5 ms·

> Security is a concern with these setups, because anyone’s data could be in anyone else’s house at a given time, but Cloud&Heat claims that since all of its da

by sauere 12y ago

> Security is a concern with these setups, because anyone’s data could be in anyone else’s house at a given time, but Cloud&Heat claims that since all of its data is encrypted and only its employees can open the cabinets that everyone’s information is safe. Ladies and Gentlemen, i present: Bullshit. I wish companies with no clue about encryption would stop making these insane claims.

justinsb 12y ago
What is the attack you're envisaging? Presumably they detect unauthorized case-intrusion and immediately delete the keys. This isn't foolproof, but it's probably good enough to stop anyone except the people that are going to get the data no matter what you do.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  They'd need to immediately shut down their server as well (as in immediately, as in crash), and even that's not necessarily enough to remove data from RAM before attackers can get to it.
  - Xylakant 12y ago
    The threat scenario is a bit far fetched. First you'd need to find out where an individual, interesting piece of data is stored. Then you have to break into this building, break open the cabinet and freeze the RAM fast enough to preserve the memory content. That's obviously something that can be done, but it requires a lot of dedication to pull of, so that's something you'd only do in case where you know the data is valuable. It's probably easier to just get an inside job done, but you could get that at any other datacenter or even at AWS. For a lot of data, the payoff is not worth the effort and risk, so I'd be unconcerned. Obviously, don't store bank accounts or medical data there, don't use it for the next NSA datacenter etc.
    - owenmarshall 12y ago
      Or freeze the entire cabinet in situ and pick through the RAM at your leisure. But yeah, you're right - this isn't gonna happen. I'd worry more about a home below floodplain taking on water.
      - Xylakant 12y ago
        Yeah, sure. Nobody would ever notice the truck with the coolant tank in front of the building and the frozen pipes running in ;). Here in Berlin they freeze the ground to make excavations in places with high ground water, that looks the same. To be honest - law enforcement could pull that off. But that's not the threat model that this is supposed to counter.
    - willvarfar 12y ago
      Its not at all far fetched. The very first people to sign up will all be budding security enthusiasts secretly looking forward to their prime time on Chaos Computer Club or BlackHat or whatever where they take apart one of these servers.
      - Xylakant 12y ago
        Cool, free pentesting. If I'd plan such an offer I'd give away units for free to CCC members that want to penetrate it. Maybe even throw in some money.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    >remove data from RAM before attackers can get to it // Seems about the last thing you'd try too. Surely you'd try and catch the data on the wire a long time before you'd even contemplate this sort of scenario. At least then you have the chance to get the whole encrypted file you're after.
ion201 12y ago
Care to elaborate about that? I don't see the security concern if the data is encrypted on disk and both ways over the network. I doubt they would just leave the private keys to hang out on the server for anyone to take.
Xylakant 12y ago
There's a lot of data where that kind of security is acceptable, for example all the video content on youtube. You don't want random people to tampler with it, but it's not high security. I wouldn't want my bank to store my account data on one of those, but I wouldn't mind if website assets were served from there.
- nacs 12y ago
  > for example all the video content on youtube Well not all video content as Youtube allows for private (and unlisted) videos.
Retric 12y ago
Depends on usage patterns. If there simply storing encrypted data then these servers might be unable to decrypt the stored information and reading their contents would be pointless. If on the other hand these servers decrypt the data then encryption is of limited value.

by sauere 12y ago

justinsb 12y ago

What is the attack you're envisaging? Presumably they detect unauthorized case-intrusion and immediately delete the keys. This isn't foolproof, but it's probably good enough to stop anyone except the people that are going to get the data no matter what you do.

vertex-four 12y ago
They'd need to immediately shut down their server as well (as in immediately, as in crash), and even that's not necessarily enough to remove data from RAM before attackers can get to it.
- Xylakant 12y ago
  The threat scenario is a bit far fetched. First you'd need to find out where an individual, interesting piece of data is stored. Then you have to break into this building, break open the cabinet and freeze the RAM fast enough to preserve the memory content. That's obviously something that can be done, but it requires a lot of dedication to pull of, so that's something you'd only do in case where you know the data is valuable. It's probably easier to just get an inside job done, but you could get that at any other datacenter or even at AWS. For a lot of data, the payoff is not worth the effort and risk, so I'd be unconcerned. Obviously, don't store bank accounts or medical data there, don't use it for the next NSA datacenter etc.
  - owenmarshall 12y ago
    Or freeze the entire cabinet in situ and pick through the RAM at your leisure. But yeah, you're right - this isn't gonna happen. I'd worry more about a home below floodplain taking on water.
    - Xylakant 12y ago
      Yeah, sure. Nobody would ever notice the truck with the coolant tank in front of the building and the frozen pipes running in ;). Here in Berlin they freeze the ground to make excavations in places with high ground water, that looks the same. To be honest - law enforcement could pull that off. But that's not the threat model that this is supposed to counter.
  - willvarfar 12y ago
    Its not at all far fetched. The very first people to sign up will all be budding security enthusiasts secretly looking forward to their prime time on Chaos Computer Club or BlackHat or whatever where they take apart one of these servers.
    - Xylakant 12y ago
      Cool, free pentesting. If I'd plan such an offer I'd give away units for free to CCC members that want to penetrate it. Maybe even throw in some money.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >remove data from RAM before attackers can get to it // Seems about the last thing you'd try too. Surely you'd try and catch the data on the wire a long time before you'd even contemplate this sort of scenario. At least then you have the chance to get the whole encrypted file you're after.

ion201 12y ago

Care to elaborate about that? I don't see the security concern if the data is encrypted on disk and both ways over the network. I doubt they would just leave the private keys to hang out on the server for anyone to take.

Xylakant 12y ago

There's a lot of data where that kind of security is acceptable, for example all the video content on youtube. You don't want random people to tampler with it, but it's not high security. I wouldn't want my bank to store my account data on one of those, but I wouldn't mind if website assets were served from there.

nacs 12y ago
> for example all the video content on youtube Well not all video content as Youtube allows for private (and unlisted) videos.

Retric 12y ago

Depends on usage patterns. If there simply storing encrypted data then these servers might be unable to decrypt the stored information and reading their contents would be pointless. If on the other hand these servers decrypt the data then encryption is of limited value.