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How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

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Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#41
post #27

> Evolution [..] has a bad data loss bug. It sometimes deletes the email body text in the compose window after changing the signature [..] it has bitten me about twice a month for the last two years. and > I might have been able to partially recover the message from the Draft folder if I’d retained my cool and acted immediately. It had been overwritten by an empty message instead. I must look into versioning my email…

Maybe they have an exchange mailbox? If you want exchange support on linux with full syncing of mail, calendar and tasks there are two options I know of: evolution and hiri. And hiri is paid abandonware. I’ve set up both, both are not good. Lately I’ve been using outlook web access, which is still bad, just not as bad. Really I guess I miss outlook for windows. There I’ve said it. Judge me if you will. Its search fea…

Option 3: davmail[1] acts as a translator between Microsoft's proprietary protocols and open protocols.

1. http://davmail.sourceforge.net/

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#42
post #27

> Evolution [..] has a bad data loss bug. It sometimes deletes the email body text in the compose window after changing the signature [..] it has bitten me about twice a month for the last two years. and > I might have been able to partially recover the message from the Draft folder if I’d retained my cool and acted immediately. It had been overwritten by an empty message instead. I must look into versioning my email…

Maybe they have an exchange mailbox? If you want exchange support on linux with full syncing of mail, calendar and tasks there are two options I know of: evolution and hiri. And hiri is paid abandonware. I’ve set up both, both are not good. Lately I’ve been using outlook web access, which is still bad, just not as bad. Really I guess I miss outlook for windows. There I’ve said it. Judge me if you will. Its search fea…

You can use Thunderbird with a paid add on. It’s well worth it, because evolution is just bad.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#43
post #37
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. That was actually the working title up until two minutes before publishing.

Yep, and the title, once re-parsed is fine, but I also had - initially - the wrong impression, it flashed before me how you hypnotized your client (customer)and managed to retrieve from his/her memory the contents of an e-mail message he/she ddn't rememeber anything about.

That’s pretty much exactly how I thought the previous title might have been misunderstood!

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#44
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, encryption keys can persist in memory, too. That's why many law enforcement agencies use something like a HotPlug[1] + mouse jiggler to keep machines powered on when executing a search warrant. [1] https://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/hotplug_field_kit...

If you don't want to pay for HotPlug, you can also grab a full memory dump using FTK Imager or Belkasoft...

It's why operating systems should implement a lockdown option to restrict users from performing arbitrary access to memory or kernel, even if the user is root. I mentioned before that, on one of my computer, I completely disabled dynamic kernel modules, hotpatching, /dev/mem, no ptrace() to arbitrary process, etc., making it difficult for root to do any low-level access to memory or kernel. I also enabled IOMMU, it isolates the address spaces of different hardware from each other, so no external hardware cannot have arbitrary RAM access via DMA, hardware-based memory capturer won't work. The only way to attack is either an 0day or a cold-boot attack, the 0day threat can be reduced by using a security-minded kernel, like PaX/grsec (not available to the public anymore), OpenBSD, or HardenedBSD. As for cold-boot attack, future hardware may support full memory encryption [0] at the hardware level and fix this vulnerability. Mouse jiggler is a problem, but USB firewalls already exist [1], if proper policies is enforced by the firewall, unauthorized hardware cannot register as an input device.

There may be still some exploits, especially when you consider that Linux kernel is not designed with security as its first priority, and over the last 20 years a lot of black magic has been developed to insert bad things into the kernel, but at least doing the countermeasures I mentioned will make it difficult. Hence, it's impossible to do any low-level changing or debugging on the system without rebooting it - which will immediately revert the system back to a "at rest" state, and triggers full-disk encryption. Other people may choose to do the opposite, it's a tradeoff between uptime and security.

Unfortunately, any attempt to introduce such a lockdown will be accused of being an evil technology that enables DRM. However, ultimately, the question is not whether a computer is locked down, but who is in control of the computer and it's locked down to protect whom.

[0] Don't confuse "memory scrambling" and "memory encryption". The vast majority of PCs today already use memory scrambling - the memory controller will "scramble" the data in RAM to a seemingly-random pattern using a Linear Feedback Shift Register, but it's done for electrical considerations - if there are too many 1s or 0s in a row, excessive current spike (di/dt) is produced, and it reduces signal integrity and creating excessive electromagnetic interference - LFSR-based scrambling is not for cryptography purposes and trivial to decode. On the other hand, memory encryption is a true solution that provides cryptographic protection to the RAM, and many hardware vendors have roadmap to implement it. Currently, it seems that there are two types, the first type is a "full memory encryption" - protecting RAM from physical access, the second type is "per-application memory encryption", which allows an application to request a segment of encrypted memory with an unique key - protect sensitive data of one application from accidental access by other programs. Both are helpful.

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/738306/

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#45

> Evolution [..] has a bad data loss bug. It sometimes deletes the email body text in the compose window after changing the signature [..] it has bitten me about twice a month for the last two years. and > I might have been able to partially recover the message from the Draft folder if I’d retained my cool and acted immediately. It had been overwritten by an empty message instead. I must look into versioning my email…

Not quite arbitrary.

He new that he could avoid it by not changing the signature afterwards.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#46
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the same thought. Did this person consider using different software? Why hurt yourself like that? Its no wonder that it will never be the year of the Linux Desktop.

I love Linux for what it is, for the whole idea, being open, free and "democratic" but I tried using it while my Macbok was in service and oh boy, it's like having a Hackintosh 10 years ago, for work it was bearable but for "personal use"? I'd rather pay 5x more for something that "just works". And I did.

The main difference for me is that there are more ways to rescue, recover, fix, and work-around issues. I’m typing this on macOS now. I run into about the same amount of issues on macOS as I do on Linux. The big difference is that I’m just f*ed on macOS whereas Linux leaves me with multiple paths to save myself out of troublesome situations.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#48
post #45

> Evolution [..] has a bad data loss bug. It sometimes deletes the email body text in the compose window after changing the signature [..] it has bitten me about twice a month for the last two years. and > I might have been able to partially recover the message from the Draft folder if I’d retained my cool and acted immediately. It had been overwritten by an empty message instead. I must look into versioning my email…

Not quite arbitrary. He new that he could avoid it by not changing the signature afterwards.

And yet it still bit him twice a month? After the second time that happened, I would have deleted that program and smashed the hard drive to keep it from returning.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#49

I used to (when this was still possible) dump /proc/memory (or kmem?) to file and rummage through it looking for partially composed website submissions when Netscape decided to eat itself, back in the 1990s. Remarkably successsful.

Using Process Explorer at least, it's still just a right click on any process away.

Re: How I recovered a lost email from my email client’s memory

#50
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the same thought. Did this person consider using different software? Why hurt yourself like that? Its no wonder that it will never be the year of the Linux Desktop.

I love Linux for what it is, for the whole idea, being open, free and "democratic" but I tried using it while my Macbok was in service and oh boy, it's like having a Hackintosh 10 years ago, for work it was bearable but for "personal use"? I'd rather pay 5x more for something that "just works". And I did.

And that's exactly why I run linux, because it "just works", and has done for 20 years.
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