[tomboy-list] Encrypted notes with encfs and Ubuntu One

[Andreas F]

> [jaredljennings at gmail.com]

> Yup, I use Ubuntu One and it works very well. Although how does that
> help here. Your note when sent to UO would be decrypted when leaving
> your drive and then sent to UO in a decrypted format.

No Jared, I think you misunderstand.  This is encryption on a file
system level, not on disk level.  Only encrypted data is sent to and
retrieved from the cloud.

My data (i.e. Tomboy notes) is stored unencrypted in one folder
(e.g. ~/Cloud/). This folder is then "mirrored" by encfs to a second
folder (e.g. ~/Ubuntu\ One/Clouded). Encfs makes sure that the
"Clouded" directory tree always represents a 1:1 copy of the same
files with one important property: Each file in "Cloud" has a
corresponding encrypted file in "Clouded".

The "Clouded" directory is the *only* of the two directories above to
be sync'ed with the cloud service (Ubuntu One in this example). This
ensures only encrypted data is sent to and retrieved from the cloud.

I have included the below to illustrate the setup.  In this example I
pull encrypted data from the cloud and decrypt it:

# List of encrypted files - sync'ed to the cloud
find /home/aff/Ubuntu\ One/Clouded/ | head
/home/aff/Ubuntu One/Clouded/
/home/aff/Ubuntu One/Clouded/.encfs6.xml
/home/aff/Ubuntu One/Clouded/R-2zpYQUdEoyeAHfT6kJniNL
/home/aff/Ubuntu One/Clouded/R-2zpYQUdEoyeAHfT6kJniNL/TE1eiHr,I778leqfDPDuNmpf
/home/aff/Ubuntu One/Clouded/R-2zpYQUdEoyeAHfT6kJniNL/TE1eiHr,I778leqfDPDuNmpf/mKSGgCMsh2M6hz67tDBhWw5a9BUd5DAcRa0XWv57w2Sur-
/home/aff/Ubuntu One/Clouded/R-2zpYQUdEoyeAHfT6kJniNL/TE1eiHr,I778leqfDPDuNmpf/-lxz,Q2VfLVoICa6JOstBe1EDolIN8J6LQn3e5d0a3UM-JMO41eIRiQ24JumoJq5SL6

# Directory "Cloud" initially empty
$ find ~/Cloud/

# Decrypt the encrypted data
$ encfs -o nonempty ~/Ubuntu\ One/Clouded ~/Cloud
EncFS Password:

# List of decrypted files
$ find ~/Cloud/ | head
/home/aff/Cloud/tomboy/
/home/aff/Cloud/tomboy/manifest.xml
/home/aff/Cloud/tomboy/0
/home/aff/Cloud/tomboy/0/0
/home/aff/Cloud/tomboy/0/0/24676d50-4cdd-4d0f-9a21-fac19d3774c8.note
/home/aff/Cloud/tomboy/0/0/7e36d622-8542-48d4-8ada-7c7d3803649f.note
/home/aff/Cloud/tomboy/0/0/c44e3ab2-d20e-4d2c-97b3-b00598d625fd.note

Best regards,
Andreas
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