A handy trio of tools for protecting your privacy
Using Tor on SELinux
If you are using SELinux, you will need to do some extra configuration. The most common addition is to change your "targeted" file. Change to the following directory:
/etc/selinux/targeted
Then, using touch or another command, create a file named booleans.local
. Then, all you need to do is open a text editor (e.g., vi, pico, or gedit), and edit the targeted file so that it contains the following:
"allow_ypbind=1"
You will need to restart networking so that Tor recognizes your change.
Cleaning Up: BleachBit
Cleaning up unnecessary files and application histories eliminates clues that an attacker could uncover to learn about what you've been doing.
Several tools are available for cleaning up your deleted files, including BleachBit, GtkOrphan, and Gconf-Cleaner. I have found that BleachBit is the best overall tool, because it scours the entire hard disk. Although tools such as GtkOrphan
and Gconf-Cleaner
were created by people who wanted to focus on specific operating system elements, such as GTK and GConf, BleachBit does as well or better at cleaning these environments.
BleachBit, as its name implies, has the ability to cleanse your disks of extraneous and "temporary" files that, well, aren't really all that temporary. It's the most popular application out there for data destruction. I run BleachBit from a standard terminal or from a standard menu. Figure 6 shows the initial BleachBit startup screen.

With BleachBit, you can:
- Delete browser cache and temp files.
- Eliminate Bash history traces.
- Remove all trace of files left behind by applications, runtime engines, and login environments such as Google Earth, Java, X11, KDE, and Gnome.
- Remove email temporary files.
- Delete all traces of video and voice calls, such as those with Skype.
- Eliminate cache files from text and word processing applications such as vi, OpenOffice and LibreOffice
- Remove caches from video applications such as xine, Vuze, and VLC.
- Conduct deep scans.
Using BleachBit is fairly simple. Figure 7 shows BleachBit configured to delete files related to Firefox. Like most people, I'm becoming a big Google Chrome fan, and BleachBit also has options for scouring all Chrome-related files. I'm not much of an Opera user, but BleachBit is there when I do use Opera.

The Preferences Window shown in Figure 7 is open by default once you install BleachBit. This window allows you to specify the drives you wish to target.
The whitelist feature is particularly useful. Whitelists allow you to exclude specific directories and partitions on your disk. To use this feature, go to Edit | Preferences, and then select Whitelist. From there, simply click Add File or Add Folder and follow the friendly GUI. I've used this feature to exclude directories where I store files that I will never really need to delete.
In the General tab, I always keep the Hide irrelevant cleaners checkbox selected, because unselecting it causes the application to show me options that are more for legacy operating systems than for anything else. I select the Overwrite files to hide contents and Start BleachBit with computer options so I know it is always ready to use.
System and Deep Scans in BleachBit
For those who are not faint of heart and have lots of time on their hands, consider conducting a System scan and a Deep scan. A System scan focuses on deleting temporary system files that you no longer need. These system files are located in a Linux (or Windows or Mac) system directory, such as /var/
, or in the /tmp/
directory.
A Deep scan goes even deeper than a System scan, searching the hard disk for files that are found outside of the normal system directories. The Deep scan goes hither, thither, and yon and searches for files such as the thumbs.db
and DS_Store
files in Windows systems. These files are not necessarily harmful. The thumbs.db
file is simply a file that helps a system show "thumbnail" images of documents as you browse them. However, they can be used by applications to determine your document viewing and browsing habits. They are essentially metadata documents and, if left undeleted, can help individuals invade your privacy.
To conduct a System scan, scroll down to System and select the option. You will receive two warnings. The first tells you that the scan will take a long time. I don't conduct system and deep scans unless my system can sit idle for at least an hour or two; often I conduct them overnight.
The second warning informs you to select localizations in the Preferences section. This is BleachBit's fairly obscure way of saying you should consider omitting certain files and directories. Do this by, once again, going to Edit | Preferences and selecting the Whitelist tab. For example, I use a lot of custom settings for my calendaring application that I don't ever want deleted. So, I specify the location of these files, which happens to be the /usr/share/calendar/
directory before I run a system or deep scan.
The Memory portion of a Deep or System scan is experimental. Only once have I had a problem. My login environment started acting strangely, and I had to reboot. I didn't lose any data or functionality. The first time I ran these scans, I freed up almost a half a gigabyte of space. More importantly, I knew that these extraneous files had been deleted securely. Once I set up BleachBit to my liking, I'll run it once a week, or whenever there is something I need securely deleted.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
KDE Plasma 5.27 Beta is Ready for Testing
The latest beta iteration of the KDE Plasma desktop is now available and includes some important additions and fixes.
-
Netrunner OS 23 Is Now Available
The latest version of this Linux distribution is now based on Debian Bullseye and is ready for installation and finally hits the KDE 5.20 branch of the desktop.
-
New Linux Distribution Built for Gamers
With a Gnome desktop that offers different layouts and a custom kernel, PikaOS is a great option for gamers of all types.
-
System76 Beefs Up Popular Pangolin Laptop
The darling of open-source-powered laptops and desktops will soon drop a new AMD Ryzen 7-powered version of their popular Pangolin laptop.
-
Nobara Project Is a Modified Version of Fedora with User-Friendly Fixes
If you're looking for a version of Fedora that includes third-party and proprietary packages, look no further than the Nobara Project.
-
Gnome 44 Now Has a Release Date
Gnome 44 will be officially released on March 22, 2023.
-
Nitrux 2.6 Available with Kernel 6.1 and a Major Change
The developers of Nitrux have officially released version 2.6 of their Linux distribution with plenty of new features to excite users.
-
Vanilla OS Initial Release Is Now Available
A stock GNOME experience with on-demand immutability finally sees its first production release.
-
Critical Linux Vulnerability Found to Impact SMB Servers
A Linux vulnerability with a CVSS score of 10 has been found to affect SMB servers and can lead to remote code execution.
-
Linux Mint 21.1 Now Available with Plenty of Look and Feel Changes
Vera has arrived and although it is still using kernel 5.15, there are plenty of improvements sure to please everyone.