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securing R code....

5 messages · akshay kulkarni, Bert Gunter, David Winsemius +2 more

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dear members,
                             I am a stock trader. I am using R for my research.

I want to service my laptop, wherein resides all my R code, which, for obvious reasons, has to be secured. I am using Windows 7 Ultimate.

I cannot encrypt the R data by Bitdefender, as it encrypts the entire drive. I anyway need to give the key when the system, if at all, gets locked when servicing.

My cousin suggested backing up the data and deleting that data in the laptop when giving it for servicing. How do you back up the R data? What is the file name that contains all the workspace in windows 7? .RHistory only contains the previous commands. Can I delete only all the data/code without deleting the R GUI? The extreme option would be to delete the whole of installed R GUI, after backing up the workspace. Some other way to secure the data/code?

I've tried using Backup and sync by google, but that is very cumbersome.

Please help.

thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
AKSHAY M KULKARNI

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R does not save any data you give it unless you explicitly tell it to.  See
?save ?write.table, etc.
Also, any good tutorial.


Bert Gunter

"The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along and
sticking things into it."
-- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip )


On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 7:18 AM akshay kulkarni <akshay_e4 at hotmail.com>
wrote:

  
  
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On 10/26/20 7:17 AM, akshay kulkarni wrote:
Use a file encryption program or create an an encrypted directory to 
store your sensitive files. Veracrypt is a widely used cross platform 
solution. I was under the impression that Windoze 7 was now inherently 
insecure because it is past end-of-maintenance life? and there are many 
unpatched security holes.
.Rdata
Yes. Many people recommend not using the .Rdata mechanism at all, and 
instead maintaining a record of how the session proceeded along with? a 
bundle of the input data or at least? those portions that were 
successful in your eyes.
.Rdata is only a file. You could sorre it in encrypted form with Veracrypt.
You should learn to post in plain text.
#
Do you make regular backups? If not, this should push you into such a
routine.
One approach is to use an external drive. External drives are not expensive
and can typically have plenty of room to hold all your code and data.
Just before having your computer serviced, copy your code and data onto the
external drive. Erase your sensitive data from your computer and get it
serviced.

By the way, you can make the backup effort easier by organizing all your
code and data into a directory tree, so that you just do a recursive copy
of the root folder onto the backup system and you are done. (i.e. a simple
command. Depending on the amount of data to be copied this may take some
time to complete.)

HTH,
Eric


On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 6:41 PM David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net>
wrote:

  
  
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Hi

Above what you were suggested, your commands could be stored in .RHistory
and your data in .RData files if you end quit your session with save option
"yes". Either interactively or programmatically.

Cheers
Petr
research.
drive. I
laptop
file
deleting