Residue-Free Computing

Computer applications often leave traces or that enable forensic examiners to gain a detailed understanding of the actions a user performed on a computer. Such digital breadcrumbs are left by a large variety of applications, potentially (and indeed likely) unbeknownst to their users. This paper pres...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2021-10, Vol.2021 (4), p.389-405
Main Authors: Arkema, Logan, Sherr, Micah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anti-forensics
forensics
privacy
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Summary:Computer applications often leave traces or that enable forensic examiners to gain a detailed understanding of the actions a user performed on a computer. Such digital breadcrumbs are left by a large variety of applications, potentially (and indeed likely) unbeknownst to their users. This paper presents the concept of in which a user can operate any existing application installed on their computer in a mode that prevents trace data from being recorded to disk, thus frustrating the forensic process and enabling more privacy-preserving computing. In essence, residue-free computing provides an “incognito mode” for application. We introduce our implementation of residue-free computing, R , and motivate R by inventorying the potentially sensitive and privacy-invasive residue left by popular applications. We demonstrate that R allows users to operate these applications without leaving trace data, while incurring modest performance overheads.
ISSN:2299-0984
2299-0984
DOI:10.2478/popets-2021-0076