[dolphin] [Bug 443806] New: Dolphin should allow option to cache thumbnails for separate encrypted devices / locations (KDialog too?)

[flan_suse]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=443806

            Bug ID: 443806
           Summary: Dolphin should allow option to cache thumbnails for
                    separate encrypted devices / locations (KDialog too?)
           Product: dolphin
           Version: 21.08.1
          Platform: unspecified
                OS: Linux
            Status: REPORTED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
          Assignee: dolphin-bugs-null at kde.org
          Reporter: windows2linux at zoho.com
                CC: kfm-devel at kde.org
  Target Milestone: ---

For (understandable) security and privacy reasons, Dolphin will not cache
thumbnails for files that are located on a separate encrypted container.

While I support this as a default behavior, and feel it is a responsible
decision, there are two reasons why I suggest there should be an option that a
user can override to allow thumbnail caching from separate encrypted
containers:

1. The user's $HOME directory is already located on a encrypted container, and
thus an external drive that is also using encryption needn't worry about
"spillover" to a non-encrypted device.

2. Performance. External and/or separate devices need to re-generate their
thumbnails every time the user browses to this folder. This causes extra reads
and CPU cycles, and usually on slower devices in comparison to their primary
drive. Not to mention the fact that reading thumbnails from cache is insanely
faster than re-generating them every time.

Thus, while the default should remain as is (which errs on the side of security
and privacy) there should definitely be an option to allow thumbnail caching on
separate encrypted devices.

I suppose this also applies to KDialog, and not just Dolphin?


---


Just for fun, here is a third reason:

3. The current implementation is inconsistent from a security and privacy
standpoint. Network shares accessed via CIFS (SMB) have their thumbnails
cached, even though (unknown to KDE) they are encrypted on the server. This is
a case of "spillover" of potentially sensitive thumbnails, where KDE does not
know whether or not the separate location is "encrypted", and thus whether or
not to forgo thumbnail caching.


---

For reference, here is a bug report that addresses the previous problem:

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=411919

I'm not suggesting a reversal; only an *option* to override this for the
reasons explained above. In certain cases, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits,
which is why an option for the user makes the most sense.

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