README: added the Security section

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Adrian C. (anrxc) 2010-02-20 04:03:20 +01:00
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README
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@ -123,6 +123,36 @@ great for saving power.
inconsistent data.
Security
--------
At the moment only one widget type (Gmail) requires auth. information
in order to get to the data. In the future there could be more, and
you should give some thought to the issue of protecting your data. The
Gmail widget type by default stores login information in the module it
self, and you are advised to make sure that file is only readable by
the owner. Other than that we can not force all users to conform to
one standard, one way of keeping it secure, like in some keyring.
First let's clear why we simply don't encrypt the login information
and store it in ciphertext. Answer is simple, that is no more secure
than having it stored in plaintext. By exposing the algorithm anyone
can reverse the encryption steps. Some claim even that's better than
plaintext but it's just security trough obscurity.
Here are some ideas actually worth your time. Users that have KDE (or
parts of it) installed could store their login information into the
Kwallet service and request it via DBus from the widget type. It can
be done with tools like "dbus-send" and "qdbus". The Gnome keyring
should support the same, so those with parts of Gnome installed could
use that keyring.
Some users move their login into an external file and read it from
there. Not much different than keeping it in the module, but what if
you encrypt the file with your GPG key? Users of the GPG Passphrase
Agent could decrypt the file transparently while their session is
active.
Widget types
------------
Widget types consist of worker functions that take the "format"