I was wondering what are the risks associated to installing anytype in a monitored work laptop. I was hoping to hear some inputs or maybe someone else’s experience on the subject.
Some questions to begin the discussion:
Are files kept encrypted locally outside of the app?
How long would any cache or unencrypted temporary data be stored?
Since anytype is E2EE, is it safe to assume no data can be acessed over the network as well?
Using a web-based app like standard notes or joplin could be considered as a more private option?
Using a PIN on anytype would make the local data inaccessible?
not everything. when you open a file, it gets cached in a separate folder, unencrypted (like when you want to open a PDF)
1.1. also there is a search index that contains phrases and words with indexes to the encrypted database. those phrases are not encrypted. there have been plans to encrypt this as well but I’m unaware of it’s progress.
the unencrypted, downloaded files are kept indefinitely
yes
Standard Notes and in terms of the behaviour of files and the search index, yes. Not sure about Joplin these days.
in theory, yes. I’m not sure though if the key could get extracted from the RAM
Also be aware, as long as someone has access to your machine and your OS user account, they can get the Anytype key from the OS keychain.
If you employer has full access to your machine (root or your user account) then Anytype won’t do much for you. Browser based E2EE cloud solutions that you open in a private window might be more secure for your use case then.
If someone has access to your computer and your operating system user account, yes. it’s in the keychain of the OS and your OS user account.
It is also possible to just remove the PIN via editing a .json file in the config dir.
When I think about it. The PIN is just handwaving and pretty much useless.
the decrypted files cache, when you opened files? never
yes, it’s all in the same Anytype preferences directory
I would say it’s not an app for total anonymity and security. It delivers a reasonable amount of security with the premise that you have ownership of your devices. If this is not given, Anytype is accessible for anyone who can access your computer’s account. Even if you have a PIN.
Sorry for the late reply, forgot to answer before!
Yeah, I guess if the local machine is compromised anyone can have access to it. Maybe there could be an option to always delete cache when the app is closed? Also, I imagine even a web-based app that is e2ee would suffer from local unencrypted data, since it has to cache the information so I can read it, haha.
if executed properly with encryption also at rest, only the currently accessed objects should be available unencrypted in ram. there is technically no need to store the content unencrypted in the cache.
the more one needs to access stuff at once the more ram and cpu cycles are needed. but proper encryption always comes with a cost.
I see. Then I think I would maybe be willing to install anytype at a work computer if the PIN was better implemented and there was better cache management or an option to delete cache if wanted.
And maybe if I could sync only one space, I could have a space that I would access in my work computer and if I need something from my personal space, I could use the phone to copy it over to the work space.