3 ms·
Ask HN: How to secure a server without physical control of the hardware?
I've seen a lot of DIY alternatives to GMail, Dropbox, etc. lately (most recently: https://github.com/al3x/sovereign), all focused on the software aspect of replicating those services. However, the most practical way to do this is to spin up a cloud box on EC2 or Rackspace, or a VPS on Linode or Media Temple and install it there.
The problem I have is that for all the effort, you're still keeping your data at a third party, who 1) can be ordered to provide a backdoor to your data, and 2) would invalidate your expectation of privacy by the Third Party Doctrine (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored_Communications_Act).
Short of owning every bit of hardware up to the fiber, is there any way to secure a virtual box such that a service provider could not achieve or grant others access to it?
- wmf 13y agoIn theory, the third party doctrine can be worked around with a contract that says that the data is owned by the customer; that won't help with NSLs, though. Also in theory, trusted computing can be used to prove to the customer that the provider is using a secure hypervisor. There are a lot of technical and business issues making that actually work.
- patio11 13y agois there any way to secure a virtual box such that a service provider could not achieve or grant others access to it? No.
- avifreedman 13y agoA virtual box, no. Or... There are some ideas about how to make it work if you run the hypervisor and want to allow trusted folks to audit that, say, you're not logging or are running specific software. But to do it on 3rd party infrastructure, no. A physical box with some hacks, potentially - though even then there are challenges. https://www.havenco.com https://www.havenco.com is planning to get into that later this year in well-connected collos in the US and EU, with cameras and pluggable USB displays to allow users to verify machine identity. The target is $50/mo per machine and potentially lower (though that may require some kickstarter magic to do a Lima-like low-end hardware with serial console). For super low end, mount local LAFS or encfs+NFS or encfs+fuse+S3 storage, depending on the use case. On top of that though you'd have to set paranoia vs convenience tradeoffs - do you trust a KVM? Want to drive to the machine and do serial console yourself? FOSS KVM or cheap serial console box?
- gulfie 13y agoWe are increasingly finding out that even owning and having physical control over the hardware isn't enough to insure secure a physical device. Google 'BIOS based Advanced persistent threat' and 'Hardware Trojan'. Oh but wait, it gets worse. Even "well thought out" industry standards are horrible security problems waiting to happen. Cypher 0 , who thought this was a good idea? http://fish2.com/ipmi/ http://fish2.com/ipmi/ The solution you are looking for may be known as homomorphic encryption, which is still rather far out in the theoretical place. The horse has been out of the barn so long it has had a good life, grown old and has great grand children playing in the fields.
- avifreedman 13y agoI wonder if there is a sufficient supply of MicroVaxes in the world to do hosting for the geeks who would want it. Paul Vixie has one we were going to put online in Ashburn. On the other hand, the idea there was that the value of the data inside would be low enough that no one would want to bother trying to break in. The larger Vaxes had a scary ability to do overridable microcode (maybe even the smaller ones) so maybe the Vax isn't the best 'classic' platform for this, hmm...
- dholowiski 13y ago1) Power off the server 2) Unplug all of the cables 3) Enclose the server in a lead box 4) Encase the box in concrete Repeat steps 3-4 as necessary 5) Bury the box in a mile-deep hole at the bottom of the Mariana Trench 6) Don't tell anyone where you put the server.