How safe is GnuCash?

[Kaj]

Hi, again,

Well, this thread has at least shown one thing, GnuCash by itself is not 
safe in the sense I set up with my initial question.

A couple of you also pointed out that it is impossible, since anyone 
with enough knowledge and enough resources, can change any file. Yes of 
course, the same you can say about the thief trying to break into your 
house. You have locks for every door and every window, but if he is 
using dynamite... The same with the manual bookkeeping in a paper book, 
which I started by saying it is the most safe method. But if the 
criminal is a highly skilled material specialist, he maybe can find out 
a way to remove the archive safe ink. So once again, you can never lock 
a thief out, if you give him enough time and enough resources.

Jean-David Beyer has an interesting view on the problem with 
certificates. Well, I am not conversant enough to see all the 
consequences for the accountant. Do you for instance have to transport 
the whole accounting file, maybe log files too, via internet to this 
stamper web site? If so, also confidential aspects are to consider. 
Moreover we must assume that she/he is not very skilled in handling 
computers. And most often  it also deals with a Microsoft windows 
system, as this is what ordinary people use today. Might be a  Macintosh 
but Linux, very, very seldom. This also means that the file system is 
NTFS, you do not have that choice.

Even the thoughts from Gordon regarding BitCoin are very interesting to 
follow, but also points out the difficulties.

Regarding the suggestion about git, a presumption for the version 
management system to work satisfactory, is that you switch off the 
compress facility in GnuCash, isn't it? Well, this is of course not a 
big thing.

Now, at last, I think it is time to say a few words about the background 
to my initial question. I am a member, not an accountant, of an economic 
association looking for a suitable bookkeeping program. Many years ago I 
was an accountant in another association, that was in my Microsoft 
windows epoch, and then got in touch with a bookkeeping (proprietary) 
program which contained much of those qualities I mentioned with logging 
etc. But since I have change domicile, and am now running Debian. For 
many years I have also been using GnuCash for my private bookkeeping, 
and found it very valuable for that purpose. I therefore got the idea to 
investigate if this program could be used in the association. However I 
found that those properties so valuable for me private, e.g. the whole 
file in XML in plain language, also is its biggest disadvantage in a 
more professional context. So my question was if, after all, it contains 
qualities which I have not yet come in contact with, which will make it 
that safe tool an auditor can accept. Tracing is one such.

Many thanks to you all. Your thoughts and aspects to the question have 
been very valuable.

Kaj

On 2017-01-13 kl. 12:51,  wrote:
> On 01/13/2017 12:29 AM, GWB wrote:
>> Would snapshots of the file system accomplish what the original poster
>> is after?  That's pretty much what I do, but maybe my setup is odd.  I
>> use Ubuntu with both zfs and btrfs file systems.  Both can make
>> snapshots; zfs snapshots are read only by default, and require cloning
>> to a new file system to become writable.  btrfs makes writeable
>> snapshots by default, but you can specify read only snapshots.  Like
>> the burnable DVD option (which I like, by the way) snapshots freeze an
>> entire file system in time.
> I am not an accountant, but I doubt snapshots would be much use.
>
> There seems to me to be a way to accomplish this, that might satisfy a
> real accountant.
>
> At the intervals required, digitally time-stamp the file
> (_not using your own system's clock_ that is easily falsified)l and then
> digitally signing that. The purpose of digitally signing the file is
> that any change to the file after that, be it deliberate tampering, or
> even just a machine or media error, would be instantly detected.
>
> Software such as this will digitally sign a file in a most secure
> manner. Only the person in possession of the secret key can sign a file
> with this. It is a public key encryption system, and the secret key is
> never divulged to others. The public key can by publicized.
>
> https://gnupg.org/
>
> A web site that can time stamp software is this one:
>
> Stamper is a service provided free of charge to Internet users.
>
> You are very welcome to use Stamper, but you may only do so if
> you have first read our Terms of use, which exclude liability on
> our part and which provide for you to indemnify us against any
> potential liability arising from your use of Stamper.  By using
> Stamper you warrant that you have read and accept the Terms.
>
> The Terms of use are available by sending email to
> info at stamper.itconsult.co.uk or from the web page
> http://www.itconsult.co.uk/stamper.htm.
>
> These are meant to work together to time-stamp e-mails. This is not
> exactly what is required, but it might be possible to combine them. As
> you can see, I have not fully thought this through, nor have I put
> together a system to support it. But perhaps something of this kind
> might satisfy the auditors that some may be exposed to.
>