Joplin – How nerdy is that blog?

Joplin At Rest Encryption With Tomb On Linux

To Encrypt At Rest Or Not To?

There has been a lot of (passionate) debates on Joplin’s forum about its SQLite 3 database showing everything in clear text.

And by everything, I literally mean “everything”. Including your master encryption password.

Now, my intention here isn’t to fuel another debate. Joplin passed several security audits. Long story short: if you want your computer to remain safe (as much as possible), encrypt your whole hard-drive.

This is indeed a best practice.

Instead of discussing whether or not Joplin should encrypt its database, I’ll share the additional layer of security I laid out on my Linux machines using tomb.

By the way, if you have no idea what I’m talking about (what the hell is Joplin?), I suggest you read my previous post: From Evernote To Joplin.

From Evernote To Joplin

Joplin’s Application Icon

I recently came across Joplin.

Simply put, Joplin is a free open source replacement for Evernote.

I’m an Evernote subscriber. However, I don’t use it that much. And I don’t have that many notes.

Let me be clear: Evernote offers a brilliant service, there is no denying that, it’s absolutely great and super convenient. But, in my case, for less than a 100 notes, I’m not fully convinced it’s worth the price.

Furthermore, Joplin has a few “punchy” arguments to put in a fair fight:

It’s free and open source (I know, I already said that, but it’s important).
It’s cross-platform (nodejs to the core). There are apps for Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. There is even an app to use it on the command line (Vim style)!
It works locally (no need for an internet connection), but enables synchronization with remote sharing services. Thus Yes! It can sync your notes across devices (using the WebDAV protocol).
It supports end-to-end encryption with zero knowledge: notes are encrypted locally before being transferred.
It integrates fully with Nextcloud!

Honestly, if the first few arguments weren’t enough, although I was definitely intrigued, the last 2 won me on the spot.

So let’s have a look at the beast.