Subject: Re: Last Call: <draft-hardy-pdf-mime-02.txt> (The application/pdf Media Type) to Informational RFC

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 14:38:48 -0700

Hello,
At 07:15 23-06-2016, The IESG wrote:
>The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
>the following document:
>- 'The application/pdf Media Type'
>   <draft-hardy-pdf-mime-02.txt> as Informational RFC
>
>The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
>final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the

Section 1 states that the document is intended to provide updated 
information on the
registration of the MIME Media Type "application/pdf" for document defined in
ISO 32000-1:2008.  I suggest adding some text about obsoleting RFC 
3778 as there isn't any explanation about that.

My reading of the interoperability considerations (Section 5) is that 
it isn't any issue as older viewers 'fail gracefully' because they 
can just ignore features they do not recognize.  Are there any 
problems opening a PDF [1]?

The Security Considerations Section has the following: "PDF may 
contain scripts to customize the displaying and processing of PDF 
files.  These scripts are expressed in a version of JavaScript and 
are intended for execution by the PDF processor".  RFC 3778 included 
the following: "User agents executing such scripts or programs must be
extremely careful to insure that untrusted software is executed in a 
protected environment".  Why was that text not included in this update?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=660&top=18