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Show HN: F-Lock – Securely store and share your data on the cloud

2 points by gkellaris 9y ago

Hello HN, We are F-Lock, a new company that offers the first truly secure way to store your private data. Existing solutions cannot prevent the leakage of private information due to the way you access your encrypted files. F-Lock hides all the these patterns by utilizing strong cryptographic methods never used before. Using F-Lock you can securely store files and databases in the cloud, while retaining search and retrieval functionality. We further support encrypted file sharing, with each user being able to verify the true identity of the recipient (for the first time). Check our video at http://bit.ly/2uuXTec http://bit.ly/2uuXTec and our website at http://f-lock.ca/ http://f-lock.ca/, and let us know what you think. Which services would you use the most? Thank you very much for the feedback! The F-Lock team

technion 9y ago
Is there any technical information available? There are a number of references to competitors using "weak" cryptography but this would make more sense if you can explain why your solution is stronger. Am I reading correctly that the only interaction I can make at this time is to sign up to a newsletter?
- gkellaris 9y ago
  Hello technion, thank you for your feedback! At this time the website just presents the main ideas and you can only sign up to the newsletter. Regarding the tech behind our idea compared to the competitors, current solutions utilize Order (or property) Preserving Encryption or offer semantic security. This means that everything is encrypted once and uploaded to the cloud. Then, local indices help you retrieve the correct encrypted data. These approaches reveal the pattern of accesses (the frequency each encrypted file is accessed, if some encrypted files are accessed always together, and how many encrypted files are returned each time). It is proven that this information is enough for the cloud provider or anyone listening to the communication channel to infer the exact index information. The more attributes are indexed, the more information about your files/database rows is inferred and potentially, an adversary can reconstruct all your data without even breaking the encryption. There are strong cryptographic techniques solving this problem by essentially re-encrypting some of the files each time you retrieve data (e.g., ORAM), but they were deemed non practical. F-Lock uses the latest advances in the field of ORAM and Differential Privacy in order to overcome any potential attacks, while retaining the practicality of the solution. Sorry for the long reply! We hope this information is helpful. The F-Lock team

2 points by gkellaris 9y ago

technion 9y ago

Is there any technical information available? There are a number of references to competitors using "weak" cryptography but this would make more sense if you can explain why your solution is stronger. Am I reading correctly that the only interaction I can make at this time is to sign up to a newsletter?

gkellaris 9y ago
Hello technion, thank you for your feedback! At this time the website just presents the main ideas and you can only sign up to the newsletter. Regarding the tech behind our idea compared to the competitors, current solutions utilize Order (or property) Preserving Encryption or offer semantic security. This means that everything is encrypted once and uploaded to the cloud. Then, local indices help you retrieve the correct encrypted data. These approaches reveal the pattern of accesses (the frequency each encrypted file is accessed, if some encrypted files are accessed always together, and how many encrypted files are returned each time). It is proven that this information is enough for the cloud provider or anyone listening to the communication channel to infer the exact index information. The more attributes are indexed, the more information about your files/database rows is inferred and potentially, an adversary can reconstruct all your data without even breaking the encryption. There are strong cryptographic techniques solving this problem by essentially re-encrypting some of the files each time you retrieve data (e.g., ORAM), but they were deemed non practical. F-Lock uses the latest advances in the field of ORAM and Differential Privacy in order to overcome any potential attacks, while retaining the practicality of the solution. Sorry for the long reply! We hope this information is helpful. The F-Lock team