security

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title: Security & Privacy permalink: /security parent: Deep Dives nav_order: 11

Security & Privacy

Read-only guarantee

The mounted volume is strictly read-only:

• Every write/create/delete/rename operation is refused at the filesystem layer (ACCESS_DENIED).
• The volume advertises ReadOnlyVolume, CasePreservedNames, UnicodeOnDisk; the filesystem name is ZipFS.
• The source archive is opened with FileShare.ReadWrite but never written to.

UAC and elevation

• Both executables run with asInvoker — they never request elevation and never relaunch themselves as admin.
• The Dokan variant logs a warning when not elevated; mounting may still work depending on your system configuration.
• The WinFsp variant detects elevation and reacts: when running as Administrator it forces a cross-integrity folder mount so that standard-user processes can also access the mount (Mounting).

Cross-integrity mounts

When cross-integrity mode is active, the mounted volume carries the security descriptor D:P(A;;FA;;;WD) — a protected DACL granting Everyone → Full Access:

• Why: UAC integrity isolation otherwise makes a mount created by an elevated process invisible/inaccessible to standard processes (and vice versa).
• Trade-off: any local process can read the mounted content. Only enable it when that is acceptable, and only for content you would share with every local user anyway.
• Drive letters are not usable for this purpose (they cannot bypass UAC isolation), hence the folder mount under %LOCALAPPDATA%\SimpleZipDrive\Mounts (configurable).

Data written to your machine

Location	Contents	Lifetime
%LOCALAPPDATA%\SimpleZipDrive\settings.dat	Your settings (JSON)	Until you delete it
%LOCALAPPDATA%\SimpleZipDrive\Temp\<pid>_<guid>\	Disk-cached entries extracted from the archive	Deleted on unmount/exit; orphan-swept at next startup
%LOCALAPPDATA%\SimpleZipDrive\Temp\Logs\	Session + driver debug logs	Old logs deleted at startup; current session kept
%LOCALAPPDATA%\SimpleZipDrive\Mounts\<name>\	Empty mount-point folders (cross-integrity)	Not auto-deleted

Temp files are created with an ACL restricted to the current user.

Network communication

Three outbound calls, none of which include your file paths or archive contents:

Call	When	Payload
Update check → api.github.com/repos/purelogiccode/SimpleZipDrive/releases/latest	Once at startup	Standard GitHub API GET; nothing sent beyond HTTP headers
Statistics → www.purelogiccode.com/ApplicationStats/stats	Once at startup	{ applicationId, version } only
Bug report → www.purelogiccode.com/bugreport/api/send-bug-report	On warnings/unhandled errors	message (error details), applicationName, version, userInfo (context), environment (OS + bitness, ≤ 50 chars), stackTrace

Offline machines fail all three silently.

Automatic bug reporting

• Serilog events at Warning level and above are forwarded to the bug API automatically — there is no consent prompt.
• A filter (IsUserError) suppresses expected errors so they do not spam the tracker: user cancellations, wrong passwords, corrupt archives, missing drivers, mount points in use (specific NTSTATUS codes), file-not-found/IO errors, and similar. Only genuine defects reach the API.
• Reports never intentionally include archive names, mounted paths, or file contents; the stack trace and environment summary describe the failure only.

If you prefer no telemetry, a firewall rule blocking www.purelogiccode.com for the app is sufficient — all calls are fire-and-forget with timeouts.

Sensitive material

Because disk-cache files contain the decrypted content of archive entries, avoid mounting confidential encrypted archives on shared machines, or unmount promptly (which deletes the temp files immediately).