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I live in Egypt. we have a country specific server here. I used to download everything from there. but when I got to download encryptfs, synaptic said the package could not be authenticated, so I changed the apt mirror to default ubuntu server and the packages could now be authenticated.

Due to the fact that we live in a country with mass surveillance and no laws to protect privacy or human rights, I have been thinking that maybe backdoors were placed in the unauthenticated package. so I have decided to re-download all the unsigned packages from the main ubuntu server, however this doesn't seem to be addressed anywhere.

So, in this regard, how to re-install packages?

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You can download and reinstall all packages using --reinstall:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall package1 package2 package3

But, make sure you cleared your cache before. Use

sudo apt-get clean

to clean the cache. Because, if a package is present in cache, apt won't re-download it.

Of course, the best way is nuke the system from orbit and start anew to assure the maximun security.

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  • Are you suggesting to reinstall all installed packages? But if there are cached packages, those will not get updated packages
    – Anwar
    Aug 15, 2016 at 12:35
  • @AnwarShah how do you expect the packages to be unmodified? If there's a single hostile package all bets are off.
    – Braiam
    Aug 15, 2016 at 12:43
  • I think, you should also suggest OP to clear the cache before. and a way to generate a list of all installed packages would be nice
    – Anwar
    Aug 15, 2016 at 12:51

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