6 ms·

Why not? If the region is in country, encrypted, and with proven security attestations validated by third parties, a backup to a cloud storage would be incredib

by stogot 1y ago

Why not? If the region is in country, encrypted, and with proven security attestations validated by third parties, a backup to a cloud storage would be incredibly wise. Otherwise we might end up reading an article about a fire burning down a single data center

g-b-r 1y ago
And which organization has every file, from each of their applications using the cloud, encrypted *before* it is sent to the cloud?
- exe34 1y ago
  They're talking about backups. you can absolutely send an updated copy every night.
  - g-b-r 1y ago
    True, the user I was replying to only mentioned backups. For those there's sure no problem
crazygringo 1y ago
Exactly. Like, don't store it in the cloud of an enemy country of course. But if it's encrypted and you're keeping a live backup in a second country with a second company, ideally with a different geopolitical alignment, I don't see the problem.
- OvbiousError 1y ago
  Enemy country in the current geopolitical climate is an interesting take. Doesn't sound like a great idea to me tbh.
  - deaddodo 1y ago
    There are a lot of gray relations out there, but there’s almost no way you could morph the current US/SK relations to one of hostility; beyond a negligible minority of citizens in either being super vocal for some perceived slights.
    - 9dev 1y ago
      Trump will find a way, just as he did with Canada for example (i mean, Canada of all places). Things are way more in flux than they used to be. There’s no stability anymore.
    - shantara 1y ago
      A year ago, I would have easily claimed the same thing about Denmark.
      - throwaway2037 1y ago
        I don't follow. Can you share more context?
        marcosdumay 1y ago
        The US is threatening to invade Greenland, what means active war with Denmark.
        throwaway2037 1y ago
        Great point! I forgot that Greenland is not (yet) an independent nation. It is still a part of Denmark.
        smcin 1y ago
        The current US admin's threats to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
    - gitremote 1y ago
      You think when ICE arrested over 300 South Korean citizens who were setting up a Georgia Hyundai plant and subjected them to alleged human rights abuses, it was only a perceived slight? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/south-korea-human-rights-investigation-immigration-raid_n_68c85eb6e4b0bf99dd245b18 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/south-korea-human-rights-inve... How Trump’s ICE Raid Triggered Nationwide Outrage in South Korea https://www.newsweek.com/trump-ice-raid-hyundai-outrage-south-korea-2126752 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-ice-raid-hyundai-outrage-sout... 'The raid "will do lasting damage to America's credibility," John Delury, a senior fellow at the Asia Society think tank, told Bloomberg. "How can a government that treats Koreans this way be relied upon as an 'ironclad' ally in a crisis?"'
- t-3 1y ago
  From the perspective of securing your data, what's the practical difference between a second country and an enemy country? None. Even if it's encrypted data, all encryption can be broken, and so we must assume it will be broken. Sensitive data shouldn't touch outside systems, period, no matter what encryption.
  - Avamander 1y ago
    Any even remotely proper symmetric encryption scheme "can be broken" but only if you have a theoretical adversary with nearly infinite power and time, which is in practice absolutely utterly impossible. I'm sure cryptographers would love to know what makes it possible for you to assume that say AES-256 or AES-512 can be broken in practice for you to include it in your risk assessment.
    - 9dev 1y ago
      You’re assuming we don’t get better at building faster computers and decryption techniques. If an adversary gets hold of your encrypted data now, they can just shelf it until cracking becomes eventually possible in a few decades. And as we’re talking about literal state secrets here, they may very well still be valuable by then.
      - stavros 1y ago
        Barring any theoretical breakthroughs, AES can't be broken any time soon even if you turned every atom in the universe into a computer and had them all cracking all the time. There was a paper that does the math.
      - Avamander 1y ago
        You make an incorrect assumption about my assumptions. Faster computers or decryption techniques will never fundamentally "break" symmetric encryption. There's no discrete logarithm or factorization problem to speed up. Someone might find ways to make for example AES key recovery somewhat faster, but the margin of safety in those cases is still incredibly vast. In the end there's such an unfathomably vast key space to search through.
- manquer 1y ago
  The problem is money, you are seeing the local storage decision under the lens of security, that is not the real reason for this type of decision. While it may have been sold that way, reality is more likely the local DC companies just lobbied for it to be kept local and cut as many corners as they needed. Both the fire and architecture show they did cut deeply. Now why would a local company voluntary cut down its share of the pie by suggesting to backup store in a foreign country. They are going to suggest keep in country or worse as was done here literally the same facility and save/make even more ! The civil service would also prefer everything local either for nationalistic /economic reasons or if corrupt then for all kick backs each step of the way, first for the contract, next for the building permits, utilities and so on.
- vkou 1y ago
  A country can become an adversary faster than a government can migrate away from it.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    Hence a backup country. I already covered that. But while countries go from unfriendly to attacking you overnight, they don't generally go from friendly to attacking you overnight.
    - vkou 1y ago
      Overnight, Canada went from being an ally of the US to being threatened by annexation (and target #1 of an economic war). If the US wants its state-puppet corporations to be used for integral infrastructure by foreign governments, it's going to need to provide some better legal assurances than 'trust me bro'. (Some laws on the books, and a congress and a SCOTUS that has demonstrated a willingness to enforce those laws against a rogue executive would be a good start.)
shakna 1y ago
Microsoft has already testified that the American government maintains access to their data centres, in all regions. It likely applies to all American cloud companies. America is not a stable ally, and has a history of spying on friends. So unless the whole of your backup is encrypted offline, and you trust the NSA to never break the encryption you chose, its a national security risk.
- bink 1y ago
  Not only does the NSA break encryption but they actually sabotage algorithms to make them easier to break when used.
  - edoceo 1y ago
    Can the NSA break the Ed25519 stuff? Like the crypto_box from libsodium?
    - immibis 1y ago
      ed25519 (and ec25519) are generally understood not to be backdoored by the NSA, or weak in any known sense. The lack of a backdoor can be proven by choosing parameters according to straightforward reasons that do not allow the possibility for the chooser to insert a backdoor. The curve25519 parameters have good reasons why they are chosen. By contrast, Dual_EC_DRBG contains two random-looking numbers, which the NSA pinky-swears were completely random, but actually they generated them using a private key that only the NSA knows. Since the NSA got to choose any numbers to fit there, they could do that. When something is, like, "the greatest prime number less than 2^255" you can't just insert the public key of your private key into that slot because the chance the NSA can generate a private key whose public key just happens to match the greatest prime number less than 2^255 is zero. These are called "nothing up my sleeve numbers". This doesn't prove the algorithm isn't just plain old weak, but nobody's been able to break it, either. Or find any reason why it would be breakable. Elliptic curves being unbreakable rests on the discrete logarithm of a random-looking permutation being impossible to efficiently solve, in a similar way to how RSA being unbreakable relies on nobody being able to efficiently factorize very big numbers. The best known algorithms for solving discrete logarithm require O(sqrt(n)) time, so you get half the bits of security as the length of the numbers involved; a 256-bit curve offers 128 bits of security, which is generally considered sufficient. (Unlike RSA, you can't just arbitrarily increase the bit length but have to choose a completely new curve for each bit length, unfortunately. ed25519 will always be 255 bits, and if a different length is needed, it'll be similar but called something else. On the other hand, that makes it very easy to standardize.)

by stogot 1y ago

g-b-r 1y ago

And which organization has every file, from each of their applications using the cloud, encrypted *before* it is sent to the cloud?

exe34 1y ago
They're talking about backups. you can absolutely send an updated copy every night.
- g-b-r 1y ago
  True, the user I was replying to only mentioned backups. For those there's sure no problem

crazygringo 1y ago

Exactly. Like, don't store it in the cloud of an enemy country of course. But if it's encrypted and you're keeping a live backup in a second country with a second company, ideally with a different geopolitical alignment, I don't see the problem.

OvbiousError 1y ago
Enemy country in the current geopolitical climate is an interesting take. Doesn't sound like a great idea to me tbh.
- deaddodo 1y ago
  There are a lot of gray relations out there, but there’s almost no way you could morph the current US/SK relations to one of hostility; beyond a negligible minority of citizens in either being super vocal for some perceived slights.
  - 9dev 1y ago
    Trump will find a way, just as he did with Canada for example (i mean, Canada of all places). Things are way more in flux than they used to be. There’s no stability anymore.
  - shantara 1y ago
    A year ago, I would have easily claimed the same thing about Denmark.
    - throwaway2037 1y ago
      I don't follow. Can you share more context?
      - marcosdumay 1y ago
        The US is threatening to invade Greenland, what means active war with Denmark.
        throwaway2037 1y ago
        Great point! I forgot that Greenland is not (yet) an independent nation. It is still a part of Denmark.
      - smcin 1y ago
        The current US admin's threats to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
  - gitremote 1y ago
    You think when ICE arrested over 300 South Korean citizens who were setting up a Georgia Hyundai plant and subjected them to alleged human rights abuses, it was only a perceived slight? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/south-korea-human-rights-investigation-immigration-raid_n_68c85eb6e4b0bf99dd245b18 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/south-korea-human-rights-inve... How Trump’s ICE Raid Triggered Nationwide Outrage in South Korea https://www.newsweek.com/trump-ice-raid-hyundai-outrage-south-korea-2126752 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-ice-raid-hyundai-outrage-sout... 'The raid "will do lasting damage to America's credibility," John Delury, a senior fellow at the Asia Society think tank, told Bloomberg. "How can a government that treats Koreans this way be relied upon as an 'ironclad' ally in a crisis?"'
t-3 1y ago
From the perspective of securing your data, what's the practical difference between a second country and an enemy country? None. Even if it's encrypted data, all encryption can be broken, and so we must assume it will be broken. Sensitive data shouldn't touch outside systems, period, no matter what encryption.
- Avamander 1y ago
  Any even remotely proper symmetric encryption scheme "can be broken" but only if you have a theoretical adversary with nearly infinite power and time, which is in practice absolutely utterly impossible. I'm sure cryptographers would love to know what makes it possible for you to assume that say AES-256 or AES-512 can be broken in practice for you to include it in your risk assessment.
  - 9dev 1y ago
    You’re assuming we don’t get better at building faster computers and decryption techniques. If an adversary gets hold of your encrypted data now, they can just shelf it until cracking becomes eventually possible in a few decades. And as we’re talking about literal state secrets here, they may very well still be valuable by then.
    - stavros 1y ago
      Barring any theoretical breakthroughs, AES can't be broken any time soon even if you turned every atom in the universe into a computer and had them all cracking all the time. There was a paper that does the math.
    - Avamander 1y ago
      You make an incorrect assumption about my assumptions. Faster computers or decryption techniques will never fundamentally "break" symmetric encryption. There's no discrete logarithm or factorization problem to speed up. Someone might find ways to make for example AES key recovery somewhat faster, but the margin of safety in those cases is still incredibly vast. In the end there's such an unfathomably vast key space to search through.
manquer 1y ago
The problem is money, you are seeing the local storage decision under the lens of security, that is not the real reason for this type of decision. While it may have been sold that way, reality is more likely the local DC companies just lobbied for it to be kept local and cut as many corners as they needed. Both the fire and architecture show they did cut deeply. Now why would a local company voluntary cut down its share of the pie by suggesting to backup store in a foreign country. They are going to suggest keep in country or worse as was done here literally the same facility and save/make even more ! The civil service would also prefer everything local either for nationalistic /economic reasons or if corrupt then for all kick backs each step of the way, first for the contract, next for the building permits, utilities and so on.
vkou 1y ago
A country can become an adversary faster than a government can migrate away from it.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  Hence a backup country. I already covered that. But while countries go from unfriendly to attacking you overnight, they don't generally go from friendly to attacking you overnight.
  - vkou 1y ago
    Overnight, Canada went from being an ally of the US to being threatened by annexation (and target #1 of an economic war). If the US wants its state-puppet corporations to be used for integral infrastructure by foreign governments, it's going to need to provide some better legal assurances than 'trust me bro'. (Some laws on the books, and a congress and a SCOTUS that has demonstrated a willingness to enforce those laws against a rogue executive would be a good start.)

shakna 1y ago

Microsoft has already testified that the American government maintains access to their data centres, in all regions. It likely applies to all American cloud companies. America is not a stable ally, and has a history of spying on friends. So unless the whole of your backup is encrypted offline, and you trust the NSA to never break the encryption you chose, its a national security risk.

bink 1y ago
Not only does the NSA break encryption but they actually sabotage algorithms to make them easier to break when used.
- edoceo 1y ago
  Can the NSA break the Ed25519 stuff? Like the crypto_box from libsodium?
  - immibis 1y ago
    ed25519 (and ec25519) are generally understood not to be backdoored by the NSA, or weak in any known sense. The lack of a backdoor can be proven by choosing parameters according to straightforward reasons that do not allow the possibility for the chooser to insert a backdoor. The curve25519 parameters have good reasons why they are chosen. By contrast, Dual_EC_DRBG contains two random-looking numbers, which the NSA pinky-swears were completely random, but actually they generated them using a private key that only the NSA knows. Since the NSA got to choose any numbers to fit there, they could do that. When something is, like, "the greatest prime number less than 2^255" you can't just insert the public key of your private key into that slot because the chance the NSA can generate a private key whose public key just happens to match the greatest prime number less than 2^255 is zero. These are called "nothing up my sleeve numbers". This doesn't prove the algorithm isn't just plain old weak, but nobody's been able to break it, either. Or find any reason why it would be breakable. Elliptic curves being unbreakable rests on the discrete logarithm of a random-looking permutation being impossible to efficiently solve, in a similar way to how RSA being unbreakable relies on nobody being able to efficiently factorize very big numbers. The best known algorithms for solving discrete logarithm require O(sqrt(n)) time, so you get half the bits of security as the length of the numbers involved; a 256-bit curve offers 128 bits of security, which is generally considered sufficient. (Unlike RSA, you can't just arbitrarily increase the bit length but have to choose a completely new curve for each bit length, unfortunately. ed25519 will always be 255 bits, and if a different length is needed, it'll be similar but called something else. On the other hand, that makes it very easy to standardize.)