Enforcing office user rights without using RMS

Hello all,

I have a question that troubles me for some time.
I would like to write an application that will use the built in right
management facilities within Office (Word, Excel, PPT and IE), but
without using RMS client. I'm sure there is some kind of office API
that the RMS client is using to prevent copy, print etc( disables the
buttons and the menu items).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

On Mar 10, 9:27 am, Paul Adare <pkad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:04:08 -0700 (PDT), nip.t...@gmail.com wrote:
> > I have a question that troubles me for some time.
> > I would like to write an application that will use the built in right
> > management facilities within Office (Word, Excel, PPT and IE), but
> > without using RMS client. I'm sure there is some kind of office API
> > that the RMS client is using to prevent copy, print etc( disables the
> > buttons and the menu items).
> > Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> You have to use the RMS client. The Information Rights Management
> components in Office cannot communicate directly with the RMS sever. All
> such communication is done through the RMS client.
> Why don't you want to use the RMS client?
> --
> Paul Adare
> MVP - Virtual Machineshttp://www.identit.ca
> It is now pitch dark.  If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit.

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the quick response.
I know that office can't communicate directly with the RMS server. I'm
trying not to use the RMS infrastructure at all.
My aim is to make word, Excel and PPT provide the same behaviour as
they do when RMS client is present. When you program a software to
support RMS, you need to provide all kind of facilities in order for
it to interop with the RMS infra, and as such office applications must
provide similar API.
I don't want to use RMS client as the system costs money and it
doesn't provide me with the functionality I want to achieve.
What I'm looking for is API in office that the RMS client interacts
with in order to tell office applications to display certain
behaviour.

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:04:08 -0700 (PDT), nip.tack@gmail.com wrote:

> I have a question that troubles me for some time.
> I would like to write an application that will use the built in right
> management facilities within Office (Word, Excel, PPT and IE), but
> without using RMS client. I'm sure there is some kind of office API
> that the RMS client is using to prevent copy, print etc( disables the
> buttons and the menu items).
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You have to use the RMS client. The Information Rights Management
components in Office cannot communicate directly with the RMS sever. All
such communication is done through the RMS client.
Why don't you want to use the RMS client?
-- 
Paul Adare
MVP - Virtual Machines
http://www.identit.ca

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:23:35 -0700 (PDT), nip.tack@gmail.com wrote:

> Thank you for the quick response.
> I know that office can't communicate directly with the RMS server. I'm
> trying not to use the RMS infrastructure at all.
> My aim is to make word, Excel and PPT provide the same behaviour as
> they do when RMS client is present. When you program a software to
> support RMS, you need to provide all kind of facilities in order for
> it to interop with the RMS infra, and as such office applications must
> provide similar API.

The APIs you're looking for aren't published since the functionality is
built into Office there's no need to publish them.

> I don't want to use RMS client as the system costs money and it
> doesn't provide me with the functionality I want to achieve.
> What I'm looking for is API in office that the RMS client interacts
> with in order to tell office applications to display certain
> behaviour.

You're attempting to reinvent the wheel here, and even if you could do what
you want to, in the long run it is likely to cost you a lot more in
development costs than simply purchasing the required RMS CALs would cost.
Not only would you need to completely develop your own RMS client, you
would also need to completely develop a corresponding server infrastructure
that was capable of issuing and managing XrML certificates.

Simply put, you're not going to be able to do what you want to do.

-- 
Paul Adare
MVP - Virtual Machines
http://www.identit.ca

On Mar 10, 10:36 am, Paul Adare <pkad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:23:35 -0700 (PDT), nip.t...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Thank you for the quick response.
> > I know that office can't communicate directly with the RMS server.
I'm
> > trying not to use the RMS infrastructure at all.
> > My aim is to make word, Excel and PPT provide the same behaviour as
> > they do when RMS client is present. When you program a software to
> > support RMS, you need to provide all kind of facilities in order for
> > it to interop with the RMS infra, and as such office applications
must
> > provide similar API.
>
> The APIs you're looking for aren't published since the functionality is
> built into Office there's no need to publish them.
>
> > I don't want to use RMS client as the system costs money and it
> > doesn't provide me with the functionality I want to achieve.
> > What I'm looking for is API in office that the RMS client interacts
> > with in order to tell office applications to display certain
> > behaviour.
>
> You're attempting to reinvent the wheel here, and even if you could do
what
> you want to, in the long run it is likely to cost you a lot more in
> development costs than simply purchasing the required RMS CALs would cost.
> Not only would you need to completely develop your own RMS client, you
> would also need to completely develop a corresponding server
infrastructure
> that was capable of issuing and managing XrML certificates.
>
> Simply put, you're not going to be able to do what you want to do.
>
> --
> Paul Adare
> MVP - Virtual Machineshttp://www.identit.ca
> You never finish a program, you just stop working on it.

Hi Paul,

There is something that I don't understand in your answer in regard to
me needing to use XrML for my needs.
I agree that Office applications (Word, Excel and PPT) already have
embedded functions to support RMS provided security measures. Why is
this functionality connected in any way to XrML?
My understanding of flow of actions in regard to RMS is as follows
(I'm skipping on the UL and other licenese issuing and verification):
- I have two users. User A wants to send a document with read only
permissions to user B.
- User A protects the document using word built in RMS facility.
- The resulting document includes several items, among them an XrML
document specifying the actions that user B is permitted to perform.
- User A send the document to user B.
- User B opens the document and after all license verifications and
decrypt/decrypt are over, the RMS client holds the XrML file.
- The RMS client is using the XrML file to instructs Word which
operations are allowed with the document from user A.
- The XrML itself is not passed to Word (am I right?), just the
instructions on which security operations should be acted upon.
- Therfore I presume that anyone can also intruct Word to perform the
same tasks even if he doesn't use XrML. All is needed to know is how
to interact with Word and after that I could also tell it to treat my
files as read only.