jrnl/docs/privacy-and-security.md

Privacy and Security

jrnl is designed with privacy and security in mind, but like any other program there are some limitations to be aware of.

Password strength

jrnl doesn't enforce password strength requirements. Short or commonly-used passwords can be easily circumvented by someone with basic security skills to access to your encrypted jrnl file.

Shell history

Since you can enter entries from the command line, any tool that logs command line actions is a potential security risk. See below for how to deal with this problem in various shells.

bash

You can disable history logging for jrnl by adding this line into your ~/.bashrc file:

HISTIGNORE="$HISTIGNORE:jrnl *"

To delete existing jrnl commands from bash history, simply delete them from your bash history file. The default location of this file is ~/.bash_history, but you can run echo "$HISTFILE" to find it if needed. Also, you can run history -c to delete all commands from your history.

zsh

You can disable history logging for jrnl by adding this to your ~/.zshrc file:

setopt HIST_IGNORE_SPACE
alias jrnl=" jrnl"

To delete existing jrnl commands from zsh history, simply remove them from your zsh history file. The default location of this file is ~/.zsh_history, but you can run echo "$HISTFILE" to find it if needed. Also, you can run history -c to delete all commands from your history.

fish

By default fish will not log any command that starts with a space. If you want to always run jrnl with a space before it, then you can add this to your ~/.config/fish/config.fish file:

abbr --add jrnl " jrnl"

To delete existing jrnl commands from fish history, run history delete --prefix 'jrnl '.

Windows Command Prompt

Windows doesn't log history to disk, but it does keep it in your command prompt session. Close the command prompt or press Alt+F7 to clear your history after journaling.

Files in transit from editor to jrnl

When creating or editing an entry, jrnl uses a unencrypted temporary file on disk in order to give your editor access to your journal. After you close your editor, jrnl then deletes this temporary file.

So, if you have saved a journal entry but haven't closed your editor yet, the unencrypted temporary remains on your disk. If your computer were to shut off during this time, or the jrnl process were killed unexpectedly, then the unencrypted temporary file will remain on your disk. You can mitigate this issue by only saving with your editor right before closing it. You can also manually delete these files (i.e. files named jrnl_*.txt) from your temporary folder.

Plausible deniability

You may be able to hide the contents of your journal behind a layer of encryption, but if someone has access to your configuration file, then they can figure out that you have a journal, where that journal file is, and when you last edited it. With a sufficient power imbalance, someone may be able to force you to unencrypt it through non-technical means.

Saved Passwords

When creating an encrypted journal, you'll be prompted as to whether or not you want to "store the password in your keychain." This keychain is accessed using the Python keyring library, which has different behavior depending on your operating system.

In Windows, the keychain is the Windows Credential Manager (WCM), which can't be locked and can be accessed by any other application running under your username. If this is a concern for you, you may not want to store your password.

Notice any other risks?

Please let the maintainers know by filing an issue on GitHub.