Media-independent document security method and apparatus

A method for providing media-independent security for a document containing security information associated with the document, the method comprising:

• inputting, into an input device, image data corresponding to an interpretable image displayable by a display device in an interpretable format to be readily interpretable by a user;
• inputting into the input device security data corresponding to the security information;
• creating, in a first medium, a document comprising:
• a substantive portion containing substantive data corresponding to the image data and transferable in a plurality of media;
• a security portion independent from the substantive portion, the security portion comprising symbols unintelligible to a user by visual inspection of the document in the readable format, and the symbols, arranged to represent a security image containing the security data encoded by the symbols, and effective to be inseparably transferred with the document, independent of each medium of the plurality of media, whenever the substantive portion is transferred in said each medium;
• transferring the document into a second medium of the plurality of media;
• decoding the symbols into binary security data representing the security information;
• and
• outputting the binary security data to an output device in a format retrievable to be interpretable as the security information.

A memory device having blocks of memory effective to store a media-independent security code and an associated document processable by a document processor, the document processor comprising an executable loadable to run on a computer operably associated with the memory device, an input device, and an output device, the memory device comprising:

• a first block programmed to store an executable, loadable to run on a computer as a document processor application;
• a second block programmed to store substantive data corresponding to information in a document presentable in a format interpretable directly by a user;
• a third block programmed to store format data useable by the executable to format the substantive data in the document in a layout presentable to the user;
• a fourth block programmed to store security data corresponding to security information input through the input device, the security data being independent from the substantive data and stored independently from the substantive data;
• and
• a fifth block programmed to store a security executable, loadable to run on the computer as a security processor effective to process the security data and to include, inseparably from the substantive content, the security data in the document independently of the medium in which the document is represented.