Portable Firefox (PFF)

[Morpheus]

When someone has Portable firefox on a Jump-Drive, with settings to delete history, cookies, etc. what type of traces do they leave behind in the computer console after shutting down PFF and removing the jumpdrive?

 

What possibilities, using computer forensics, are there to finding out the where abouts and obtained information that someone using Portable Firefox has come across?

 

Are there possible ways for someone to find out what websites someone has visited with PFF?

 

If PFF loads into RAM, wouldn't the traces of history and whereabouts be deleted and lost once the computer console is shut down?

[5614]

Any data loaded into RAM will be lost permamently when the power to the RAM is turned off.

[Aeternus]

As far as I know, as PFF stores all its data on the flash drive etc and the ram will lose any trace once turned off (although you could in theory end up with some remnants in virtual memory, doubtful anyone is going to look for something there :S), there is the problem that if this is a University or Organisation's network they may monitor network traffic and log packet information / data transfered. If you wish to prevent this, there is always the use of SSL/https on some sites which will encrypt via Public/private key methods the communications with you and the webserver, although alot of sites don't offer this.

 

If you are trying to access sites you shouldn't be accessing in school/college/work, the advice we should probably be giving is ... don't .

[Dave]

I'd agree. I installed a copy of Firefox (normal, not this one) for use on the computers at university, since they only run 0.8.3 there. The only stuff left was in my home directory (the .firefox folder), and that was only to store the profile information. From what I've heard, PFF stores the profile information on the flash drive so there shouldn't be anything left on the machine.