Public bug reported: I think that Zeitgeist should encrypt databases in ~/.local/share/zeitgeist/* for anti-forensics reasons.
While someone may happen to use an encrypted disk, Zeitgeist may serve as the ultimate accidental spyware to an unsuspecting user. One possible mitigation is to randomly generate a reasonable key, tie it into the login keychain and then use that key with something like http://sqlcipher.net/ rather than straight sqlite. In theory, a user will never know that this encryption/decryption is happening - no underlying assumptions about the disk need to be made to maintain any security guarantees. This should prevent anyone from learning the contents of the database without also learning the login password. Modern Ubuntu machines disallow non-root ptracing ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/Roadmap/KernelHardening#ptrace ) and if the gnome keyring is locked, an attacker would have a much harder time grabbing meaningful Zeitgeist data without interacting with the user or bruteforcing the login keychain. ** Affects: zeitgeist Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Zeitgeist Framework Team, which is subscribed to Zeitgeist Framework. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/787868 Title: Encryption of database Status in Zeitgeist Framework: New Bug description: I think that Zeitgeist should encrypt databases in ~/.local/share/zeitgeist/* for anti-forensics reasons. While someone may happen to use an encrypted disk, Zeitgeist may serve as the ultimate accidental spyware to an unsuspecting user. One possible mitigation is to randomly generate a reasonable key, tie it into the login keychain and then use that key with something like http://sqlcipher.net/ rather than straight sqlite. In theory, a user will never know that this encryption/decryption is happening - no underlying assumptions about the disk need to be made to maintain any security guarantees. This should prevent anyone from learning the contents of the database without also learning the login password. Modern Ubuntu machines disallow non-root ptracing ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/Roadmap/KernelHardening#ptrace ) and if the gnome keyring is locked, an attacker would have a much harder time grabbing meaningful Zeitgeist data without interacting with the user or bruteforcing the login keychain. _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~zeitgeist Post to : zeitgeist@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~zeitgeist More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
