Scaffolding
Sometimes when houses or other buidings are constructed scaffolding is put up. Normally this is taken down when the building is completed.
When developing a score in MuseScore sometimes the composer/arranger/creator wants to have some form of scaffolding - maybe text notes, or chord symbols etc. There may be no need or intention that these additional elements be visible to anyone else.
Currently it is possible to hide most elements which a creator doesn't want anyone else to see, but that doesn't stop anyone who wants to find out what those scaffolding elements are/were accessing them. There may be a whole bunch of reasons why some people would not want their notes or other constructive elements known.
One such example would be of a teacher writing out a music test for students. It would be easy for the answers to be embedded in the score, but hidden. "Clever" and IT savvy students might discover this, and completely subvert the point of the test.
It could be helpful if some elements could be designated as "Scaffolding elements", and completely removed from any score before publication. The creator would need some form of warning that elements were to be removed - perhaps retaining a private copy with the elements included, but the public version should have no trace of anything which the creator did not want to be seen.
It should not be possible to access any of the information "lost" in this way by any technical means.
This kind of issue has been a problem with other software, including word processing software such as Microsoft Word. There was at least one case in which information was stored within documents which were shared, and then recovered, giving an unwanted advantage to the recipients of the document.
Comments
Sorry. I guess I'm missing the point. Why would anyone put hidden information in anything. And then send that thing out.
Something that deals with playback? Sure.
In reply to Sorry. I guess I'm missing… by bobjp
Yep, made that mistake in a lockdown Christmas quiz. Savvy students will download your PowerPoint (which has the answers at the end) and win. Next year, though, you appear to fall for the same exploit but actually have two completely different files.
For this problem, I'd attach the notes and answers to a single instrument and then save the score as two files - one with, and one without that instrument.
In reply to Sorry. I guess I'm missing… by bobjp
bobjp - There are definitely points, both from the user point of view and from the technical point of view. I once worked in a place where people sent messages including word documents. I couldn't understand why the messages were getting longer and longer. Eventually we discovered that the administrators had just one "message" file, which they edited, suppressing all the historical stuff, and sent it out. It never occurred to them that the file would get bigger and bigger, and I suspect they also mixed in confidential material with non-confidential text.
People are also very bad at dealing with encryption and confidential documents. I used to encrypt documents, and then the administrators couldn't understand why I phoned them up to give them the password. "Why didn't you just email the document as it was?" "Because there are people even on this closed network who are clever enough to intercept the email, and pass it on to where it can/will be misused" - and that happened.
It might not be absolutely necessary to bring strong encryption into the mix, though that's an interesting idea. Encryption would probably be quite easy to implement nowadays.
All I was thinking was that if there are layers of scaffolding - which would function in a similar way to "hide" now, then if one wanted to publish a document one could ensure that all the "hidden" elements were actually deleted from the stored and published file.
There could also be merits in having multiple layers, each with ownership properties, so that several users could participate. but in the limit a user might want to be absolutely sure that his or her contribution was removed from the stored file, rather than very securely hidden.
The encryption suggestion [made elsewhere in this thread] is an interesting one, as unless users were [misusing] Musescore to pass on state secrets, if the efficiency hit for implementing encryption were not so huge, then that might actually do as well as forced deletion, as most likely it would only be extreme hackers and government agencies who would be able to decode notes such as "Oops - I meant B flat in bar 72 on the horns, not C natural"! :smiley:
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In reply to I can see the use cases but… by yonah_ag
Yonah - you seem to have an empty post here - though I was aware that you wrote something earlier.
In reply to Yonah - you seem to have an… by dave2020X
Re: encrypted contents, I was thinking about retaining your scaffolding in the file but removing it from view.
Then I was considering something with a plugin but it would need an extra property on elements so it's not really a practical solution. This would make deletion for publication very easy.
(But I do see the usefulness of 'scaffold' elements.)
In reply to I was considering something… by yonah_ag
Some kind of multi-layered solution could perhaps do the job. Who "owns" the file might also become an issue - particularly for collaborative working situations.
I was assuming - without thinking further - that the original creator would "own" the file- though that might not necessarily be the case.
An example might be of a student downloading a score file to harmonise. Some chords are already filled in. Some suggested chord symbols are also provided. It is not a good software solution to delete all the chords, as some were given in the originally supplied document. What is then a possible solution is to have a new layer created - for that student - which he or she could populate with chord symbols. Essentially anything that is added can be put into its own layer, and associated with a new "owner". Removing the layer[s] for any user could then be either by hiding them - maybe using encryption - or explicitly removing the layer data completely.
Any user would have control over his or her own layers, and could decide whether to hide or expunge them whenever files are published or exchanged.
In reply to Some kind of multi-layered… by dave2020X
So, let's say there is a remote music class of 20 or so students. The teacher develops a lesson and creates a document with 20 layers each assigned to one of the students. The teacher sends it out with a key for each student to work in their own layer. Upon return of the document, the teacher goes through each layer.
I know someone who works with teachers and technology. Some of them are into it and some aren't interested that much. Teaching is not like working in an office. In the above scenario, many teachers would just send out the document and deal with 20 returns. Some might be interested in learning about how to deal with layers. Some don't have the time.
I'm not saying layers is a bad idea. I'm just wondering about the usefulness.
In reply to So, let's say there is a… by bobjp
f the teacher wants a headache he/she may do as you say. I was not
assuming that anyone person would control the layers - nor have
control over the passwords. The students themselves might do that.
They might want to protect their own work from copying by other
students - or not. That's up to them.
Public key encryption, or even secret key encryption, methods could be
used - though most likely if one were going to encrypt anything public
keys would be used.
I'm not only considering that as one possible use case - I only gave
that as a way of showing what is or might be possible.
What I'm really concerned with is providing ways of an individual
creator being able to prevent others from gaining access to anything
he/she doesn't want. Yes - you'll say that could be done by a very
extensive editing process - but I am trying to minimise the effort for
the creator, not make things harder.
In reply to f the teacher wants a… by dave2020X
Quick follow up - if remote teaching and assessment is a requirement, then probably one of the fairly many companies which deal with encapsulating work for various methods of marking would be very willing to deal with the IT side of things - for a fee! Re MuseScore it would just have to become so ubiquitous that companies in the teaching/assessment markets would feel it worth their while to support that.
However, that is not my interest at all.
In reply to f the teacher wants a… by dave2020X
"providing ways of an individual
creator being able to prevent others from gaining access to anything
he/she doesn't want. "
I'm not seeing a use case for this. It seems more about secrecy than security. What would be so secret in a score? Just trying to understand.
The creator puts some information in a score for their own purpose. Then sends that score out to others. but doesn't want them to see the information? Why not send a copy that doesn't have comments. A creator should have multiple copies of important works.
I might be able to understand this in the case of a document. But an a score?
I wasn't talking about an extensive editing process. I was trying to envision the layers idea.
Another idea:
1) Set the colour of all scaffolding to a colour which you don't use for any other elements. If you prefer to use black then set scaffolding to #010101 which is a grey so dark that it is effectively black.
2) Use a plugin to select all elements of this colour.
3) Hide/Unhide/Delete selected elements.
For plugin basis see:
https://musescore.org/en/node/318232