zeitgeist team mailing list archive

[Jacob Appelbaum <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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.

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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.