PDF Forgeries Are Surprisingly Rare (2022)
2 days ago
- PDF forgery is surprisingly rare online, unlike malicious videos, photos, or Word documents.
- People often trust PDFs from random websites, and this trust is usually justified because forged PDFs are uncommon.
- Most fraudulent PDFs are newly created, not edited versions of existing papers; edited PDFs are rarely used for scams.
- PDF editing is technically possible but not part of normal workflows, making it a 'write-only' format for most users.
- The rarity of PDF forgery is attributed to the difficulty of editing compared to images or other formats, pushing malefactors to easier targets.
- Historically, document tampering was common, but modern PDF forgery remains rare due to technical and practical barriers.