GuardianNode is alpha/developer-preview software for local family deployments. It is designed for parents or guardians monitoring child devices they own or administer. It is not designed for public internet exposure, stealth deployment, employee surveillance, raw keylogging, or credential collection.

Only the latest tagged alpha release receives security fixes. Builds from main are best-effort developer snapshots.

GuardianNode assumes:

• A parent/admin controls the backend machine and dashboard credentials.
• The child-device agent runs on a Windows device the parent is allowed to administer.
• The deployment is all-in-one, on a trusted home LAN, or behind a trusted VPN or reverse proxy.
• The backend is not exposed directly to the public internet.

Security boundaries:

• Parent dashboard access requires admin authentication.
• Child devices authenticate to ingest APIs with device credentials after pairing.
• Retained screenshot blobs and collected event text are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM using the backend master key.
• The backend data directory, key directory, and host OS remain trusted.

Important limitations:

• Separated mode currently uses local-network HTTP unless the operator adds TLS, a VPN such as Tailscale/WireGuard, or a trusted reverse proxy.
• GuardianNode does not encrypt the whole SQLite database in this alpha. App names, window titles, URLs, timestamps, device/profile IDs, child profile fields, risk summaries, snippets, alert notes, audit details, and source IPs remain plaintext metadata in the database or protected backend data directory.
• On new Windows installs the backend master key is wrapped with Windows DPAPI LocalMachine as keys/master.key.dpapi. Linux, macOS, and source deployments outside Windows currently use keys/master.key with restrictive filesystem permissions. Upgraded Windows installs may retain a legacy raw key after generating a DPAPI-wrapped copy.
• The recovery code resets dashboard access only. It does not derive, reconstruct, wrap, or back up the evidence encryption key.
• A determined local Windows administrator can eventually disable or remove any user-space monitoring software.
• Classifier output is not a security boundary and may be wrong.

GuardianNode encrypts retained screenshot blobs and collected event text with AES-256-GCM. On new Windows installations, the 32-byte backend master key is wrapped with Windows DPAPI in LocalMachine scope and stored as keys/master.key.dpapi. On Linux, macOS, and source deployments outside Windows, the current alpha stores keys/master.key with restrictive filesystem permissions. Upgraded Windows installations may retain a legacy raw key after generating a DPAPI-wrapped copy; verify a portable backup before removing the legacy file. DPAPI LocalMachine protects against casual file copying but is not a boundary against a sufficiently privileged process on that machine.

Create and store a portable key backup separately from the database and evidence directory:

cd backend
python -m app.services.encryption export-key-backup /safe/path/guardiannode-master-key-backup.json

Restore it when moving or recovering the backend:

cd backend
python -m app.services.encryption import-key-backup /safe/path/guardiannode-master-key-backup.json

The 12-word recovery code is for parent dashboard account recovery. Losing both the parent password and recovery code can lock you out of the dashboard. Losing the backend master key can make encrypted evidence unrecoverable even if the dashboard password is reset.

Do not open a public GitHub issue for exploitable vulnerabilities or child-data leaks. Please use GitHub's private vulnerability reporting flow if available: Report a vulnerability.

If private reporting is unavailable, open a minimal public issue asking for a private maintainer contact channel. Do not include child screenshots, private messages, raw evidence, secrets, pairing codes, or logs containing personal information in public issues.

Include in private reports:

• A description of the issue and its impact
• Steps to reproduce using synthetic data when possible
• Version, OS, and deployment shape
• Whether the backend was exposed beyond localhost/trusted LAN/VPN
• Whether you have shared the issue elsewhere

The maintainers do not support and do not want contributions that enable:

• Stealth deployment or hidden monitoring
• Employee surveillance
• Raw system-wide keylogging
• Credential theft or password capture
• Public internet exposure without hardening
• Cloud telemetry by default
• Attempts to evade operating-system security controls

• Prefer all-in-one mode for early alpha testing.
• For separated mode, use a trusted LAN or VPN and do not port-forward the backend to the internet.
• Set a strong parent password and store the recovery code offline.
• Back up the backend data directory and create a portable master-key backup if you need evidence recovery.
• Use full-disk encryption on the backend host.
• Use standard, non-admin Windows accounts for children where possible.
• Review docs/SECURE_LAN_SETUP.md before remote access.