How to have an USB drive readable by all but writable only by me?

Question

I have some files (document word or pdf) to be written on an USB drive that Will be given to a second person i cannot control. I need him not to be able in ANY way to modify or delete files from the drive, but he needs to be able to read files or print them. The only person able to delete or modify must be me. I imagine i have to use some type of password system... But how am i supposed to do?

Answer 1

As far as I know this can only be done at either an application level (for example using Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Office security features) or a file-system level (file permissions).

The problem with application level security is that it limits the number of file types you can share, but in your case you've only specified PDF and MS Word, both of which have protection features, depending on the versions you're using.

The problem with using file-system level permissions is that none of the file-systems with permission support in general use (NTFS, HFS+, Ext3/4) are compatible across all platforms.

In this case I'd say convert them all to PDF and use the PDF protection features.

EDIT: I don't think you'll be able to prevent the user from deleting files at all.