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Tarsnap provides exactly the sort of service you're referring to, where they only store encrypted data and don't have a copy of the key. I'm a big fan of that

by kwis 15y ago

Tarsnap provides exactly the sort of service you're referring to, where they only store encrypted data and don't have a copy of the key. I'm a big fan of that architecture, if only because it greatly reduces the payoff of a successful attack. When everything is stored unencrypted (or with a common master key), there's an absolutely massive payoff for the hacker who breaches the security.

shin_lao 15y ago
Tarsnap is great and its author knows what he's doing but dropbox is many UA ahead in terms of useability and platform interoperability. Dropbox is incredibly easy to use, that's where its power comes from. It's "secure enough" for casual use. Additionally I believe you can't share data between users with tarsnap. There is a market opportunity for a corporate-level secure data exchange infrastructure.
- randombit 15y ago
  Tahoe-LAFS provides a storage service that is encrypted by the client, but the original uploader of the data is still able to delegate read-only or read-write access to others on a per-file or per-directory basis. The overall design, including how it is possible to do secure delegation, is fairly well described in a paper from the 'Storage Security and Survivability 2008' workshop - http://tahoe-lafs.org/~zooko/lafs.pdf http://tahoe-lafs.org/~zooko/lafs.pdf
- w1ntermute 15y ago
  > dropbox is many UA ahead in terms of useability and platform interoperability That's besides the point. Tarsnap is more than useable enough for its target audience, which is why cperciva (rightfully) doesn't give a rat's ass about making it as user-friendly as Dropbox and its ilk. The two issues are completely separate. Implementation of client-side encryption and user-friendliness are not mutually exclusive. Tarsnap is simply proof that client-side encryption is entirely within the realm of possibility for cloud-based data storage services.
  - fluidcruft 15y ago
    Dropbox+ecryptfs is pretty usable, too.

by kwis 15y ago

shin_lao 15y ago

Tarsnap is great and its author knows what he's doing but dropbox is many UA ahead in terms of useability and platform interoperability. Dropbox is incredibly easy to use, that's where its power comes from. It's "secure enough" for casual use. Additionally I believe you can't share data between users with tarsnap. There is a market opportunity for a corporate-level secure data exchange infrastructure.

randombit 15y ago
Tahoe-LAFS provides a storage service that is encrypted by the client, but the original uploader of the data is still able to delegate read-only or read-write access to others on a per-file or per-directory basis. The overall design, including how it is possible to do secure delegation, is fairly well described in a paper from the 'Storage Security and Survivability 2008' workshop - http://tahoe-lafs.org/~zooko/lafs.pdf http://tahoe-lafs.org/~zooko/lafs.pdf
w1ntermute 15y ago
> dropbox is many UA ahead in terms of useability and platform interoperability That's besides the point. Tarsnap is more than useable enough for its target audience, which is why cperciva (rightfully) doesn't give a rat's ass about making it as user-friendly as Dropbox and its ilk. The two issues are completely separate. Implementation of client-side encryption and user-friendliness are not mutually exclusive. Tarsnap is simply proof that client-side encryption is entirely within the realm of possibility for cloud-based data storage services.
- fluidcruft 15y ago
  Dropbox+ecryptfs is pretty usable, too.