Had a bit of an intense day, today, attempting to research and propose some specific Linux distribution with emphasis on security and encryption. Found some articles simply searching on the phrase “most secure version of linux”. One had only 3 recommendations: Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), LPS (Lightweight Portable Security), and Surprise!
Another article had so many recommendations, mostly directed at those intending to use it to penetrate security measures, that I found it unuseful.
Settled on Tails, based on Debian, which, though its user interface is a bit clunky (may be an issue for the intended client), appears to have the necessary applications to provide encryption, as well as standard applications (Libre Office). An added cute attribute is that it provides an optional UI that appears to be Windows 8.
The idea, for the client in question, is to have a bootable USB 3.0 thumb-drive, containing the operating system (obviously), as well as all the necessary applications for his purposes, but have a separate encrypted thumb-drive (need not be USB 3.0, as it will be data only), just for his files. At the end of the day, both are removed from the computer on which they are used, and, as a function of its operation, Tails wipes the computer’s memory before shutting down, leaving no trace of anything that was performed on that computer.
This solution provides the desired security for any given session, as well as completely eliminating the insecure aspect of a physical storage device on a system that may be, from time to time, unattended and subject to direct physical OR remote intrusion.
Ran out of time, and so was not able to complete my tests, today, and still waiting to see how well the persistent files function works, allowing new application installations and updates to be saved to the bootable thumb-drive.
