newfolder

newfolder is a lightweight, high-performance command-line steganography, file obfuscation, and secure metadata-destruction workstation written in V. It packs files into a sequence of zero-byte, metadata-carrying directory structures, and features an integrated compliance-grade metadata shredder designed to completely purge filesystem-level traces.

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Features

1. Zero-Byte Steganographic Storage Engine

• Zstandard Pre-Compression (Level 19): Before chunking, the target file is compressed in-place using ZStandard at the highest standard compression level (19). This minimizes storage overhead, significantly reduces the final chunk count, and optimizes the metadata footprint.
• Metadata-Only Data Persistence: Packs compressed segments entirely into filenames inside a target folder. The generated files contain 0 bytes of content, utilizing filesystem directory structures rather than raw block allocations.
  • Filesystem Footprint: Offloads file storage from physical disk data blocks into directory entry tables (such as Ext4 directory index blocks, NTFS Index Records, or APFS directory trees), achieving zero-block data allocation per chunk.
• Sequential Ordering Preservation: Automatically embeds masked index keys into filename prefixes, enabling parallel scanning and deterministic reconstruction of the compressed byte stream.

2. Cryptographic Core, AEAD, & Decoy Injection

• Domain-Separated Argon2 Key Derivation: Implements memory-hard RFC 9106 Argon2-based key derivation to derive two distinct 256-bit symmetric keys using independent cryptographic salts:
  • Data Key (K_data): Derived from the user's secret passphrase to encrypt chunk data.
  • Metadata Key (K_meta): Derived from the separate user-provided seed string to generate the 64-bit Feistel indexing seed.
• Custom 64-bit Feistel Cipher: Obfuscates chunk sequence indices through a custom 4-round Feistel-like network, preventing pattern detection or sequence analysis on directory listings.
  • Round Function Execution: Implements a non-linear mixing function: $$f(r, k) = ((r \oplus k) \times \text{0x27d4eb2d}) \oplus (r \gg 15)$$ with deterministic round keys scheduled from the Argon2-derived 64-bit metadata seed.
• ChaCha20-Poly1305 AEAD Engine: Encrypts 50-byte compressed chunks in-place using ChaCha20-Poly1305 authenticated encryption. Each block receives:
  • Confidentiality: Via ChaCha20 stream encryption.
  • Integrity & Authenticity: Via a 16-byte Poly1305 MAC tag appended to the ciphertext.
  • Deterministic Nonce Derivation: The 12-byte initialization vector (nonce) is derived deterministically from the block index, guaranteeing that every block uses a unique nonce under the same key: $$S_{chunk} = \text{Seed} \oplus \text{Index}$$
• Indistinguishable Decoy (Fake) Block Injection: Generates a randomized number of decoy files (between 1x and 2x the genuine chunk count) alongside the real files.
  • Stealth Alignment: Decoy filenames match the exact layout of genuine files (16 hex characters for the index + 132 hex characters representing a 50-byte chunk and 16-byte MAC tag).
  • Silent Filtering: During unpacking, fake files are isolated. Decrypting a fake filename's index yields a random out-of-bounds index value: $$\text{Index} \ge \text{Directory File Count}$$ If a decoy index lands in-bounds by statistical anomaly, its Poly1305 MAC verification fails. In both cases, decoys are silently ignored during reconstruction.

3. Progressive File-Metadata Shredder Engine (GNU-Shred Compliance)

• Multi-Pass Directory-Entry Saturation (DES): Overwrites directory-resident filenames in-place with randomized alphanumeric sequences of identical length, neutralizing original filename signatures on disk.
  • In-Place Scrambling: Replaces filename record allocations N times with high-entropy alphanumeric noise, ensuring previous names cannot be retrieved via filesystem journal carving or undelete forensics.
• Zero-Fill Obfuscation (-z): Appends an optional final pass that overwrites all filename entries with homogeneous '0' character strings.
  • Pattern Obfuscation: Masks high-entropy random name patterns with uniform sequences, leaving directory index tables populated with innocent-looking zeroed metadata slots.
• Logarithmic Name Contraction & Unlinking (-u): Progressively halves the character length of renamed filenames before executing the final file unlink (rm) system call.
  • Slack Space Elimination: Successively shrinks filenames to force the filesystem to actively clear and overwrite trailing index record slack spaces: $$\text{Length}(N_{k+1}) = \lfloor \text{Length}(N_k) / 2 \rfloor$$

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Quick Start (One-Liner)

pkg update -y && pkg install -y git clang make && if ! command -v v >/dev/null 2>&1; then git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v && cd v && make && ./v symlink && cd ..; fi && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/tailsmails/newfolder && cd newfolder && v -prod newfolder.v -o newfolder && ln -sf $(pwd)/newfolder $PREFIX/bin/newfolder

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Usage

1. Packing a File

Compresses and packs a file into a target directory containing empty, zero-byte metadata files mixed with decoy files.

newfolder pack <input_file_or_-> <output_dir> <passphrase> <seed> [argon2 options]

2. Unpacking a File

Reconstructs, authenticates, and decompresses the original binary file from the empty metadata files inside the target directory.

newfolder unpack <input_dir> <output_file_or_-> <passphrase> <seed> [argon2 options]

Argon2 Options (for pack/unpack):

• -t <time>: Sets the Argon2 time cost / iterations (default: 3).
• -m <memory>: Sets the Argon2 memory cost in KiB (default: 65536, which is 64MB).
• -p <threads>: Sets the Argon2 parallelism / degree of threads (default: 4).
• -salt <salt>: Custom salt string for Argon2 key derivation (default: "default_salt_value_123").

3. Secure Metadata Shredding

Shreds filenames recursively using multi-pass random overwrites, zero-fills, and unlinking.

newfolder shred <target_dir> [options]

Shred Options:

• -n <passes>: Sets the number of random overwrite iterations (default: 3).
• -z: Appends a final pass overwriting filenames with '0' blocks.
• -u: Activates progressive name-shrinking and unlinks the files (and parent directory) after shredding.
• -v: Verbose mode (displays step-by-step progress).

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Technical Examples

Packing and Unpacking Sequence (Default Mode)

# 1. Obfuscate file into zero-byte filename structures with decoy files using default Argon2 parameters
newfolder pack backup.zip ./vault "secure_pass_99" "my_metadata_seed_phrase"

# 2. Reassemble and verify directory metadata back into the original archive
newfolder unpack ./vault restored_backup.zip "secure_pass_99" "my_metadata_seed_phrase"

Packing and Unpacking Sequence (Custom Argon2 Strength)

To customize memory allocation (e.g., 128MB), passes, parallelism, and salt:

# 1. Pack with 4 iterations, 128MB RAM, 2 threads, and custom salt
newfolder pack backup.zip ./vault "secure_pass_99" "my_metadata_seed_phrase" -t 4 -m 131072 -p 2 -salt "mysupersecretsalt"

# 2. Unpack (you must provide identical parameters to derive the matching keys)
newfolder unpack ./vault restored_backup.zip "secure_pass_99" "my_metadata_seed_phrase" -t 4 -m 131072 -p 2 -salt "mysupersecretsalt"

Advanced Directory Shredding Configuration

# Shred directory entries with 5 random passes, a final zero pass, 
# name contraction, and final file deletion with real-time logs:
newfolder shred ./vault -n 5 -z -u -v

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Cryptography & Metadata Destruction Model

1. Dual-Key Derivation Pipeline:

   $$\text{Passphrase} + \text{Salt-data} \to K_{data} \quad \text{(256-bit Data Key)}$$ $$\text{Seed String} + \text{Salt-metadata} \to K_{meta} \quad \text{(256-bit Metadata Key)} \to \text{64-bit Feistel Seed}$$

2. Block Transition Map:

   $$\text{Physical File} \to \text{Zstd L19} \to \text{Compressed Payload} \to \text{Chunks} \to \text{Encryption (ChaCha20-Poly1305)} \to \text{OS Directory Entry}$$

3. Entropy Alignment (Real vs. Decoys):

   $$\text{Directory Output} = \{\text{Real Blocks}\} \cup \{\text{Decoy Blocks}\}$$

4. Metadata Overwrite Formula: Each directory-resident filename N of original length L is overwritten with random bytes from the alphanumeric charset Σ for J iterations:

   $$N_{j} \in \Sigma^L \quad \text{for } j \in [1, \text{passes}]$$

5. Destruction Cycle: If the -u parameter is enabled, the filename namespace is shrunk and unlinked:

   $$\text{Random Scramble} \to \text{Zero-Fill } [0^L] \to \text{Logarithmic Contraction} \to \text{System Unlink (rm)}$$

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License