3 ms·

The same reason people set permissions on their encrypted S3 object blob or you have to login to download any encrypted file from a multitude of applications.

by ahnick 6y ago

The same reason people set permissions on their encrypted S3 object blob or you have to login to download any encrypted file from a multitude of applications. As computing power increases and/or as flaws in encryption implementations are discovered, then what is encrypted today might not stay encrypted decades from now.

neckardt 6y ago
What sort of adversary do you imagine would carry out an attack like that? If you're defending against your own government, they already control the network and could hold on to your S3 network traffic until they can decrypt it. If you're defending against an individual how would they know where to download your file from? I assume the network doesn't broadcast a connection between real life identity and the data you're storing. And if the individual can monitor your physical network, then they can again decrypt the network traffic eventually. If you're defending against the server hosting your content, they would have to host your old data for years past you stopping the service before they could decrypt the content, which would be a massive investment. Finally, do you have reason to believe that our current encryption algorithms will be cracked anytime soon? The last big innovation I heard was SHA-1 generating a hash collision in 2017, but even that took thousands of dollars in compute resources, and SHA-1 was known to be defective for a long time before that. I imagine if we use our best algorithms they'll hold up for quite a while longer.
- ahnick 6y ago
  I assume the network doesn't broadcast a connection between real life identity and the data you're storing. So my understanding is that in the example of a decentralized app that uses Filecoin to store an IPFS object on the network the IPFS object id could be sniffed on the localhost by something like Wireshark. This way an attacker could identify the encrypted objects that are of interest to them and then independently request them from the IPFS network. In terms of threat, I'm primarily thinking of larger criminal organizations that might target things like files containing SSNs, credit history, etc. SHA-1 is an example, but my biggest concern comes from the potential of quantum computing to render what we consider secure today obsolete. (https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/05/30/65724/how-a-quantum-computer-could-break-2048-bit-rsa-encryption-in-8-hours/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/05/30/65724/how-a-quan...)
  - Taek 6y ago
    Quantum computing does not defeat modern encryption, as long as you used an algorithm like AES or Threefish to protect your data, you should be safe from the quantum apocalypse. (Other really important things fail though, like digital signatures and ECDH)

by ahnick 6y ago

neckardt 6y ago

What sort of adversary do you imagine would carry out an attack like that? If you're defending against your own government, they already control the network and could hold on to your S3 network traffic until they can decrypt it. If you're defending against an individual how would they know where to download your file from? I assume the network doesn't broadcast a connection between real life identity and the data you're storing. And if the individual can monitor your physical network, then they can again decrypt the network traffic eventually. If you're defending against the server hosting your content, they would have to host your old data for years past you stopping the service before they could decrypt the content, which would be a massive investment. Finally, do you have reason to believe that our current encryption algorithms will be cracked anytime soon? The last big innovation I heard was SHA-1 generating a hash collision in 2017, but even that took thousands of dollars in compute resources, and SHA-1 was known to be defective for a long time before that. I imagine if we use our best algorithms they'll hold up for quite a while longer.

ahnick 6y ago
I assume the network doesn't broadcast a connection between real life identity and the data you're storing. So my understanding is that in the example of a decentralized app that uses Filecoin to store an IPFS object on the network the IPFS object id could be sniffed on the localhost by something like Wireshark. This way an attacker could identify the encrypted objects that are of interest to them and then independently request them from the IPFS network. In terms of threat, I'm primarily thinking of larger criminal organizations that might target things like files containing SSNs, credit history, etc. SHA-1 is an example, but my biggest concern comes from the potential of quantum computing to render what we consider secure today obsolete. (https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/05/30/65724/how-a-quantum-computer-could-break-2048-bit-rsa-encryption-in-8-hours/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/05/30/65724/how-a-quan...)
- Taek 6y ago
  Quantum computing does not defeat modern encryption, as long as you used an algorithm like AES or Threefish to protect your data, you should be safe from the quantum apocalypse. (Other really important things fail though, like digital signatures and ECDH)