3 ms·

Interesting idea, but this worries me: When you sign up for Space Monkey, you get a physical networked hard disk with 1TB of storage free for you to use. It's

Interesting idea, but this worries me: When you sign up for Space Monkey, you get a physical networked hard disk with 1TB of storage free for you to use. It's actually a 2TB drive; the rest gets used by other people on the system. So 1TB is filled with other people's data? What about security? Dropbox had a simple security issue that potentially leaked all users' data. But now, the data is on your drive. You could mirror the drive ('dd') and try to break into other user's information without anyone suspecting anything. Or what happens if someone stores child pr0n on SpaceMonkey, and it gets mirrored to your drive? Legally, are you now on the hook for possessing the information since it's on your device?

tomstokes 15y ago
Good question. The Space Monkey software mitigates these issues in two ways: First, all data is carefully encrypted before it ever leaves the user's Space Monkey device for replication across the network. This is obviously a key concern for all of our potential customers, so a lot of time has been spent getting this part right. Second, the system breaks each file into many small blocks with built-in parity and other such redundancy measures. These blocks are then spread across many devices to both increase redundancy of the network and distribute the bandwidth usage fairly across nodes. As a result, you wouldn't really ever store any identifiable data from any one other customer. Therefore, if the government wanted to seize evidence, they would gain nothing useful by seizing any Space Monkey device other than the suspect's, which contains the local cache of the user's own data.
the_paul 15y ago
This is one of the most straightforward possible applications for cryptography in data storage- no worries about key negotiation or cipher negotiation or PKI infrastructures. And yes, they're encrypting your data before sending it anywhere- that's pretty explicitly mentioned everywhere the service is explained. So, if you're asking whether you're legally liable for the content of data on your hard drive which you have no possibility of decrypting, um, the answer is "no".
- kijin 15y ago
  Depending on the jurisdiction, you might still be liable for other people's encrypted data stored in your property. Whether anyone can prove that you have any particular piece of incriminating data is a different story of course, but law enforcement agencies in certain countries have a nasty tendency to skip proofs.
  - the_paul 15y ago
    I submit that you're probably screwed anyway in those countries and/or jurisdictions, whether or not you have someone else's unreadable contraband. :) In fact, here's an exercise. The following data represents a base64-encoded encrypted image: qipN5pKHq+CCBm+yfHz0Y/NmkLd+1GjuowopHYWs3qjo6wuPsrulOBZJUXGt tsc465cM9p2qUZvKYxt/5M+2+zkjdbNMi447cLY4KUw3Xb934KDkyrviZYkh gryO3C5cPw0ZVitr/6e3pyQiEGga4SwbskCQhMw7XlqDYJowpCs/Qsh8ZQiR 2/+zQ/CGhYfU37dIQYVzqPCM7y5DHcDePGvzx2BCzu8OQThLnMWGiz5kODzY 49zrfoTQg8W0NKIC7rD529CnPVyfQok+u8L8LGqZSbOh2CUygWIF3mjmTGtd EnUBrkI49aVjeEa9/anCUw2nBRbmWWZZ5p1bvDYHGkEtlaFTJrSfVnuejBa1 NqNdMFIU6qAlpJ75Js8O2+jNi+qbVE/JUjYFtB45mf0B/E4GXbBcjg/gWhSi LvTOX7P8+HDMhg8jB2nnJ2Yf3l2CPopjKczWGZMUu3P8jamdp2kv67q0kIrE xGc3sr8r8R78StuQUVpp+5SexykhDOMQGowdBQ2yLYtRtoNDlWm47x7agM8i YP70n4wLhwZ03JH+2WmmVLVx2Yk4AZIU4t7XfdaoYaC33U58QeSaBJ4fdsJO PBp1L559jJTRrBk996gLN7V0oQSRMCWF67KezK3Bk2a07vzxjiXfwJOB5BDl ooSvoTdu5Slv9C+aIoa4ade7r7umC8Ac84XCfBY/UlmWIq0VogXuzOzZ2WkX 0uUpCnz2WX3rShKFFd8w9HhoxsOaR2S3sFbL7foqpx9SXYYjpM2vJHpEjMFQ W7Xmqlvb/2m1aUB2f6qFmqKPjo5/zIAOl90YDoDaQSin9C9/X6WRydHHcu1/ mrjo5LSdfouqOwVXMDnh95/YPvSGdO8GP35pRKUceidM4oYyQCRYGb3xKn0O TP/jKy3MXz/CeZsbxQtobq1DlC6NVVp5UifQM72ufdI5xcqObQSECFXKTTtt FuGdg+ZQ/0yLQ6WQde1B44LJML0MWIYPjrO74tOiCn4VZEsC9lakMMJZ2Qyp M1BRsh7xeQ0eVMOCEe5+yDV45uvchoGyAZsr2qTcgqTCKm4U9r1PUqBjWUjS AkVE3uIHjwL7D+gDvRuvNk4PdHpUX0p+oLp2ATmcR+TmhSNL8UEuAAw1ajgH SlhtS/BdXWkC5SFbfp6Dvt+WD+/2CwAZGgImAWXPv0YM+za80Q99au4NPR+L +KQW2wjChNkEKau9Jq5uGf36Vnt08dxVRoWzsWcPHmlFquXQrsBVsbe2Yu6v EfTAwaxFUB1kgLdTWJlxObfiBtzwf855yIggNcJZ9b/e9k6NpdJbCBYQJElf RN5qYGh4A6ASpZgZa86e2nPHvIJprm7IN9uqiI2EP9fPQp+zLorNKwxnZkv7 W//D28p0Wy5tS5F5p2ee7QI= Is it pr0n? Is it an image of US gov't classified data? Is it hate speech? Who knows, but now it's on your computer. There are a lot of other ways someone could get data onto your computer without you knowing if it has a particular meaning.

tomstokes 15y ago

Good question. The Space Monkey software mitigates these issues in two ways: First, all data is carefully encrypted before it ever leaves the user's Space Monkey device for replication across the network. This is obviously a key concern for all of our potential customers, so a lot of time has been spent getting this part right. Second, the system breaks each file into many small blocks with built-in parity and other such redundancy measures. These blocks are then spread across many devices to both increase redundancy of the network and distribute the bandwidth usage fairly across nodes. As a result, you wouldn't really ever store any identifiable data from any one other customer. Therefore, if the government wanted to seize evidence, they would gain nothing useful by seizing any Space Monkey device other than the suspect's, which contains the local cache of the user's own data.

the_paul 15y ago

This is one of the most straightforward possible applications for cryptography in data storage- no worries about key negotiation or cipher negotiation or PKI infrastructures. And yes, they're encrypting your data before sending it anywhere- that's pretty explicitly mentioned everywhere the service is explained. So, if you're asking whether you're legally liable for the content of data on your hard drive which you have no possibility of decrypting, um, the answer is "no".

kijin 15y ago
Depending on the jurisdiction, you might still be liable for other people's encrypted data stored in your property. Whether anyone can prove that you have any particular piece of incriminating data is a different story of course, but law enforcement agencies in certain countries have a nasty tendency to skip proofs.
- the_paul 15y ago
  I submit that you're probably screwed anyway in those countries and/or jurisdictions, whether or not you have someone else's unreadable contraband. :) In fact, here's an exercise. The following data represents a base64-encoded encrypted image: qipN5pKHq+CCBm+yfHz0Y/NmkLd+1GjuowopHYWs3qjo6wuPsrulOBZJUXGt tsc465cM9p2qUZvKYxt/5M+2+zkjdbNMi447cLY4KUw3Xb934KDkyrviZYkh gryO3C5cPw0ZVitr/6e3pyQiEGga4SwbskCQhMw7XlqDYJowpCs/Qsh8ZQiR 2/+zQ/CGhYfU37dIQYVzqPCM7y5DHcDePGvzx2BCzu8OQThLnMWGiz5kODzY 49zrfoTQg8W0NKIC7rD529CnPVyfQok+u8L8LGqZSbOh2CUygWIF3mjmTGtd EnUBrkI49aVjeEa9/anCUw2nBRbmWWZZ5p1bvDYHGkEtlaFTJrSfVnuejBa1 NqNdMFIU6qAlpJ75Js8O2+jNi+qbVE/JUjYFtB45mf0B/E4GXbBcjg/gWhSi LvTOX7P8+HDMhg8jB2nnJ2Yf3l2CPopjKczWGZMUu3P8jamdp2kv67q0kIrE xGc3sr8r8R78StuQUVpp+5SexykhDOMQGowdBQ2yLYtRtoNDlWm47x7agM8i YP70n4wLhwZ03JH+2WmmVLVx2Yk4AZIU4t7XfdaoYaC33U58QeSaBJ4fdsJO PBp1L559jJTRrBk996gLN7V0oQSRMCWF67KezK3Bk2a07vzxjiXfwJOB5BDl ooSvoTdu5Slv9C+aIoa4ade7r7umC8Ac84XCfBY/UlmWIq0VogXuzOzZ2WkX 0uUpCnz2WX3rShKFFd8w9HhoxsOaR2S3sFbL7foqpx9SXYYjpM2vJHpEjMFQ W7Xmqlvb/2m1aUB2f6qFmqKPjo5/zIAOl90YDoDaQSin9C9/X6WRydHHcu1/ mrjo5LSdfouqOwVXMDnh95/YPvSGdO8GP35pRKUceidM4oYyQCRYGb3xKn0O TP/jKy3MXz/CeZsbxQtobq1DlC6NVVp5UifQM72ufdI5xcqObQSECFXKTTtt FuGdg+ZQ/0yLQ6WQde1B44LJML0MWIYPjrO74tOiCn4VZEsC9lakMMJZ2Qyp M1BRsh7xeQ0eVMOCEe5+yDV45uvchoGyAZsr2qTcgqTCKm4U9r1PUqBjWUjS AkVE3uIHjwL7D+gDvRuvNk4PdHpUX0p+oLp2ATmcR+TmhSNL8UEuAAw1ajgH SlhtS/BdXWkC5SFbfp6Dvt+WD+/2CwAZGgImAWXPv0YM+za80Q99au4NPR+L +KQW2wjChNkEKau9Jq5uGf36Vnt08dxVRoWzsWcPHmlFquXQrsBVsbe2Yu6v EfTAwaxFUB1kgLdTWJlxObfiBtzwf855yIggNcJZ9b/e9k6NpdJbCBYQJElf RN5qYGh4A6ASpZgZa86e2nPHvIJprm7IN9uqiI2EP9fPQp+zLorNKwxnZkv7 W//D28p0Wy5tS5F5p2ee7QI= Is it pr0n? Is it an image of US gov't classified data? Is it hate speech? Who knows, but now it's on your computer. There are a lot of other ways someone could get data onto your computer without you knowing if it has a particular meaning.