Why PDF files are bad...

I hate Adobe, as well. I'll likely be uninstalling it at home. Something I've been wanting to do for a long while, but never got around to getting it done. there are numerous free readers out there and even some free pdf creators. At work, I have no choice but to drink from the Adobe KoolAid trough. Good thread, Hoss. We need more of these kinds of conversations.

+1 for Foxit Reader.

So much for the counter-argument that "it's not the format, it's the reader..."

http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/hacker-finds-way-exploit-pdf-files-without-vulnerability-033010

If that's true -- it basically means that any PDF reader implementation that is dutifully following the format spec is very likely exploitable.  A given tool would have to purposefully subvert its own implementation of the format in order to protect users against this flaw.

I did not get a sense for whether the resulting trojan that gets executed can be coded for any platform.

 So I guess -1 for Foxit Reader eh?

Interesting read Hoss.

 I set my browser prefs for chrome, firefox, safari to open them using google docs PDF viewer (which does not execute a program in your browser but reads it and renders it as images with javascript). Sightly less insecure depending on your opinion of javascript over Flash.