[ale] Help with data recovery

Mon Aug 24 14:45:36 EDT 2020

David, thanks for the advice!

Bob, does "single key" mean that my password is the key itself?

On Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 2:23 PM Bob via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

>
>  From ddging it looks like Deja Dup uses a single key (symmetric cipher).
>
> The OP wrote:  "I tried the password and it acted busy for a little
> while and then asked for the password again. Not sure what that means."
>
> It sounds like you think you know the password.  However, it sounds like
> you entered the wrong password.  Would it be possible that your memory
> or record of the password is just slightly off of the true password?
> IOW, maybe you're thinking it's password123, but it's really Password123
> or password1234 or something close to what you're remembering.
>
>
> On 2020-08-24 1:42 p.m., David Jackson via Ale wrote:
> > This story hurts.  I think you're right about asking on this list,
> though.
> > Lots of experienced people here.  I'm not familiar with Deja Dup, but I
> > think many cryptographic key paradigms require two keys.  A personal or
> > private key, and a public key (a remote key).  When you encrypt for
> someone
> > else, you use their remote (public) key to encrypt it, and they decrypt
> it
> > with their private key.  And vice versa--a remote party encrypts a
> > message/data for you with your public key, which you decrypt with your
> > private key. (I'm thinking of GPG/PGP here....)
> >
> > So I'm guessing the private key was in the home directory somewhere.
> But,
> > wait, if Deja Dup didn't have access to the private key before the
> > decryption process, how would it decrypt the data?  Wouldn't that require
> > that the private key was accessible before the decryption, so therefore
> the
> > private key was stored somewhere else on the hard drive?  Err, which is
> > gone now?  I would re-read the Deja Dup manual and hopefully find out
> where
> > that private key gets stored, or maybe even backed up remotely at
> > dejadup.com or something?  Or does Deja Dup not use two keys but only
> one?
> > Might be useful to find out.  Maybe search "data recovery" at
> dejadup.com
> > or something?
> >
> > All that said, I could see encrypting a partition on a device that
> contains
> > sensitive data as well as is easily stolen, such as a laptop or
> something.
> > But even so, encryption is so powerful that I probably would only use it
> on
> > smaller segments of data that wouldn't affect the system as a whole.
> >
> > All the best to you, Jim.  I hate it when "tech learning" becomes this
> > painful!
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 10:49 PM Jim Ransone via Ale <ale at ale.org>
> wrote:
> >
> >> I tried the password and it acted busy for a little while and then asked
> >> for the password again. Not sure what that means. I guess if I can
> figure
> >> out the commands and try it in the terminal, maybe it would give me an
> >> error message, which would be less mysterious.
> >>
> >> On Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 10:26 PM Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> If you are super lucky, the old password might actually work.
> >>>
> >>> On August 21, 2020 9:05:40 PM EDT, Jim Ransone via Ale <ale at ale.org>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Bummer. As I said, I am not very tech savvy. I really don't even
> >>>> understand encryption. This Deja Dup backup software was widely
> recommended
> >>>> and encrypting all the files was the default. I didn't know enough to
> even
> >>>> question this. Now I realize how stupid that was. They put warnings on
> >>>> plastic bags so people don't suffocate themselves. You'd think they
> might
> >>>> put a warning on software that encrypts all your data.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:37 PM SpaXpert, Inc. <spaxpert at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Unfortunately, if you lost your encryption key, then you're likely in
> >>>>> the burnt toast department.  If you could find anyone to fix this
> situation
> >>>>> you'd probably owe them a million bucks.  I've been working with
> Linux for
> >>>>> over 25 years, and I'm definitely not the smartest ever, but it
> saves me
> >>>>> from the bots.  That said, I would never encrypt my data with a sole
> >>>>> encryption key that could be... never mind.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Sad advice... I have a separate usb hard drive that I drag and drop
> the
> >>>>> critical folders that I use for work occasionally.  That works for
> me, and
> >>>>> everything is unencrypted.  10 years ago I lost tons of family
> videos and
> >>>>> photos that I didn't backup due to a crappy hd controller on a crap
> >>>>> motherboard.  Never again.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I feel your pain.
> >>>>> Doug.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 8:19 PM Jim Ransone via Ale <ale at ale.org>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Hey all,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I found this group when searching for a local computer repair place
> >>>>>> that works on Linux stuff. I am not a programmer or particularly
> tech
> >>>>>> savvy. I'm hoping I can get some advice here, be it a
> recommendation on
> >>>>>> somewhere I can go to pay someone to fix this, or tips on how to
> fix it
> >>>>>> myself.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I did something that in retrospect seems completely boneheaded. I am
> >>>>>> running Ubuntu Studio 20.04 on my laptop and was backing up my data
> to an
> >>>>>> external hard drive using Deja Dup (which uses Duplicity.) I was
> trying to
> >>>>>> fix some audio issues and somehow screwed things up pretty badly,
> so I
> >>>>>> reinstalled Ubuntu Studio 20.04 hoping to take everything back to
> before
> >>>>>> the audio problems. The reinstall erased everything. When I went to
> restore
> >>>>>> my home folder from the backup, it's not working because of the
> encryption.
> >>>>>>  From an old forum thread I found about a similar situation, I was
> clued in
> >>>>>> to the sad news that I probably erased the encryption key during the
> >>>>>> reinstall. Doh! Suggestions included using testdisk to recover the
> data on
> >>>>>> the laptop and manually restoring the encrypted files on the backup
> drive.
> >>>>>> The latter seems very complicated and mysterious.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I might be in over my head trying to do this myself. Anyone know of
> >>>>>> anyone in the Atlanta area you would trust with a recovery job like
> this?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Thanks in advance for any advice or recommendations!
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Jim
> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>>> Ale mailing list
> >>>>>> Ale at ale.org
> >>>>>> https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >>>>>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> >>>>>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>> --
> >>> "no government by experts in which the masses do not have the chance to
> >>> inform the experts as to their needs can be anything but an oligarchy
> >>> managed in the interests of the few.??? - John Dewey
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Ale mailing list
> >> Ale at ale.org
> >> https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> >> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20200824/aa6dcbaa/attachment.html>