In /home// are, among others, the following entries. Can anyone tell me what these ”unknown” file types are? Are they legitimate?
.ICEauthority 2.4kB unknown
.profile 675 bytes plain text document
.pulse-cookie 256 bytes unknown
.Xauthority 48 bytes unknown
.xsession-errors 28.5 kB plain text document
.xsession-errors.old 7.9 kB backup file
The file .Xauthority
contains a single line of meaningless (to me) letters and symbols.
The file .pulse-cookie
contains characters like the following in gedit, most of them highlighted in red:
\EC\BD\C8\D5\ED\C2\EC\AF#\B6v\EE\83\F7\C2\C8vnr\EA
.ICEauthority
contains mostly readable phrases, almost all like these, and mostly highlighted in red:
unix/Pax:/tmp/.ICE-unix/1494\00#MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-\00
local/Pax:@/tmp/.ICE-unix/1494\00#MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1\00
What is the difference between the paths shown in these 2 lines? And specifically, what does the @ symbol mean in this example?
I have read that these files have a security function, and that is why I am concerned. I am new to Ubuntu and don't know whether “unknown” file type is as ominous in Ubuntu as it is in Windows. My computer is not networked to any other, and was not attached to the Internet when these files were created.
Are these “unknown” files any indication of intrusion or hijack of my system? Anything I should worry about?