Every new Ubuntu user is being tracked by Zeitgeist and if they lose their desktop computer/laptop, they're going to reveal a lot of data that they might never have known was being collected. At least with db encryption the person with the laptop has to mount some kind of attack before they get the rest of the goods.
It's worth noting that Zeitgeist is on by default whereas disk encryption is merely an option. Zeitgeist isn't even aware if disk encryption is in use, so that line of discussion almost seems like a red herring. -- 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