1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

Reading meta-data in Excel files

Discussion in 'Techno-Magic' started by Ragusa, Jul 12, 2007.

  1. Ragusa

    Ragusa Eternal Halfling Paladin Veteran

    Joined:
    Nov 26, 2000
    Messages:
    10,140
    Media:
    63
    Likes Received:
    250
    Gender:
    Male
    Remove all ads!
    [​IMG] A friend of mine complained to me that he suspects someone at his company is messing with his files, and modifying data in his excel spreadsheets. He just doesn't know if and who.

    I know it is possible to read metadata, and I am interested in helping him to see simply who last saved the document. Just looking at the properties won't do.

    Any ideas how to do that?
     
    Ragusa, Jul 12, 2007
    #1
  2. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2000
    Messages:
    23,645
    Media:
    494
    Likes Received:
    564
    Gender:
    Male
    I doubt there's any record kept beyond what you can see in the properties. If the person who saves it removes his name from there then there's really no possible direct indicator of who's saved it last (except network logs - ask the admin). But the time stamp will still be made, and that should be enough. Your friend could just write down the time stamps of the files when he's edited them last, and if they've later changed without his intervention, then he can be sure that someone else is doing it.

    Anyway, if you friend works at a company where the entire network is exposed to everyone else and anyone can open and mess with everyone else's data, the admin should be sacked. Or the management for allowing it. Sure, have a common area for files that others might need to view, but everyone should be able to have private space as well. Anything else is a major security breach just waiting to happen.

    But then, in the worst case you friend could keep all important files backed up locally on a USB key if network sanity is not an option.
     
    Taluntain, Jul 12, 2007
    #2
  3. Kitrax

    Kitrax Pantaloons are supposed to go where!?!?

    Joined:
    Apr 19, 2002
    Messages:
    7,899
    Media:
    74
    Likes Received:
    96
    Gender:
    Male
    My favorite solution for times like these is an encrypted .iso file acting as a virtual drive. TrueCrypt the the only way to go. :thumb: :rolling:
     
    Kitrax, Jul 13, 2007
    #3
  4. Ragusa

    Ragusa Eternal Halfling Paladin Veteran

    Joined:
    Nov 26, 2000
    Messages:
    10,140
    Media:
    63
    Likes Received:
    250
    Gender:
    Male
    I found a handy tool named 'Bitform Discovery'.

    Interesting thing, allows you to see stuff like which which printer was used to print the document, and the loginnames of those who last saved it. You can also read the comment history.

    It turned out that the files were changed from top, without him being informed or any explanation why. Discomforting.
     
    Ragusa, Jul 15, 2007
    #4
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.