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* Improve privacy, security, and encryption documentation #896 * Use gentler language and ensuring documentation does not read like legal advice
83 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
83 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
# Encryption
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## Encrypting and decrypting
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If you don’t choose to encrypt your file when you run
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`jrnl` for the first time, you can encrypt
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your existing journal file or change its password using this:
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``` sh
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jrnl --encrypt
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```
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If it is already encrypted, you will first be asked for the current
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password. You can then enter a new password and your plain journal will
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replaced by the encrypted file. Conversely,
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``` sh
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jrnl --decrypt
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```
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will replace your encrypted journal file with a journal in plain text. You
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can also specify a filename, i.e. `jrnl --decrypt plain_text_copy.txt`,
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to leave your original file untouched.
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## Storing passwords in your keychain
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Whenever you encrypt your journal, you are asked whether you want to
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store the encryption password in your keychain. If you do this, you
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won’t have to enter your password every time you want to write or read
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your journal.
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If you don’t initially store the password in the keychain but decide to
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do so at a later point – or maybe want to store it on one computer but
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not on another – you can run `jrnl --encrypt` on an encrypted
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journal and use the same password again.
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## A note on security
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While `jrnl` follows best practices, total security is an illusion.
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There are a number of ways that people can at least partially
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compromise your `jrnl` data. See the [Privacy and Security](./security.md)
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documentation for more information.
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## No password recovery
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There is no method to recover or reset your `jrnl` password. If you lose it,
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your data is inaccessible.
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## Manual decryption
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Should you ever want to decrypt your journal manually, you can do so
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with any program that supports the AES algorithm in CBC. The key used
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for encryption is the SHA-256-hash of your password, the IV
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(initialisation vector) is stored in the first 16 bytes of the encrypted
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file. The plain text is encoded in UTF-8 and padded according to PKCS\#7
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before being encrypted. Here’s a Python script that you can use to
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decrypt your journal:
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``` python
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#!/usr/bin/env python3
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import argparse
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from Crypto.Cipher import AES
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import getpass
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import hashlib
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import sys
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parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
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parser.add_argument("filepath", help="journal file to decrypt")
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args = parser.parse_args()
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pwd = getpass.getpass()
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key = hashlib.sha256(pwd.encode('utf-8')).digest()
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with open(args.filepath, 'rb') as f:
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ciphertext = f.read()
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crypto = AES.new(key, AES.MODE_CBC, ciphertext[:16])
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plain = crypto.decrypt(ciphertext[16:])
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plain = plain.strip(plain[-1:])
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plain = plain.decode("utf-8")
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print(plain)
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```
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