Securing files

[geremy condra]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 11:48 AM, Timothy W. Grove <tim_grove at sil.org> wrote:
> Hello Folks,
>
> In a python application that I'm developing I've been asked to add security
> to databases that the program might create and access; the database is to be
> password protected by its creator. The application uses an SQLite database,
> which could be changed for another back-end if that would offer better
> security, but I would still like to use an embeddable database file.
>
> The problem isn't so much the database itself, as I can think of a number of
> way to encrypt the data it contains, but some of the data is simply names of
> image and video files contained elsewhere in the file-system. Is there
> anyway to prevent a user from simply opening up the file-system from outside
> of the application and viewing the files? One way that I can think of would
> be to encode the image/video files as BLOBS and store them in the database
> itself, but apart from that option, can anyone suggest other ways? I'm
> currently working with python2.7 under Windows7, but I'm hoping to extend
> the application to Linux and Mac also. Thank you for your help.

I don't know much about your system, but just as a hunch I'd say that
if this is a major requirement you're screwed. The old maxim: there is
no cryptographic solution to the problem in which the attacker and
intended recipient are the same person.

Geremy Condra