DERT New Technique For Distributing Digital Publications

DERT technique has three basic operations: ENCODE, COMPACT, and COMPILE. Encoding the rich text ensures the originality of the publication since it counteracts tempering with the content of the document. Compacting reduces significantly the size of large rich text especially the ones with many embedded materials such as images and objects. Compiling transforms the rich text into an executable standalone program.


How Does The DERT Executable Work? Running the resulting DERT executable program opens a window displaying the originally compiled rich text complete with all of its formatting and embedded images and objects exactly as the document was created. The program opens the document in read mode only, denying the user any write access. In other words, the publication cannot be edited after compilation. This is enforced by the fact that DERT will also encode the executable to prevent reverse engineering. So, the document cannot be decompiled, edited, and recompiled as a way of forging its contents. If, in some way, a malicious attempt succeeded in changing the contents of the DERT executable program, then the DERT program, when run, will display a warning message stating that the document is corrupt and may have been tempered with.


There are many benefits for using DERT, we'll state few of them. First, the rich text will be run as a standalone executable program, i.e., it does not require a third-party word processor to open it. Second, to a strong degree, DERT guarantees that the publication is genuine and contains the exact materials as intended by the author. This allows the distribution of important documents with data that need to be exact. Third, being an executable, DERT programs are ideal for distribution over the internet, especially that DERT compact large rich text that has many embedded images to much smaller size (approx., less than half) while, at the same time, maintaining exactly 100% the images quality.


Now we'll discuss few issues associated with DERT technique. One might argue that this technique is not bullet proof against forgery. For example, let us say Publisher A produced a DERT Publication X, and another Publisher B wants to take credits for the contents of X, so produces DERT Publication Y written as X. Now we have two publications X and Y with exact contents but written with different publishers. You cannot know who is the original contents creator. Continue with the scenario, Publisher B also produces altered material similar to X or maybe contradicting X and publishes this Publication Z under the name of Publisher A. Some dispute arises and Publisher B claims the ownership of the original contents X and declares that Publisher A published Z and not X. Publisher A cannot easily prove the ownership of Publication X. Well, the answer is: WRONG for both parts of the scenario.

Why's the answer is wrong? Simply because each DERT publication is stamped with the compilation date and the serial number of the computer drive where the compilation originated. Remember that DERT in itself is secured and cannot be altered in any way, that includes its date and serial number. Back to the scenario:

"You cannot know who is the original contents creator": you can know, just click the Certificate icon at the lower left corner of DERT. It tells you, among many things, if the publication is genuine and it tells you the Creation Date. The publisher with the earlier creation date is the original contents creator!

"Publisher A cannot easily prove the ownership of Publication X": easily the ownership of X can be proven to Publisher A by showing that the DERT drive serial number is the serial number of a computer drive owned by Publisher A!


Finally, DERT is used by m9P Editor Plus published by mental9Production. m9P Editor Plus can be downloaded and used free of charge for one month. To use it longer, a license can be bought from within the program for 62.00 USD per system. DERT and m9P Editor Plus are trademark of mental9Production copyright ©2005. For more information about DERT, visit http://www.mental9Production.com/dert.htm or ask for support at http://www.mental9Production.com/service.htm