Encrypt/secure files on external HDD?

ID10 mulambo  September 2, 2024

Comments:

Malneb said:
why are you so concerned about them not editing anything?


because its my stuff, you know.. pretty simple

mulambo said:
because its my stuff, you know.. pretty simple



Sure but that is not conductive to actually protecting data to just say "its my data simple". The paradigm is this, either protecting data where its about keeping other people away from that data which is why why use encryption. Which means in turn its already a given if you allow someone to said data then that means you trust that person with said data 100%.

Permissions in computers since UNIX state a clear paradigm which is on a basic level and also a POSIX standard and further in another method called ACL which is a system derived from the earlier system and is loosely speced around POSIX.

Basic example

r = read
w = write
x = execute

You give or deny any user, person or group any combination of those allowances. Or you encrypt entirely data where you want more robust measure of protection. There is no grey area and read access also means that the person can copy said data, they also need to be able to read to do any of the other features. So opening a document or viewing a picture or listening to a song is read permissions granted, which means they can copy that data.

You let them read and execute but not write data, so they can still copy and read but they cannot alter data. Past that then ditto.

So really you either give them access or you don't.

Logic doubt.
Why "copy" = "read" ?
Copying means duplicating.
Example: you have a written exam to do. A colleague asks you to make him read your stuff. Then he entirely copies it and presents it as his stuff. The teacher gets upset and start doubting of both the real author (you) and the smartarse (your colleague).
Hope that makes sense.

Well copy is hard to define because its not strictly defined, it falls under a few different scenarios, technically you only need read permissions to copy data. But because most of the time data is wanting to be written then you need write permissions too.

You can get around that hence technically you only need to be able to read data to copy it.

The earlier example given is only per OS because the perms are set on any given OS. So if i had a file called A i could copy that file to computer B and computer B can do anything with it.

This logic means i can copy data outside of the OS where i have full perms and then i can do anything i want with that data.

the local permission example it was also only shown to you to show and elaborate more on that there is not simple way to do what you are wanting to do, you either give a third party access or you don't. Encryption is about protecting data from the very stuff i just mentioned, and even there is still stands you give them access or not.
Example on a basic level a password protected zip, you give the password to certain ppl so that anyone else who comes across the zip file will not be able to access that data. You see here there is the exact same mantra of "You give them access or not"

Its a catch 22 because you want to give someone the hard drive but the very act of doing that means you give them access to the data. There is no way to be in between because there is no grey area in the systems involved. You can encrypt the drive but that person needs to know the password. Else they cannot access the data and filesystem perms only pertain locally so you cannot to my knowledge change that.

All roads lead to Rome which is you trust someone to data or not.

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