Residue-Free Computing
Published in Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2021
Recommended citation: Arkema, Logan and Sherr, Micah "Residue-Free Computing" Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, vol. 2021, no.4, 2021, pp.389-405. https://www.sciendo.com/article/10.2478/popets-2021-0076
Abstract: Computer applications often leave traces of residue 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 residue-free computing 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 any application. We introduce our implementation of residue-free computing, ResidueFree, and motivate ResidueFree by inventorying the potentially sensitive and privacy-invasive residue left by popular applications. We demonstrate that ResidueFree allows users to operate these applications without leaving trace data, while incurring modest performance overheads.
This paper has a dedicated project page and a github repository with more technical information about our implementation and links to an Ubuntu VM with ResidueFree ready to run.