(More) Specifics:
- Undoing the protection should include filling in a password.
- The password should be different from the one used with
sudoor any other passwords that are used for acquiring elevated privileges.
All (possible) solutions and suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance!
Edit: Perhaps additional specifications:
- With 'displace‘, I mean anything involving that resembles the result of
mv,cp(move, cut, copy) or whatsoever. The files should remain in their previously assigned locations/places and should not be able to ‘pop up’ anywhere. - I require for the files to be unreadable.
- I don’t care if it’s modifiable or not.
- I don’t require this for my whole system! Only for a specific set of files.
Just make the file root owned and readable by no one. An unreadable file can’t be copied. You can use
chattrto add some flags like immutability if you desire (shouldn’t really need to). Use a command likefind /some/path -type f -exec chattr whatever {} \;if you need to do this recursively. Root account should need a password, and should (hopefully) not be accessable with an unprivileged user’s password throughsudo/doas, but on its own account with it’s own password usingsuorlogin.Note that without encrypting the file, this does not protect you from someone just grabbing your storage device and mounting it with root permissions and then they can do whatever they want with your data. It also doesn’t protect you if someone gets root access to your device through other remote means. If you want to encrypt the file, use something like
openssl some-cipher -k 'your password' -in file -out file.cipher_ext. If you want to encrypt multiple files, put them in atarball and encrypt the tarball. You can again also usefindwithopensslto encrypt/decrypt recursively if you don’t want to use a tarball, which may be better with ciphers like blowfish that aren’t secure at large file sizes; but if you do that, you expose your encrypted file system structure to attackers.I am not a fan of full disk encryption, because it usually means leaving all your data decrypted during runtime with how most people use it. If you only decrypt a block device when you need to, there’s nothing wrong with that, and can work as an alternative to encrypting a tarball.
Definitely one of the better answers I’ve received so far. Thank you for that. However, I feel as if the following part reveals that it’s not as ‘protected’ as I’d like:
It also doesn’t protect you if someone gets root access to your device through other remote means.
Though, at this point, I’ve somewhat accepted that I’m seeking a software solution for a hardware problem. Hence, the impossibility of my query… I hope I’m wrong and perhaps you can point me towards the solution I’m seeking. However, if that’s not the case, then I would like you to know that I appreciate your comment. Thank you.
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It seems I wasn’t clear as most people misunderstood me.
But, to give a very precise example; say
- I had a folder called
~/some/folder. - It was on an encrypted drive.
- And I had done additional work to encrypt the folder again.
- And say, I used
chattr,chmodorchownor similar utilities that remove access as long as one doesn’t have elevated privileges. - And say, I had done whatever (additional thing) mentioned in your comment.
Then, what prevents whosoever, to copy that file through cloning the complete disk?
Even if they’re not able to get past the password, it will be found on the cloned disk. SO, basically, I ask for some method that prevents the file to even be copied through a disk clone. I don’t care that it has three passwords protecting it. What I want is for the disk clone (or whatever sophisticated copy/mv/cut or whatsoever utility exists) to somehow fail while trying to attempt the action on the protected files.
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- I had a folder called
Looks like a USB stick.
😅. It’s a requirement that devices stay on the same drive that I run my system from.
It sounds like you’re actually more concerned about the data in the files not being able to ‘pop up’ elsewhere, rather than the files themselves. In thus case I’d suggest simply encrypting them, probably using
gpg. That’ll let you set a password that is distinct from the one used forsudoor similar.You should also be using full disk encryption to reduce the risk of a temporary file being exposed, or even overwritten sectors/pages being available to an attacker.
I’ve failed tremendously in making my demands come across :P .
Uhmm…, what you propose with
gpgdefinitely solves one part of the puzzle.But, if I understood correctly, it doesn’t help to prevent a disk clone from getting hold of the files.
Yes, the files are encrypted, but that’s not sufficient for my needs by itself. If the files would somehow destroy or corrupt themselves on a disk clone (or something to that effect), I would have acquired what I’m seeking.
Nothing can prevent a disk clone cloning the data, and there’s no way to make something happen when a disk is cloned as you’re not in control of the process.
If you wish to mask the existence of the files, use either full disk encryption, in which case cloning the disk doesn’t reveal the existence of the files without the decrypt password, or use a file based encrypted partition such as veracrypt in which case the cloner would just see a single encrypted blob rather than your file names.
Ultimately encrypting the files with gpg means they have already effectively ‘destroyed or corrupted’ themselves when cloned. If you don’t want to reveal the filenames, just call them something else.
If you could be a bit more specific about your threat model people may have better ideas to help.
If you could be a bit more specific about your threat model people may have better ideas to help.
Threat model is me protecting myself from myself.
Incoming XY problem.
I want to prevent myself from reinstalling my system. The trick I came up with involved the use of files that couldn’t be disk cloned. However, if it’s far far easier to accomplish it through other means, then please feel free to enlighten me on this.
Ok, I’m still not clear on exactly what you’re trying to achieve as I can’t quite see the connection between somehow preventing certain files being duplicated when cloning the disk and preventing yourself from reinstalling the system.
Bear in mind that reinstalling the system would replace all of the OS, so there’s no way to leave counter-measures there, and the disk itself can’t do anything to your data, even if it could detect a clone operation.
If what you’re trying to protect against is someone who knows everything you do accessing your data, you could look to use TPM to store the encryption key for your FDE. That way you don’t know the password, it’s stored encrypted with a secret key that is, in turn, stored and protected by your CPU. That way a disk clone couldn’t be used on any hardware except your specific machine.
Ok, I’m still not clear on exactly what you’re trying to achieve as I can’t quite see the connection between somehow preventing certain files being duplicated when cloning the disk and preventing yourself from reinstalling the system.
Premises:
- Very important files on disk (somehow) protected from copy/mv/clone whatever.
- Reinstalling my OS wipes the disk.
Therefore, I would lose those very important files if I were to attempt a wipe. If said files are important enough for me to reconsider wiping, then the act of protecting them from copy/mv/clone has fulfilled its job of preventing me from reinstalling the OS.
Bear in mind that reinstalling the system would replace all of the OS, so there’s no way to leave counter-measures there, and the disk itself can’t do anything to your data, even if it could detect a clone operation.
I understand.
If what you’re trying to protect against is someone who knows everything you do accessing your data, you could look to use TPM to store the encryption key for your FDE. That way you don’t know the password, it’s stored encrypted with a secret key that is, in turn, stored and protected by your CPU. That way a disk clone couldn’t be used on any hardware except your specific machine.
Very interesting. A couple of questions:
- Is it possible to only protect a set of files through this? So not the entire disk?
- Does TPM get flushed/randomized on OS reinstall?
This seems like a very complicated way to achieve your goal! It sounds like sitting yourself down and giving you a stern talking to might be a beter aporoach.
Having said that, if you have these very important files that you don’t want to lose, please make sure they’re backed up somewhere off of your machine. Storage fails, and it’s a horrible feeling losing something important. Unfortunately doing so would defeat the approach you’re thinking of.
This might be a case of needing to reframe the question to get to the cause of the issue, and then solve that. So, why do you want to make it hard to reinstall your machine? Is it the amount of time you spend on it, the chance of screwing it up, needing it working, has it become a compulsion or something else? Maybe if we can get to the root of the issue we can find a solution.
With regard to TPM, it’s basically just a key store, so you can use it fir anything really, althought it’s normally used by generating a TPM key and using it to encrypt the key that’s actually used to encrypt your data, storing the encrypted key with the OS. Just reinstalling won’t wipe the TPM, but unless you made an effort to save the encrypted key it’ll be gone. Given your problem statement above it just adds to the data you’d need to save, which isn’t helpful.
This seems like a very complicated way to achieve your goal! It sounds like sitting yourself down and giving you a stern talking to might be a beter aporoach.
You’re probably right. But, it ensures a surefire method if accomplished.
Having said that, if you have these very important files that you don’t want to lose, please make sure they’re backed up somewhere off of your machine. Storage fails, and it’s a horrible feeling losing something important. Unfortunately doing so would defeat the approach you’re thinking of.
Thank you for your concerns!
This might be a case of needing to reframe the question to get to the cause of the issue, and then solve that.
Makes sense.
So, why do you want to make it hard to reinstall your machine?
I want to set it up in a particular way to ensure maximum productivity. But I’m afraid that I’ll not go through with it (as has happened a lot in the past). Thus, making it impossible to reinstall should enable me to go through. As I wouldn’t have any other choice.
Is it the amount of time you spend on it
The amount of time spent unproductively. Yes.
the chance of screwing it up
Nope. I haven’t had a serious breakage since over one and a half years. I think I’m managing splendidly.
needing it working
Don’t really have particular problems related to keeping my system up and running.
has it become a compulsion or something else?
Not sure what you meant with this.
Maybe if we can get to the root of the issue we can find a solution.
I believe I touched upon this earlier in this comment. I just want to be very productive.
With regard to TPM, it’s basically just a key store, so you can use it fir anything really, althought it’s normally used by generating a TPM key and using it to encrypt the key that’s actually used to encrypt your data, storing the encrypted key with the OS. Just reinstalling won’t wipe the TPM, but unless you made an effort to save the encrypted key it’ll be gone. Given your problem statement above it just adds to the data you’d need to save, which isn’t helpful.
Uhmm…, I feel as if I should properly read up on this. Have you got any pointers you would recommend?
