdated institutional policies. Technically speaking, Secure Copy and Flush are not required as long as you are using a Windows NT based operating system with NTFS formatted media. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get the Government to recognize this or to establish updated policies. You will have to go by your organization's requirements.

Please see our knowledge base article on this topic for more information.

The Trusted Downloading Products List got lost in one of the many DSS website upgrades, but it has never been rescinded. Unfortunately, the two individuals responsible for that list have retired. We plan to reengage DSS soon to see if we can get the list reconstituted.

In general, if Microsoft Office will run in your environment, the Document Detective will run in your environment. Document Detective will run on the DoDIIS Trusted Workstation (DTW) using Microsoft’s FlexGrid software. We are working on a version of Document Detective that is optimized for thin client operations, and we are considering license agreements compatible with this environment.

No, we do not offer a concurrent license agreement. Just like Microsoft Office, You will need one license for each workstation that will be using the software.

No, Document Detective's primary target market is closed Government networks that process classified information, like the SIPRNet. Passing 25-character license keys and using active registration on these networks causes more problems than benefits, so we elected not to use license keys and active registration in the current edition. As Document Detective moves into commercial markets, we will have to revisit this decision.

Yes, Document Detective is a simple installation that can be pushed using technology like Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS). There are two command line switches available to support network installations.

--silent suppresses all dialogs and installs without user intervention

--installto allows you to change the installation folder

Example: c:\setup.exe --silent --installtoC:\A Folder\Another Folder\

Many network administrators want to know what changes Document Detective will make to there systems, and what information is left behind after uninstalling the software. The following document describes the Document Detective 3.0 install and uninstall processes, and lists the residual information remaining after an uninstall.