this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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How to prevent files from being displaced? This protection should (somehow) persist through disk cloning. (discuss.online)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by poki@discuss.online to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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(More) Specifics:

  • Undoing the protection should include filling in a password.
  • The password should be different from the one used with sudo or 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.
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[–] notabot@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] poki@discuss.online 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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?
[–] notabot@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] poki@discuss.online 1 points 4 months ago

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?