Hi Darren,
You are correct in that genealogy is generally public. However more often
than not the information you want to publish may very well differ from what
is in your private database. You may have private notes telling you what you
need to do. You may have anecdotes shared by many family members that may
need to be kept private, at least until the involved parties are deceased or
otherwise choose to divulge it publicly themselves.
Even more importantly I may choose to add an address-book style feature in
there so you can easily group and contact appropriate family members for
whatever reason (special occasions etc). Of course that will be private.
Password protecting it is also good on many levels - if the database is to
be used online then it is needless to say that authentication would be
required for various people to view it. Even if I decide to make it local
only, there is the possibility that anyone sharing the computer or network
may peruse the database when you don't want them to.
Kind regards,
Damien.
-----Original Message-----
From: Darren Duncan
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2016 6:54 AM
To: SQLite mailing list
Subject: Re: [sqlite] Protecting databases
On 2016-10-07 10:46 PM, Damien Sykes-Lindley wrote:
Hi there,
My name is Damien Lindley, and I am, among other things, an independent,
hobbiest programmer. I have been blind since birth and thus all my
computer work relies on screenreader software and keyboard.
I have only just come through the brink of scripting into compiled
programming and so I guess I am still a beginner in many respects. However
I don’t work in C or C++, so most of my programming, if using a library,
relies on precompiled static or dynamic libraries. Or of course libraries
that are written or converted specifically for the language I work in
(FreeBASIC).
Recently, I decided I needed to create a piece of software that could
manage family trees, since there seems to be a lack of screenreader
accessible genealogy managers out there. I was advised the best way to do
this is to use a database engine. I was also informed that SQLite is
always a good choice for databases.
I must admit, I have never worked with databases before and so now I am in
the process of learning SQL. However looking at the programming API for
SQLite I cannot see any means of password protecting the database without
either buying a commercial extension to do this, or recompiling SQLite
with the authentication extension. Due to financial constraints and
unfamiliarity with compiling in C both of these are not an option for me.
Also I need a secure way to do this, as I think I read that the SQLite
version simply uses a table to store the user data, which of course can be
read and accessed elsewhere.
Are there any other options available for doing this?
Any help appreciated.
Thanks.
Damien.
Damien,
Why do you need to password protect the database?
Genealogy information is generally of the public record variety so there is
nothing sensitive to protect. I am making genealogy software myself and so
am
familiar with many of the relevant issues.
I would say please explain why you think you need password protection for
this
project and then the real issue at hand can be addressed.
If yours is a network application and you don't want people on the open
internet
from accessing the database, fair enough, but that's an application-level
solution; what you're asking for here is that people who have direct access
to
the SQLite database file are blocked by a password, and this I question.
-- Darren Duncan
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