[pdftex] "Linearized hint data" problem

[Jennifer Howlett]

Hi, 

A colleague of mine uses LaTeX+dvips+AFPL Ghostscript 7.04 to
create and optimize pdf files related to a statistics course
she teaches. Students have complained that they get the error
message "Error reading linearized hint data" when trying to
read these files on-line using Acrobat Reader.
There are several web sites which give a "solution" -- namely
to disable Acrobat Reader's "fast web view" option (see, e.g.
http://datawarehouse.sc.edu/hintdata.htm). This works, but I
would like to know the cause of the problem. I looked at
Adobe user to user forums, and found the problem mentioned
several times, e.g. as a "known problem" associated with pdf
files produced by Corel Draw and various other things. 

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@35.A2CcaRHd4pL.7@.1de81529
advises opening such files in Acrobat and saving them under a new
name before posting them on the web. This also appears to fix my
colleague's files, but she doesn't have Acrobat.

Does anyone know the actual cause of the problem? Is there
something wrong with Ghostscript's optimizer? Would the problem
persist if my colleague could be persuaded to use pdftex
originally, and only use ghostscript at the optimizing stage?

An example of a problem file can be found at
http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au:8000/u/maryp/m1005/t02s.pdf

Any help would be appreciated.
Bob Howlett