Lockbox Aims To NSA-Proof the Cloud

Daniel_Stuckey writes "Lockbox, a tech startup founded in 2008, just received $2.5 million in seed funding for its end-to-end encryption cloud service, Client Portal. So, how does end-to-end cloud encryption work? Lockbox encrypts and compresses files before they are uploaded to the cloud. Only a person in possession of the corresponding key can unlock, or decrypt, the files. This means that the NSA, malicious hackers, business competitors, and even crazy girlfriends and boyfriends won't be be able to peer into users' most sensitive and private files."

Comments

I like the idea

[bondsbw]

But I prefer that my encryption tool and my cloud storage service be completely separate. (How do I know Lockbox isn't sending the keys to the NSA, or whoever?)

Re:I like the idea

[Garridan]

Yup. It's only secure as your OS, and the NSA pwns that. Always airgap your private key, or it's theirs.

Re:I like the idea

[JWSmythe]

A friend of mine offered that kind of service quite a few years ago.

It was a backup service. The user had the key. It was encrypted on the user's site, and only encrypted data sent up to the server.

It's not novel. It's a slashvertisment. {sigh}

Re:I like the idea

[mysidia]

It would defeat the point. You can probably safely assume they are not sending them right now.

The problem is: in the future, when more than 2 people start using their service --- the chance gets higher and higher over time, that NSA agents will descend upon them, and provide a legal order requiring they insert backdoors into their service, or protocol, or otherwise: provide the NSA with the resources required to get at the content, AND requiring they tell nobody.

In other words : No US-based cloud service can really fight the NSA; unless they are prepared to shutter the service and go to jail for the cause, which is not likely.

An overseas service is even better for the NSA getting a better chance at capturing the data -- because the things that are legal for them to do expand; gathering intelligence on overseas communications falls within their government mandate; and the techniques they employ could espionage, infiltration into the organization providing the service; and include compromise of computer systems and implanting malware bugs.

Re:I like the idea

[0111 1110]

I don't think an overseas service is better for the NSA. They don't have to even pretend to have ethical or legal constraints, but they are limited by international politics. They are stuck asking for cooperation. Or trying to bribe the right people. Within the US they have the full force of the US government behind them and can simply put uncooperative people in jail.

Nevertheless things have reached a point where you might get idealogically motivated people starting anti-NSA encryption systems and there isn't much the NSA can do against someone willing to risk prison or flee the country or shut down their entire company rather than deal with the devil. The NSA and the government in general are used to dealing with people who are easily controlled with nothing more than money.

But, yeah, the NSA can at least shut down pretty much any US based centralized system intended to fight them. Outside of North America and Western Europe it's a different story though. They don't have any legal power to shut down anything over there.

Re:I like the idea

[icebike]

That's not Exactly true.

If a service provides an open source encryption routine, and also, perhaps, but not necessarily required, an open source transfer routine for the already encrypted files, you could air gap the encryption task from the transfer task, and even with a court order and a shot gun to their head, the company couldn't give you data away.

Spideroak has promised to open source their client for exactly this reason. So far they haven't delivered.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the US, the NSA is a known enemy, for better or for worse.

A cloud provider overseas will be bullied by whatever intel service is in the host country. If I locate one in China, my company is owned by the PLA anyway.

I look at what my biggest security threats are, and the NSA is nowhere near the top of my list compared to foreign intel looking to crush US companies like China did the entire US solar industry.

Re:I like the idea

[toQDuj]

Yes, most of the online backup services offer this. Crashplan does the same. I have the keys, they don't.

Re: I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly

Re:I like the idea

[Jane Q. Public]

"Nevertheless things have reached a point where you might get idealogically motivated people starting anti-NSA encryption systems and there isn't much the NSA can do against someone willing to risk prison or flee the country or shut down their entire company rather than deal with the devil. The NSA and the government in general are used to dealing with people who are easily controlled with nothing more than money."

"Might get"???

Haven't you been reading the news?

Re:I like the idea

[mysidia]

you could air gap the encryption task from the transfer task, and even with a court order and a shot gun to their head, the company couldn't give you data away.

The order could say to covertly insert a backdoor of the NSA's choosing in the "open source" client; or provide the NSA operatives root access to the server that distributes the client binaries, and the keys to push out a new release of the software.

Someone maintains the code that the users are using. And the maintainers could very easily be subject to a gag order; to not discuss the covert backdoor, even if it's visible in the open source code ----- it doesn't have to be, though: most people will just download the project's (NSA-patched) binary builds of the release.

Re:I like the idea

[Zemran]

If you go outside of North America and Western Europe, the NSA have big wallets and a bribe is more likely to work. You may think that somewhere like Venezuela hates the US enough to allow a business like this but I guarantee that the average sys admin in Venezuela could be bought for a few hundred. I would opt for a European country with more a sensible legal system like Switzerland. It will take years for the NSA to get in and the fight would be public. I know that they got into the banks but we all knew about it long before they got there. There are still other option with more effective privacy options and zero corruption but outside of Europe you know they are easily bought.

Re:I like the idea

[VortexCortex]

But I prefer that my encryption tool and my cloud storage service be completely separate. (How do I know Lockbox isn't sending the keys to the NSA, or whoever?)

It's pointless anyway against the NSA. Seriously. Every single modern operating system (including on routers) has tons of unpatched exploit vectors. There's even a black market for them. The NSA can just infect your machines and ex-filtrate your data and/or the encryption keys... See the previous story:

[NSA] Budget documents say the $652 million project has placed 'covert implants,' sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions.

Hell we have multiple celebrations of insecurity every year called "computer security conferences" where without fail new systems are compromised. How can you even look at stuff like Pwn 2 Own, and not have your brain melting in cognitive dissonance as you try to believe there are network attached scenarios where your data is safe from the NSA?

You want your data kept secret? Use whole drive encryption on machines that are never connected to any networks -- And even then there's the Ken Thompson Microcode Hack, so your systems could be theoretically pre-hacked from the factory... I won't buy a CPU that has remote cellular capabilities... Like Intel's Sandy Bridge. Laughed my ass off when I heard about that! "Security Feature" indeed. At least if the machine can't get on the networks there's a much lower chance of your data escaping if it's pre-hacked.

I don't know of any hacker worth their salt -- black, gray or white hat -- that doesn't have a directory of unpatched zero day exploits.
I keep mine in: ~/with/great/power/comes/great/responsibility/
Me having to navigate the directory structure has saved many a newb... The NSA has no such sensibilities.
If the data's encrypted, they assume it could be from a foreigner, and thus give themselves license to get at it, and they can.
This is what happens when you let Threat Narrative run amok.

Re:I like the idea

[vux984]

In other words : No US-based cloud service can really fight the NSA;

The key to fighting the NSA is to provide a completely transparent API.

And then rely on 3rd parties to deliver software that uses the API.

Even if the NSA knows that I have account with the cloud service, they don't know what client I use, (and even if i do, the client is on my equipment not "service based" there is no easy target to send a gag order too.

Essentially, dropbox, skydrive etc are all perfectly suitable cloud services.

What we need is them to do isopen them up wide open to 3rd party client development.

Re:I like the idea

[Andtalath]

Tpb was raided due to a threat from USA regarding an embargo towards Sweden.

So, well, if bloody Hollywood can put that type of pressure on a country, I believe a branch of the government can as well.

Re:I like the idea

[VortexCortex]

Hehe, oh... I mean, the company is named "Intel" FFS, haha ha!

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Tarsnap should also be mentioned in this context. It's a business started by Colin Percival, noted cryptographer and BSD developer. The client is 100% open source and runs on your machine. When Colin developed Tarsnap he found existing key derivation functions lacking, so he developed his own memory hard scrypt, which has found wide applications in other areas.

The major problem with "encrypted cloud" solutions is that encryption severely limits what can be done in the cloud. You can basically do encrypted file storage. You can't run virus or spam filters on your data, you can't index it and search it etc. So all the useful features we have in a Gmail session need to awkwardly and inefficiently be re-implemented on the client side.

The providers have very little incentive to do this and transform ad supported free services into paid ones (since data mining no longer works, ad revenue drops dramatically). While I would love encrypted email for everyone, it just won't happen for economic reasons. The NSA affair will be quickly forgotten and people will return to business as usual.

Re:I like the idea

[icebike]

When someone is buying a security product, and buying one that specifically bills itself as open source you can bet there will be many many sets of eyes on the code. It only takes one person to spot something like that, and you would be able to add your own layer of encryption on top of what was already in the open source.

So, no, open source is not as easy to beat as you suggest.

Re:I like the idea

[TheRaven64]

Full homomorphic encryption is really hard. Homomorphic encryption allows you to encrypt your data, do some computation on the result, and then perform some operation on the output to get the same result as doing the operation on the unencrypted data. Current solutions are at least a factor of 1000 slower than doing it on unencrypted data, but that's only for general case. There are ways of encrypting data that preserve certain properties so you can, for example, perform simple database operations on it in the encrypted form and only interpret the results if you hold the keys. The down side of these approaches is that they increase the size (effectively doubling it for every primitive operation that you want to support), but with storage becoming cheap they may become interesting...

Re:I like the idea

[TheRaven64]

It's harder to covertly insert a backdoor into an open source client because people can watch the changes. It's much easier to insert it before it's open sourced, because then people have to review the entire code drop at once. That said, adding a back door into OpenSSL would be comparatively easy because no one understands the convoluted twisty maze of code paths in it.

Re: I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not quite accurate to call Tarsnap "open source". While all of the source code is publicly available (in fact, the client is _only_ available in source form) the license forbids using it for any purpose other than connecting to Tarsnap's service.

That said, Tarsnap is still awesome, well priced, and just works.

Re: I like the idea

[Architect_sasyr]

Open Source - "where the source code is freely available". Different from "Free Open Source" - which includes definition of license.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

if bloody Hollywood can put that type of pressure on a country, I believe a branch of the government can as well.

Hollywood is a branch of the US government!

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

if bloody Hollywood can put that type of pressure on a country, I believe a branch of the government can as well.

Hollywood is a branch of the US government!

On the contrary: the US government is a branch of Hollywood.

Re:I like the idea

[Joce640k]

What's to stop me encrypting my files then putting them on normal dropbox?

Re:I like the idea

[Nikker]

Compressed cypher text should be quite easy to crack shouldn't it?

Most compression algorithms use a dictionary, if you knew approximately the dictionary was in the data stream it should make it fairly easy to guess the key wouldn't it?

Compressed English for example would have many similar dictionaries amongst most digests. Knowing the most common dictionary entries statically analyzing the cypher text would result in a clear text digest which in turn would be trivial to reveal the message.

Of course I welcome any insight from anyone more knowledgeable since I am not well versed in cryptography.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote a paper on it last year. Compared my method to that of Kerberos. No novelty on its own, but hot damn everyone is going to want their own unique something in the years to come. Data, data everywhere, but nobody can find it.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

NSA rootkit in your OS capturing your key. For the truly ultra-paranoid conspiracy theorists of you.

Re:I like the idea

[Alef]

It's pointless anyway against the NSA. Seriously. Every single modern operating system (including on routers) has tons of unpatched exploit vectors. There's even a black market for them. The NSA can just infect your machines and ex-filtrate your data and/or the encryption keys...

If you are individually targeted by the NSA, then yes, you probably don't stand much of a chance. But they couldn't use that kind of attack vector en masse without it being discovered fairly quickly, so it still helps against dragnet fishing.

Re:I like the idea

[Shemmie]

Another service offering:

SpiderOak uses AES256 in CFB mode and HMAC-SHA256. SpiderOak uses a nested series of key scopes: a new key for each folder, version of a file, and the individual data blocks that versions of files are composed from. Having keys with such limited scope allows for selective sharing of chosen portions of your data while keeping the remainder private.

        Most importantly, however, the keys are never stored plaintext on the SpiderOak server. They are encrypted with 256 bit AES, using a key created from your password by the key derivation/strengthening algorithm PBKDF2 (using sha256), with a minimum of 16384 rounds, and 32 bytes of random data ("salt"). This approach prevents brute force and pre-computation or database attacks against the key. This means that a user who knows her password can generate the outer level encryption key using PBKDF2 and the salt, then decipher the outer level keys, and be on the way to decrypting her data. Without knowledge of the password, however, the data is unreadable.

        SpiderOak accounts also include a 3072 bit public/private RSA key pair. This is currently not used for anything, but is included with all accounts with the expectation that SpiderOak will add multi-user private collaborative and sharing features which would necessitate the use of the the public/private keys.

https://spideroak.com/ .

Re:I like the idea

[rvw]

But I prefer that my encryption tool and my cloud storage service be completely separate. (How do I know Lockbox isn't sending the keys to the NSA, or whoever?)

I use Crashplan for online and local backup. They have two options for encryption. The program itself can generate a key, which is shared with CP. When you lose the key, they can get it back, and your files are still save. You can create your own key, which is only saved locally on your computer. If you lose it, all backups are lost. I've thought about this many times, and there is no way of knowing that this key is being sent to CP, for me at least. And probably this key is never sent, but then there is no way of knowing that while synchronizing the backups, a (masked) command from CP is sent to my computer which asks for the key. Probably it would work that way, because it would mask the option a lot better.

Re:I like the idea

[Zimluura]

tinfoil hats used to be a fashion choice. now they're a necessity.

Re:I like the idea

[Dunbal]

For the truly ultra-paranoid conspiracy theorists of you.

No, the ultra-paranoid are thinking about the back doors built into hardware/firmware. Hacking into your network chip without it even reporting activity to you, and silently scanning your computer underneath the OS. Rootkits/backdoors in the OS itself are not only a possibility, they are likely - no matter how much Microsoft denies it. Certainly there is documentation claiming they can at least grab anything in your "Outlook". But once you're in - you're in.

Re:I like the idea

[rvw]

Yes, most of the online backup services offer this. Crashplan does the same. I have the keys, they don't.

I use CP as well, with a private key. How do you know that they haven't sent that private key to their servers? I don't, but I'm pretty sure they won't do this by default. If it comes out, it's not good for their business. But how about an obfuscated command that tells the local backup program to send the key to them? It would only be used rarely, so it won't be discovered quickly. Can you assure me that such an option does not exist? I can't.

Re:I like the idea

[Dunbal]

Drop "US-based", because the US government has already made use of foreign police (Sweden illegal server raids, New Zealand illegal server raids, extradition of "hackers" from the UK, etc) to shut down foreign sites claimed to be violating US laws. Perhaps it's better to say "No cloud service in a US friendly country can really fight the NSA". So you can always go for storing your data in an UNfriendly country. But since they're unfriendly what makes you think your data would be safer there? Quite the conundrum.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Becuase the NSA dont need them to . They will just get the CIA to steal the box

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Me having to navigate the directory structure has saved many a newb... The NSA has no such sensibilities.

You mean they just mash the tab key repeatedly?

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming the US and Switzerland intelligence agencies would not make a mutually beneficial arrangement. The European intelligence agencies would undoubtedly refuse a flat demand or information request from the NSA. But an information exchange? The NSA can probably get anything it wants from any intelligence agency in the world in return for little bits of data it has.

Re:I like the idea

[Joce640k]

NSA rootkit in your OS capturing your key. For the truly ultra-paranoid conspiracy theorists of you.

Yes, but what's the advantage of this new one? Surely the NSA will target it specifically, where I could be using any type of command-line encryptor.

Re:I like the idea

[drinkypoo]

In other words : No US-based cloud service can really fight the NSA; unless they are prepared to shutter the service and go to jail for the cause, which is not likely.

Seems like a dandy way to make enough money to leave the USA, though. Start cloud service, collect money, put it in offshore banking like all the actual criminals in government. Eventually the NSA serves you an order, you leave the country and then shutter the service and publish the order, spending your days drinking Mai Tais in a non-extradition country.

Re:I like the idea

[BitcoinBenny]

I think I have some insight into this as I have an end to end encrypted cloud service called coinlock.com My slashvertisement on the subject was ignored though ;) millions in funding tends to get people noticed.

Anyway on this particular subject I think you have hit the nail on the head. The key to long term security is to completely open up the API and separate the client side components so that third parties can use te service with their own sotware or with the software that you have provided them directly on their local computer.

This is easier said than done for most services, but its something that I am striving towards and intend to do a full client auditable release as well as publish the public facing api. This idea that people can move their services outside of the country and it matters I think is very flawed. U.S. companies are subject to the law regardless of where they do their hosting, and the managment team is the weakest link in the security chain. This is something that is best solved by transparency.

Re:I like the idea

[Zontar The Mindless]

Thank goodness most of those chips are made in China!

Re:I like the idea

[Electricity Likes Me]

Properly implemented encryption isn't easily breakable and there's only a few types of usable ciphers out there. Of course this sounds custom and probably proprietary, so in fact there's no reason to trust that at all.

Re:I like the idea

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Presumably Lockbox deletes your half of the key when you sign up. (And burns their key storage HDD freed space?)

The NSA would have to demand unused keys beforehand, not knowing who might use them i.e. completely without warrant, which I think is a whole new ballgame they aren't engaged in yet (officially or legally anyway).

Re:I like the idea

[fastest fascist]

Even if you don't think the devs have put a backdoor in yet, can you be sure they won't comply with a secret order to insert one into their system?

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been looking at backup services lately and Tarsnap looks to be the most advanced in terms of security and flexibility. *nix only though which is not a deal breaker for me. Also I like that the client is open source and the keys are not generated by the server. From the tarsnap site:

No matter how secure Tarsnap's design is, however, you don't run the design on your computer — you run the code. For this reason, all of the source code to the Tarsnap client is available. You don't need to simply trust that Tarsnap does things right (and that it isn't a trojan planted by the US government): You can read the source code and check for yourself (and there's even a bug bounty if you find anything wrong).

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

cellular capabilites built into the cpu? wtf? I wonder how many designs will have that "feature" built in but they don't tell you about it.

Re:I like the idea

[znrt]

You can basically do encrypted file storage.

cool, because that's everything i would ever want do in the cloud.

all the useful features we have in a Gmail session need to awkwardly and inefficiently be re-implemented on the client side.

i'm lost. what features? and what's wrong with client side implementation of them?

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The Spanish Inquisition?

No one expects them.

Re:I like the idea

[dlingman]

Having actually done tests on tinfoil hats, we came to the conclusion that tinfoil just doesn't work. Steel wool does though. Maybe you can use the tinfoil to wrap the steel wool to contain it so it's less scratchy.

(and yes, this was real - we needed to determine behavior of a device as it slowly lost it's incoming signal - wrapping in steel wool worked great for this.)

Re:I like the idea

[Luckyo]

You misunderstand. Hollywood is the propaganda arm of US government. As a result, while it does enjoy significant protection of US government as to enable it to perform its task (financially self-sustainable domestic and international propaganda), it most certainly does not command US government beyond its ability to influence the puppets, otherwise known as politicians in the same way that other similar agencies can influence the same puppets.

It still has to combat all the other agencies, and in that game agencies like NSA and CIA hold much stronger cards as they have blackmail material on everyone, as well as ability to simply remove people they do not want.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, GP makes reference to the server that distributes the open source binaries.

If it were my choice, there wouldn't be any. The installer pulls down a well-known compiler (say a specific version of gcc) from a server known to publish it and source code from our source code server, builds it, and installs that.

Re:I like the idea

[znrt]

have modpoints, but can't find the "Wishful thinking" tag.

Re:I like the idea

[rvw]

I said I'm pretty sure they are not sending the keys over to their servers right now, by default. It could very well be that a backdoor like that is already in place. I know it, and still I use it. I don't have a better alternative yet, affordable I mean, but I'm thinking about it. With all news about Snowden, PRISM etc, Wikileaks in the past, I still think that if they go after me, they will succeed. There is no good alternative and I don't have the knowledge to counter them with reasonable success, so for the moment I'm sticking with Crashplan.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this exactly. You just hit the nail on the head in such a way that no one can (but surely they would like to here on slashdot) argue about the situation at hand. Data is data, and the NSA is the NSA.

However, one thing that I'd like to point out is the fact that man-power at the NSA is limited. I believe that they're currently only interested in being able to get all of the data for very specific reasons. Reasons that most common people would have nothing to do with, and therefor most common people (like me) have no reason to fret about the NSA gathering all internet data. However, I also feel that the people that do have reason to be concerned, should be fretting a lot. For instance, terrorists and anyone in a government (US government included). I'm sure that they use the data for all sorts of things that are both illegal and unmoral but, again, most people shouldn't care. I mean, if you're cheating on your spouse, I think maybe those at the NSA would never have time to find your data and use it against you, unless you're in the government.

All of this may slightly change as time passes. Maybe eventually they find a way to separate this huge mass of data with some basic rule set, like drugs go to the DEA, illegal sex items go to another department, etc... and at each department, they have more man-power to go over the data and build a case. But for now, I feel that most communications simply cannot be looked at for lack of man-power.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Right - because foreign governments are run by saints and philanthropists who have no interest whatsoever in gathering data themselves... Putting my data on foreign soil where I have even less control and visibility couldn't possibly be abused by these pillars of virtue...

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know that yours are the only keys?

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. Somehow or other I doubt that someone capable of doing that would be happy spending their days just drinking mai-tais and ogling (or more) the local girls (or boys).

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, the Chinese could take over your box, but are they so advanced? More to the point, do they have the billions to embed their spying designs in the blueprints coming from the US without the American engineers noticing the funny business during troubleshooting?

The Chinese companies are perfectly suitable mules for the NSA.

Re:I like the idea

[BitZtream]

Except what happens is it is open source ... and everyone uses pre-compiled binaries ... which could easily have a backdoor added to them.

Just being open source doesn't provide you with any benefit if you don't know what to do with it or choose not to bother.

Re:I like the idea

[icebike]

True, but you wouldn't even need ssl with client side encryption.

Much of the problem with encryption is that everyone relies on libraries, (due, to the same reasons that cause panic attacks on slashdot has when anyone mentions "rolling their own").

Reliance on Microsoft Crypto binaries, which are already backdoored by the NSA) would have to be a no-no in any Open Sourced client. That would make the code a bit more complex. Other than that the encryption routines themselves would not have to be all that complex, and with third party eyes on it it could come to be trusted.

This whole line of argument is that the NSA could force the insertion of something into software.
I'm not sure there is a legal precedent for that, and some people would rais a stink or simply shut down the whole business, signaling to the world what had happened.

Re:I like the idea

[icebike]

It only takes one set of eyes, and one post to Slashdot.

Re:I like the idea

[santosh.k83]

If NSA or some agency had got its hands at the hardware level, engineers and admins would've noticed it by now, just like Stuxnet was noticed. A malware that's completely invisible would also likely be a useless malware, and the moment there are effects to be observed, close testing ought to reveal it. What we need is cooperative internationally monitored agency for testing and auditing hardware, much like the standards bodies but much more in detail. If it's international, one country's engineers won't hesitate to reveal the dark designs of another country. Yes they can bought off but not all, not everywhere. As for using Microsoft, well for security a fully open source bootstrapped software stack is a minimum these days. Closed source software is just too easy to infiltrate by governments. Intimidating one company is easier than fooling all the eyes on the Internet!

Re:I like the idea

[mysidia]

Presumably Lockbox deletes your half of the key when you sign up. (And burns their key storage HDD freed space?)

Nevertheless; your half of the key has to reside on your computer for you to consume the material, and it is probably a simple matter for a little bit of malicious code on the client side to upload your half of the key. All the NSA has to do is covertly cause or require that little bit of malicious code to be inserted.

Re:I like the idea

[mysidia]

If it were my choice, there wouldn't be any. The installer pulls down a well-known compiler (say a specific version of gcc) from a server known to publish it and source code from our source code server, builds it, and installs that.

Ah, but if the NSA tampers with the binary, the installer covertly puts down something else as well; as in it puts down the compiler, downloads the source, compiles it, and then as the last step before linking: quickly applies a binary patch to a .O file, and then links them, forming the executable.

As long as there is binary code executing that was downloaded, even an installer; you never know for sure.

And yeah.... altering a compiler works just as well as altering a program -- because a compiler can be altered to emit a patch

Re:I like the idea

[mysidia]

. The key to long term security is to completely open up the API and separate the client side components so that third parties can use te service with their own sotware or with the software that you have provided them directly on their local computer.

There is a reason that real cloud companies might like to never do this.

What happened when Amazon published EC2 APIs without constraints? Someone built Eucalyptus.

If the APIs are opened and open source investments in clients allowed; this sacrifices a potential moat that the cloud provider could otherwise build around their company. It assists competitors; by allowing the competitors to just spin their own backend implementation of what is now an open protocol.

It may also be setting free what otherwise may be perceived as valuable intellectual property --- the sync client protocols.

I assume, for example that would be why Dropbox and BitTorrent Sync client are closed protocols: to discourage competition

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

What's to stop me encrypting my files then putting them on normal dropbox?

Nothing. In fact it works nicely. I have most of my Dropbox files in TrueCrypt containers.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

[Pwrrrt! THuD!] CIA dropped you like a fly.

Re:I like the idea

[Zontar The Mindless]

Unlike the previous comment I made that got a "Funny" mod, this one was actually intended as humorous.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the NSA letters specifically forbid you from discussing it with anyone, including (as reported in one case) your lawyers. So transparency just gets corrupted, unless you want to have your inbox public for anyone to read at anytime.

Re:I like the idea

[Joce640k]

If they have backdoors into the OS (or can get a virus onto your machine) then automatically sniffing the password for known pieces of software is easy - you know where it's stored, which .dll files to hook into, etc.

It would be much harder to automatically sniff the password for something I cobbled together with a batch file. Yes, it's "security by obscurity" but even that has *some* value.

Re:I like the idea

[LWATCDR]

"I would opt for a European country with more a sensible legal system like Switzerland" because Switzerland never cooperates with governments for money. And this is what happens when people do not know history....

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lot of nice buzzwords that are thrown out there. But they're closed source and in the USA, so it all comes down to "Trust us." Do you? Why?

Re:I like the idea

[cavreader]

It would probably be wise to find out exactly where their 2.5 million seed money came from. However, now is the perfect time to invest in businesses trying to offer services that will keep your e-mail safe from government intrusion. It doesn't really matter if they can actually deliver the level of security they are advertising. Just by leveraging the publics bloated paranoia you can start making some real money. The first anti-virus tools where in response to the first widely published piece of malware and look at the number of companies milking that cash cow. Companies are making money hand over fist even though there is not a single anti-virus tool on the market today that can promise 100% protection.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

> I would opt for a European country with more a sensible legal system like Switzerland.

Sorry, look at the sorry state of Swiss banking and American influence these days.
As soon as the USA threatens sanctions, the whole thing folds like a house of cards.
Of course, internal corruption of the banks trying to leach off American tax-free wannabees
was definitely a factor in this demise -- and that contamination leaks into other fields.

So if you want some "Swiss" reputation of sensibility for your storage, you'd best look
elsewhere these days. American proxy fights aren't welcome any more.

I'm sure Bern would gladly hand over Snowden to win brownie points with the
treasury dep't. Morals? Bah, that train left long ago -- but on time, though.
Still gotta hand that one to the Swiss.

Re:I like the idea

[ThatAblaze]

How about this idea: Put your source code and revision history in a closed source repo. If/when the NSA sends you a gag order that includes the provision that you can't talk about it just move to the open source model. That way other people who are not under a gag order can look through your code and do your talking for you.

It looks like with all these different sources for encrypted storage and encrypted email coming up we can basically play wack-a-mole with them until the courts finally acknowledge that people still do care about privacy. I have an encrypted cloud storage solution for my personal use, at least a dozen other solutions are in active development. I say the more the merrier. There comes a point where there are just too many small providers to even try to issue gag orders any more.

Re:I like the idea

[ThatAblaze]

If you are individually targeted by the NSA, then yes, you probably don't stand much of a chance. But they couldn't use that kind of attack vector en masse without it being discovered fairly quickly, so it still helps against dragnet fishing.

They are discovered. A talk will come out at a hacker convention exposing the latest backdoor, and the 0.1% that are actually at that convention will find a way to block that technology. The problem is that before about 3 months ago information about discovered backdoors had a very small audience and was not searchable. Now it has a larger audience, even though it's still not searchable.. so we're making baby steps.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not easy to break any halfway decent security system but it's also not possible to make a program secure that runs on compromised hardware, be it open source or not. There is always a way, especially for an agency with a yearly budget of more than 10+ billion dollars.

Re:I like the idea

[ThatAblaze]

Compressed cypher text should be quite easy to crack shouldn't it? Most compression algorithms use a dictionary..

Of course I welcome any insight from anyone more knowledgeable since I am not well versed in cryptography.

Compression algorithms are easy to "crack", the algorithm to uncompress is known but that algorithm is very different for encryption algorithms. Compressing an encrypted file does not break the encryption in any way (however it also fails to reduce the file size, so what's the point really?) First compressing and then encrypting can make the file more secure, since brute force encryption cracking scans the file for text most of the time, and compression eliminates most of that text. However, if an attacker knows that your file is compressed and then encrypted they can just brute force against the compression headers and you've gained nothing.

Compression does not compromise your encryption in any way though. It's just a different layer with a different purpose.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

For the truly ultra-paranoid conspiracy theorists of you.

No, the ultra-paranoid are thinking about the back doors built into hardware/firmware. Hacking into your network chip without it even reporting activity to you, and silently scanning your computer underneath the OS. Rootkits/backdoors in the OS itself are not only a possibility, they are likely - no matter how much Microsoft denies it. Certainly there is documentation claiming they can at least grab anything in your "Outlook". But once you're in - you're in.

Given the numbers of people that are running tcpdump on a regular basis looking for interesting unexpected outbound packets from our local subnets, wouldn't someone have spotted something like this if it were going on?

Re: I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Encrypt on offline box, transfer via USB, upload to cloud. No root kit bullshit. Now, are your drunken notes on cat pictures of shitty diagrams worth all that work?

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

... Hollywood is the propaganda arm of US government. ...

If Hollywood is the propaganda arm of the US government, tax payers should demand their money back. Hollywood has done more to harm the US's image in the world than Snowden, Manning, and all the corrupt politicians combined.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The major problem with "encrypted cloud" solutions is that encryption severely limits what can be done in the cloud. You can basically do encrypted file storage. You can't run virus or spam filters on your data, you can't index it and search it etc. So all the useful features we have in a Gmail session need to awkwardly and inefficiently be re-implemented on the client side.

Mod parent funny please. Yes, it's amazingly awkward to implement something as a native client app compared to a web-2.0 incarnation... Someone drank the dotcom koolaid...

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

SpiderOak is great, but the storage is a bit costly.

Truecrypt http://www.truecrypt.org will encrypt entire disk volumes, which is hand for Dropbox. Syncdocs http://www.syncdocs.com will encrypt files stored on Google Drive.

Re:I like the idea

[RespekMyAthorati]

How about having a separate computer, not on the internet, that does the encryption?

Re:I like the idea

[RespekMyAthorati]

If Scientology can scare /. into submission (Scientology v.s. Slashdot), the NSA sure as hell can.

Re:I like the idea

[heteromonomer]

Very interesting. To a non-computer science person like me, this is actually mind blowing. Could you provide some (1-2) nice references for this? (Yeah I know, I could Google, but it has been my experience that when I am looking for scientific literature, Google is not comparable to a person in the field). Thanks.

Re:I like the idea

[fast turtle]

By using an open API, there's absolutely no reason for you to develop/expend resources for encryption other then SSL/SSH. That means the quality of the encryption used by the client is now the problem and once a client becomes large enough to be annoying, the NSA swoops in and either shuts them down or compromises them.

Re:I like the idea

[trawg]

Just because you mentioned Switzerland, Wuala is a Swiss secure storage mob. Servers in Switzerland, Germany and France. Good focus on client-side encryption.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up Boxcryptor for exactly that.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you just discovered the Faraday cage.

Re:I like the idea

[gottabeme]

I'm also using CrashPlan because, despite being Java and closed-source, it works very well and is a bargain.

The best alternatives include using generic storage services (like rsync.net or VPS hosting) and software like Duplicity, Obnam, or encfs+sshfs+whatever-backup-software-you-want. The problem with these is that the price per GB is much higher than with CrashPlan. And while encfs on top of sshfs works, it's pretty slow and probably unsuitable for more than a few hundred MB of data.

If you don't trust CrashPlan, you could use it to back up an encrypted filesystem, either an image (which would require constant block checksumming, but would work), or a file-based one like encfs or eCryptfs. Of course, it does run as root, so if you really don't trust it, you could run it on a separate system and share the encrypted data files over a network.

Or you could always use zip files and GPG and physical media. (And you probably should, even if you use online backup. Having an old physical backup saved me once, because deleted files don't appear on new backups.)

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't think the NSA has broken the tinfoil barrier yet? I wear a full body Faraday Cage. Keeps the sharks out, too.

Re:I like the idea

[WaywardGeek]

Since that's an actual security precaution that could work, I suspect a paid shill with mod points will mod your comment down into oblivion, or at least post such drivel in response that no one wants to join in. I've been reading these security related posts on slashdot for years, and the pattern of ass holes making the conversation no fun when we might start collaborating on real security seems to be a highly repetitive pattern.

That extra computer could be a Raspberry Pi. For $35, it seems like a good investment to me.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

From looking at the public API spideroak doesn't look so secure, the fact that the API has access to your files means that passwords are moved back and forth through the SSL tunnel, which the NSA can listen to, which makes their encryption useless, so unless I misunderstood/misread something, it seems like its not for the average tinfoil hat wearer.

In my opinion, any service that provides access to your unencrypted files through the HTTP/s API is unsecure, the server should NEVER know how to decrypt your files to be paranoid-level secure.

Re: I like the idea

[Sean Hederman]

What makes you think the network card would report the packets to the OS and then on to tcpdump?

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

By all means, host your backups in North Korea or China or Russia. Then you'll be extra-safe!

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take a look at what Lockbox is offering, it isn't a "backup" service, but rather a secure file sharing service. This is a far cry from the Truecrypt+Dropbox, Wuala, Crashplan and whoever else offerings, all of which are incredibly inconvenient if you actually need to share files securely.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Lockbox take a very similar approach, but extend the "keys are never stored plaintext on the SpiderOak server" protection another level by providing the option to never store the user's keys with Lockbox at all. This means that only the encrypted file and KEKs actually reside on someone else's disk, and you can keep your private key completely private (airgap it if you like, although obviously it needs to be loaded to actually encrypt/decrypt files and messages).

The data being stored on someone else's disk (because "in the cloud" isn't an acceptable phrase in this thread, it seems) is then as safe as any of the other encryption schemes mentioned (Truecrypt, GPG, etc...) and would require brute-force decryption should the NSA want to take a peek inside.

Re:I like the idea

[TheRaven64]

True, but you wouldn't even need ssl with client side encryption.

You might like to look at what OpenSSL is actually used for. If you do any encryption, the odds are that you're using OpenSSL, or code derived from OpenSSL.

Re: I like the idea

[ameen.ross]

A separate box behind a level 1 switch with wireshark does the trick.

Re:I like the idea

[rvw]

I use CP to backup to a local machine, and I use this machine for other machines as well (family mostly). Then I use the online plan, plus Apple Timemachine for my laptop. As CP upload can take days or weeks to complete, I hope that at least one of them will work when needed. When you want to use an encrypted image, Apple has sparseimage, which is a collection of files, not one single file, for a disk image. I don't know if a similar system is available for windows or linux.

Re:I like the idea

[hmilz]

You may want to try Boxcryptor https://www.boxcryptor.com/

Re: I like the idea

[a_nonamiss]

SpiderOak uses AES256, which is closed-source and indirectly developed by the US Government, who may, or may not have their own key. So long as they're not the ones you want to protect your data from, you should be OK.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the unencrypted data is the data you actually want to use. So your computer with no networking where you encrypt and decrypt your data is the real PC, and the machine that connects to the internet and uploads and downloads the encrypted data should be the raspberry pi, and not vice versa.

Otherwise, the raspberry pi is your primary user machine, and that sounds painful.

The real problem here is the conflict between ease-of-use and security. The whole world could be using PGP for our email right now. The problem isn't the technology, that has existed for a long time. The problem is the inconvenience - making the user do the extra work.

Likewise, the Diaspora distributed social network is a dream that will never mean anything. You won't find enough people willing to go through the trouble of managing their own servers for it to gain traction. Any distributed social network that doesn't take one click to install and zero effort to maintain will never gain enough users to break the stranglehold on social held by the big companies.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption and a discussion of it here: https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-376.pdf

The concept has been around for years but it wasn't until the last ten years ago that some brilliant researchers came up with ways to actually make it feasible. The idea is that you encrypt your data, and you can give that data to someone else to perform some mathematically operations on, and the person doing the operations can perform the operations without knowing what data they are manipulating, and the operation results can be sent back to you, and you can decrypt them and use them.

The way someone explained it to me, fundamentally all computer operations are decomposable into a bit-wise AND and a bit-wise NOT (or equivalently, a bit-wise OR and a bit-wise NOT). So if you can encrypt your data and have someone else do lots and lots of ANDs and NOTs for you without decrypting it, you can effectively have them run a virtual computer using your encrypted data. They don't know what the results of the operations mean, but they can send the results to you and you can decrypt them and use them.

All of this is mind-blowingly cool.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Spam filtering, sorting, and search. If Google only hosts your email in encrypted form, they can't do those things. So they would have to transfer the complete body of all of your saved email in encrypted form to your computer, and your computer would have to decrypt, search for spam, search, sort, etc... Javascript interpreters are getting incredibly fast as time goes on, but unless your PC is running a pretty recent Core i5 or better with tons of RAM available, Gmail will become too slow to be useful.

Re:I like the idea

[DuckDodgers]

SpiderOak open sources most (but not all) of their code and works like CrashPlan. CrashPlan charges per device, SpiderOak charges per 100GB of space. I prefer SpiderOak, your mileage may vary.

Re:I like the idea

[DuckDodgers]

You're misreading, I think. When you run the software, it hashes your file into named blocks using some one-way algorithm with your password, and encrypts the files using your password. It then sends the encrypted blocks to the server with the hashed names. Later if you want to request a file "abc.txt", it uses the same hash locally to determine the hashed name, and requests the hashed named blocks from the server. SpiderOak has no idea what you're requesting, if you pull down 50 blocks they don't know if it's the components of 3 different files, of 1 file, or of 50 files, and it doesn't know the decrypted file names.

You can go right to their website and login with your username and password to access your files. If you do that, they of course get your password in plain text and hash it to understand the data they have on their servers. But they explicitly recommend against ever doing this in their user documentation, for the same reasons you think it's a very bad idea.

Re:I like the idea

[DuckDodgers]

Usually the market leaders want to lock out the competition to maintain their position. But the upstarts want openness to encourage people to use the product instead of the market leaders.

Thus Twitter opened its API to third party app developers when it was small, but now that it's big they've slammed the door on everyone.

So DropBox and Bittorrent Sync won't open their protocols because they're the kings of cloud storage. But I bet there are dozens of lesser known cloud storage providers that do open their protocol or would if asked.

Re:I like the idea

[Barryke]

Which IMHO can cost more sweat than approaching this in bulk.
They'd narrow down the potential content types (notably by entropy) to get likely plain data chunks, and go from there using more encryption exploits, rainbow tables, and brute force. The bad thing about encryption is that its pretty predicable. A good solution starts with avoiding established standards.

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Switzerland?

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/nsa_backdoors_i.html

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if I use OS/2 and not Windows or Linux?

Re:I like the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

All the more reasons for decentralized solutions. Such as BitTorrentSync perhaps.

Re:I like the idea

[hobarrera]

Ultraparanoid using an MS OS? OUTLOOK? LOL!

Re:I like the idea

[gottabeme]

I would like to use SpiderOak, especially if they open-source their entire client code. But CrashPlan's unlimited space makes it a nearly unbeatable deal. I like not having to worry about usage, and being able to dig up an old, accidentally-deleted file long after it's gone. Decisions, decisions...

Re: I like the idea

[Eivind]

AES256 is entirely public. Furthermore, that's an *algorithm* not a piece of software -- the algorithm has been *implemented* hundreds of times, by hundreds of independent organizations, some implementations are open source, some are closed.

Furthermore, AES256 says precicely *nothing* about how to create a key, what it DOES say is how, given plaintext and key, you create ciphertext, and how, given ciphertext and key, you create plaintext.

Your claim that government could "have their own key" is thus nonsensical -- you can, if you like, create your aes256-keys by tossing a coin.

Re:I like the idea

[Eivind]

That still only works if you trust the hardware and software of that computer. The problem is that if the software you used to encrypt stuff was backdoored, it could leak the key (or fractions thereof) in the ciphertext.

It could do this only sometimes, so no amount of analyzing the ciphertext could convince you that it's honest. Perhaps it only leaks the key if run on a friday the 13th. You simply don't know.

The leaked key, could itself be encrypted so that only the entity planting the backdoor is able to "open" it.

Re:I like the idea

[Eivind]

Perhaps. But it's hard to say. Let me construct a scenario, and tell me how you (or anyone!) would notice:

Some ciphers work on blocks of fixed size, and add padding to reach this length if message is shorter. (example: message must be n*16 bytes, if not, pad message with random bytes at the end, until it is.)

Let's say I've backdored a program implementing such a cipher. The backdoor is this: Instead of padding with random bytes, I do this:

1) Take as much of the secret key as will fit in the padding-space. (if 9 bytes of padding is needed, I take the first 9 bytes of the secret key)

2) I encrypt this (using a algorithm that can encrypt any-length messages) using a second hidden backdoor-key.

3) I swap the last n bytes of the ciphertext with this encrypted partial-key.

Result: Message-size is unchanged. Encryption and Decryption works as specified. n-last characters (the padding) looks like random noise, and is supposed to BE random. How do you notice ? How do you detect that the last n characters is really part of the key, encrypted, and NOT random noise ?

(To make this more fun: I left one big flaw in the scheme there IS a easy way to detect that this shit is going on -- but there's also a way to patch that flaw, I'll explain that in the next message if you find the flaw)

Good move...

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a service like this and pretty soon Google Drive and the rest should hopefully follow suite to keep up with the Jones'...

Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[JWSmythe]

http://xkcd.com/538/

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[DirePickle]

With the recent "revelations" (they're not), it would be obvious that xkcd was pretty far off the mark here. The NSA is engaging in a far-reaching fishing expedition that is not practical to conduct with wrenches.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[jamesh]

With the recent "revelations" (they're not), it would be obvious that xkcd was pretty far off the mark here. The NSA is engaging in a far-reaching fishing expedition that is not practical to conduct with wrenches.

But on the other hand if their "far-reaching fishing expedition" doesn't give them the information they want, and they want it badly enough, a wrench always works.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[MichaelSmith]

Even so, this service does not protect an individual against wrenches.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[rvw]

With the recent "revelations" (they're not), it would be obvious that xkcd was pretty far off the mark here. The NSA is engaging in a far-reaching fishing expedition that is not practical to conduct with wrenches.

But on the other hand if their "far-reaching fishing expedition" doesn't give them the information they want, and they want it badly enough, a wrench always works.

Some people simply won't give in, even if you use that wrench on their loved ones.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[rvw]

Even so, this service does not protect an individual against wrenches.

Indeed it doesn't, but a wrench is not guaranteed to work either.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[jamesh]

With the recent "revelations" (they're not), it would be obvious that xkcd was pretty far off the mark here. The NSA is engaging in a far-reaching fishing expedition that is not practical to conduct with wrenches.

But on the other hand if their "far-reaching fishing expedition" doesn't give them the information they want, and they want it badly enough, a wrench always works.

Some people simply won't give in, even if you use that wrench on their loved ones.

Yes but that's the sort of person the NSA really is interested in. My secrets, i'd give up in a hearbeat in that situation.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[jon3k]

1. Require a password and a private key file stored on computer to decrypt files (Two factor authentication)
2. Two sets of logins: One set of credentials is to your normal account, the other has a login/startup script that wipes the private key and DoD wipes the free space
3. When the NSA asks for your password, give them the wipe password

Congratulations, the NSA can beat you with a wrench all they want, it's not possible for you to give them the encryption key anymore.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[Urkki]

Even so, this service does not protect an individual against wrenches.

Indeed it doesn't, but a wrench is not guaranteed to work either.

If the wrench does not work, you're holding it wrong.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know they can keep copies of the encrypted files, keys, etc, right?

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[rvw]

Even so, this service does not protect an individual against wrenches.

Indeed it doesn't, but a wrench is not guaranteed to work either.

If the wrench does not work, you're holding it wrong.

What I mean is that (1) the wrench could kill the person; or (2) the person could refuse to answer, no matter what force or method they use. Not many people can withstand that, but it certainly has been done before.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[currently_awake]

I believe standard practice is for police to back up your hard drive before they start forensic stuff. So you give them a wipe password, then they go for the real one.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[jon3k]

Ah good point. Ok, the key file to decrypt is stored on a remote server. If the restored copy of the hard drive cannot connect to that remote server, it cannot decrypt the stored information. The remote machine hosting the key file is accessible only via TOR. Have someone else setup the actual remote site so you only know it by it's TOR address. Again, two passwords but the wrong password wipes it on the remote side. This forces them to connect to TOR to attempt to decrypt and then they remotely wipe the key for you once you give them the tainted password, rendering the private key file unrecoverable.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[JWSmythe]

So lets see... They thing you're a bad guy with something nefarious in encrypted cloud storage..

They ask for the password, you give the duress password.
They ask again for the password, since that one didn't return valid data..
They beat you for the password until you either give the real password, which you can't any more, or you're dead.

Official cause of death? You tripped.

In the end, the data is wiped, and you're a bloody pulp on the interrogation room floor. Regardless, the problem has been mitigated, and you saved them the trouble of destroying your nefarious something.

Was whatever you had worth hiding? Probably not. Not that I want agencies going through my personal stuff, but when the choice is being beaten down, and possibly killed, that duress password was the worst one to give up first.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[ArsonSmith]

Not always: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/plausible-deniability

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, having recently dealt with some of this due to lawsuits at work, anything they attempt is going to be done against an image if your drive, which is probably stored on a SAN and snapshotted so they can try over, and over, and over with no worries.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[bingoUV]

While I don't disagree with the central theme of your post, but

since that one didn't return valid data.

This is not the information they necessarily have. That is to say, they cannot necessarily make sure whether that decrypted data was "valid" or not.

The real reason why duress password is unlikely to work is - they read and possibly reverse-engineer the software into you are putting passwords. And can figure out it has an option of 2 (or more) passwords, and keep hitting you until you reveal all.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[L4t3r4lu5]

Rule No. 1 of data forensics (criminal investigation, data recovery etc): NEVER work on live data. EVER.

Criminal forensics teams have special devices with no write access to the drive, so they couldn't wipe anything with your password anyway.

Re:Obligatory 5 dollar wrench.

[rastos1]

This is government we talk about. The wrench would likely to be $5234.99.

Hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with that, they own the cloud.

Dream on

[Damouze]

Whatever the encryption is, you can bet your bottom dollar bill that the NSA is at least two decades ahead of it.

Re:Dream on

[BlueStrat]

Whatever the encryption is, you can bet your bottom dollar bill that the NSA is at least two decades ahead of it.

That's why, if you want it really secure, you leverage their own security.

Hack an NSA/TLA network, and store your encrypted data right alongside of their data.

You could hide your data on Obama's Blackberry servers, or on Gen. Alexander's, Valerie Jarret's, or Clapper's machines.

For extra happy-fun-time, make sure to include some CP, bestiality, and snuff films in separate files/folders, and then out them publicly. Sauce for the gander. :)

The US government has by their own actions declared a de-facto no-rules, no-laws, screw-the-Constitution, all-out cyber-war...not only against every other government including supposed US "allies", but their own citizens as well. History teaches that the dues incurred for such hubris always get paid.

Strat

Wuala

[ruhrguide]

... exists. But as mentioned by bondsbw, you can't control wether it sends your keys to a third party.

Cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary contains the word "cloud". Next please.

Re: Cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

Spot on and having to support such a service will expose vulnerabilities in the software whilst they try to make this easy to use!

If they want you

[nurb432]

They will just attach to your PC 'end point' and get their data before you encrypt.

There is no hiding at this point of the game. Well, really its been that way for a bit now, just most people who knew this were called tin-hatters and paranoid. Its nice to be vindicated, sometimes..

Re:If they want you

[AHuxley]

In the old days a gov would go after the coders, hardware makers, publishers or even create a 'trusted' front company.
The big telco and computer brands handed over clear text making life much more easy but old methods are still waiting for anyone.

Re:If they want you

[jon3k]

Explain to me how they attach to my "PC 'end point'" on my linux workstation.

Re:If they want you

[currently_awake]

A customized software update to your web browser should suffice. A NSA letter will get your ISP to re-route your updater to their site, and they are in.

Re:If they want you

[jon3k]

I only update my browser from the public repos which is signed using their private key.

Re:If they want you

[ThatAblaze]

Explain to me how they attach to my "PC 'end point'" on my linux workstation.

lunux != security. Although you can continue to think it is for all they care, you'll just be playing into their hands.

The fact is that lunux may have a smaller user base, but the targets on that platform are higher value in general, so there is plenty of drive to exploit lunux computers.

Re:If they want you

[nurb432]

*rootkit* cough* rootkit*

They come in while you are away at work and install whatever they want on your hardware.

And?

[fustakrakich]

So what stops the feds from seizing your 'cloud' and locking it up in the impound?

Re:And?

[AHuxley]

Or a NSL to add in another server?

Great idea but...

[Zemran]

...based in California - cannot trust the security... ...UK - what is security? ...Australia - the FBI asked us nicely...

Re:Great idea but...

[munch117]

...based in California - cannot trust the security... ...UK - what is security? ...Australia - the FBI asked us nicely...

You have some fine words there, now you just need to put them in order to form a sentence :-)

They're actually Australian-based, according to this press release. Not that it helps much - with a strong US presence they are still vulnerable to national security letters.

Re:Great idea but...

[Figj]

The Lockbox technology comes out of Melbourne, Australia. So (with completely client-side key/storage management) it looks pretty bad for the NSA or FBI: (1) No keys - all keys are client-side (there are no server-side keys) so they'd have to go after each end user individually (2) No ciphertext - users can store their encrypted data directly onto any overseas S3 server (e.g. Europe, Asia, South America) (3) No application influence - Lockbox is based in Australia and there is no Australian law nor treaty that could force an Australian company to compromise their commercial offering, nor any way to prosecute if the poisoned code didn't work. (Even if they could force poisoned code, they could never keep it secret as anyone could dissemble Lockbox's client-side code to reveal the poisoned code.)

not secure

[BradMajors]

It says Lockbox will do the encryption, which means Lockbox knows the encryption keys, which means that the NSA will ask for and receive the encryption keys from Lockbox.

Re:not secure

[GigaplexNZ]

Doesn't necessarily mean they know the decryption keys does it?

Sounds like a job for...

[SGT CAPSLOCK]

Sounds like a job for... Well, any of the millions and trillions of safer, free, open source software utilities which can do the exact same thing without exposing your keys to some third party.

I wouldn't trust anyone but myself with my private keys, and I certainly wouldn't trust anyone else to generate private keys for me.

For that matter, I don't trust my data to be safe in anyone else's computer, but I guess that's OT.

Re:Sounds like a job for...

[Anonymous Coward]

millions maybe, but trillions? come on now

Re:Sounds like a job for...

[SGT CAPSLOCK]

Vigintillions, my friend.

Honestly, I didn't mean for that number to be taken literally. This is Slashdot! How could it be taken as truth without a reference?!

Re:Sounds like a job for...

[rvw]

I wouldn't trust anyone but myself with my private keys, and I certainly wouldn't trust anyone else to generate private keys for me.

But you trust a program on you computer to generate those keys? Or have you compiled from source? Have you checked the source before compiling? Are you 100% sure no keylogger software or hardware is present?

Re:Sounds like a job for...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have already individually pwnd my machine, then they already have a clean copy of the unencrypted files you fucking moron.

Encrypting your online storage is to prevent the dragnet fishing expeditions that NSA is conducting. It is not meant to stop spearfishing of your personal machine.

What exactly is $2.5 million funding?

[Anonymous Coward]

The price of serving up many copies of a single-page PDF describing how to use a myriad of freely available tools to encrypt before upload?

PT Barnum was never more right.

Re:What exactly is $2.5 million funding?

[GPLHost-Thomas]

It's funding the advertising campaign on slashdot.

Lockbox == NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be the perfect cover. The NSA creates a company that says it can hide you from NSA. PROFIT!

If only the hardware wasn't already compromised

[ReallyEvilCanine]

Without known-secure hardware and and OS to run it, all the fucking encryption in the world don't mean squat. And before the fanbois scream, "Lunix is Teh Shiznit Seckyoor!" remember that you have to know the compiler is safe as well (*cough*Ken*Thompson*cough*).

Re:If only the hardware wasn't already compromised

[Microlith]

The thing about Ken Thompson's theoretical attack is that it would inevitably be detected. It's an interesting thought experiment, but a functioning example that would be able to discern the right program to attack (and differentiate between a kernel and a userspace application) has not been shown as far as I am aware.

Re:If only the hardware wasn't already compromised

[jon3k]

1. Compilers are open source, we can verify it doesn't insert a backdoor.
2. You can decompile binaries and verify nothing has been added.

Re:If only the hardware wasn't already compromised

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Compilers are open source, we can verify it doesn't insert a backdoor.

2. You can decompile binaries and verify nothing has been added.

1. The compiler's open source code may not contain the backdoor, but you have to compile the compiler with another pre-existing compiler, and the pre-existing compiler may be backdoored to insert copies of the backdoor into every compiler it makes.

2. Decompiling a sizeable binary doesn't really ever get to the point where you can reliably match it all up to the original source code. It's OK for reverse engineering basic protocols or DRM algos because the interesting parts are reasonably short. In any case you are assuming that the decompiler tools are not also backdoored to omit the incriminating parts from their output.

3. You would not necessarily notice the backdoor or additions. You are assuming the backdoor is about as conceptually simple as seeing 'send_to_NSA(unsigned char * data);' in the source. In practice the backdoor might be more subtle, like an obscure buffer overflow that can later be used to take over any client that the spooks want to control. At that point they can copy whatever they like. How many open source projects have discovered serious bugs that have been present for years without anyone noticing? What about the Debian SSH bug? A very small change made the crypto still look like it was functioning when in fact it was not. This would have been a perfect 'backdoor' and it was present for a long time.

Re:If only the hardware wasn't already compromised

[Anonymous Coward]

Rgith - and the fact that the distros of things such as OpenSSL have been poisoned in the past means that it works so well...

Sorry, Open Source is not panacea. The amount of source code in most of these projects is simply too large to audit and ensure that nothing is slipping in.

All one's eggs in one basket is never a good idea.

[MobSwatter]

This will work until they get the NSL, then it is over as with anyone they send one to.

Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

If you honestly think they are screwing with you and your probably gonna get disappeared anyways you might as well be obnoxious as shit and just change keyboards discs and video cards ALOT like troll ebay for whatever junk you feel like. so they have to constantly be re rigging everything.

Re:Hardware

[ReallyEvilCanine]

Are you that mind-blowingly ignorant or are you just so stupid and lazy that you haven't bothered to glance over anything avbout the subject?

Dunning-Kruger is becoming the new Godwin.

Lockbox

[Cyfun]

Didn't Al Gore already invent this a long time ago?

Re:Lockbox

[rvw]

Didn't Al Gore already invent this a long time ago?

Al Gore invented inventions. So basically - yes.

Clown Computing!!!?? Stop already.

[marienf]

Can we stop pretending that "The Cloud" has actual meaning, technical relevance, etc..?
Do we really have to go back to the fracking mainframe with all our eggs into one (someone else's) basket,
and at the mercy of whatever corporate greed du jour? Your Brains! They are SOOOO CLEAN!

We have so much computing power and bandwidth in the home and office that it should be perfectly feasible
to go exactly the other way, do away with the stupid client/server model and go 100% P2P, keeping
one's own data on one's own hardware in one's own home.

ISP's that go symmetric and neutral will survive.

Re:Clown Computing!!!?? Stop already.

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

While I'm not a huge fan of cloud services, they *do* provide me with one huge benefit: the sync/backup service I use provides live versioning, so when something goes horribly wrong on a document that I don't notice until several saves have gone by, I can easily restore it. The only comparable programs I've found either tapped my drive/CPU near-constantly enough to slow the system down or required extensive manual configuration.

Re:Clown Computing!!!?? Stop already.

[marienf]

Sure, ok, but that only means you have a well-designed backup service, and that has nothing to do with where it stores its data: It could be saving to your own device, or to devices at one or more trusted parties *of your choice*. In essence, towards devices managed by people that you have a mutual agreement or a true definable trust relationship with.

I'd like to hear *one* example of a useful application that is better off in "the cloud" than implemented with other schemes, even a bunch of VM's in your own data center. All I can think of are one-off raw-power activities using only publicly available data. And even those could be distributed if you have an adequate web of trust.

Re:Clown Computing!!!?? Stop already.

[rvw]

I'd like to hear *one* example of a useful application that is better off in "the cloud" than implemented with other schemes, even a bunch of VM's in your own data center. All I can think of are one-off raw-power activities using only publicly available data. And even those could be distributed if you have an adequate web of trust.

The usefulness is not so much that the cloud is better, but it's much cheaper and much more available for clients with smaller budgets. Having a 200GB backup service for $10 a month, or my own server for $20 a month, with high availability, high speed upload and download. I can't offer that here at home (slow upload, no offsite backup) or elsewhere (much more expensive, more difficult handling the hardware in case of trouble).

Re:Clown Computing!!!?? Stop already.

[marienf]

I see your point, and I also see the communications failure that is entirely my fault.

I'm writing about where I think we should take our dollar (euro.. etc).. to achieve our goals of security, safety, efficiency, privacy of our data, in the near future, you guys are writing about how this can or cannot be solved in the current situation, today. I think we should take those dollars (and those bytes) away from Big Data and towards ISP's that offer neutrality and high upload speeds, using tech like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-high-bit-rate_digital_subscriber_line_2

and a web of trust + good encryption and your backup (and a lot of other things you now host somewhere) can transparently be HA over a whole bunch of machines of folks you know (and theirs on your H/W.) You don't have to pay for tier-1 storage, just duplicate more.

I believe our freedom requires the death of the C/S model, and a focus on improving the network itself to allow for full-featured P2P. Lots of little private clouds (cloudlets?) all over the Net, instead of a limited number of huge ones.

-f

Is it really safe / free (libre) software?

[Anonymous Coward]

In this months Free Software Foundation news Bulletin the FSF points to what appears to be a similar offering that is free software friendly:

https://leastauthority.com/press_release_2013_07_30

I took a quick look at lockbox and nothing I saw screamed free software. I could be wrong. Maybe they are even using the same underlying software as LeastAuthority. However they haven't advertised that clearly enough (on front page). I'd be concerned in using a service that is more concerned about looks, isn't clear, and might even be snake oil.

If somebody has the time to take a better look please post a reply with the relevant facts and links to the source/evidence/etc.

Trusted client?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's to stop the intelligence agencies from compelling the company to produce a compromised client? For example, logging the encryption keys somewhere, or subtly introducing flaws into the algorithm... I mean, right there on their website, "Only naive users would trust their cloud vendor" - so instead trust us - we *promise* we won't let the NSA sneak anything into our software...

About the only way you could have any real confidence in this is if you write your own client to manage all the encryption and use it as a dumb storage backend. And that assumes you can trust the OS and all the other software on your computer - I mean, the company pretty much has to operate out of a country, and that country probably has provisions in its law to compel co-operation with police investigations or intelligence agencies.

All they need to do is rock up with a court order that includes non-disclosure provisions, and wham, next time something auto-updates you're screwed. And if you don't install the updates, there's probably _something_ on your computer that phones home that could be used to identify your system and use all the un-patched vulnerabilities to sneak in a keylogger or similar.

You're probably better off writing coded letters, but even that is highly vulnerable to a wrench attack.

Wishful thinking

[trifish]

Until they are served with a secret order telling them (i) to install key escrow backdoor and/or (ii) until NSA starts implanting torjans onto the suspects' computers (like FBI did with some of the Tor users recently, exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in the TorBrowser - http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/08/04/2054208/half-of-tor-sites-compromised-including-tormail ).

Cyphertite

[chriscappuccio]

Cyphertite's end-to-end system is already up and working. And inexpensive storage and fully open-source. And supports all major and minor platforms. What the fuck else could you want?

Encrypts and compresses?

[TheTrueScotsman]

One would hope they do the compression first otherwise there's very little point.

the cloud is dead

[0111 1110]

At best the service will simply be shut down by the NSA if they cannot compromise it. Lockbox claims to use client side encryption. If the system is executed perfectly and all of your data is fully encrypted before it leaves your computer this might be difficult, but if the service is shut down you will probably lose your data anyway. Which means you will need a local backup which would seem to ruin the point. I think it's about time to admit that saving any data on a remote server in the US, UK, or close allies of either has to be considered to be stored by the NSA/GCHQ and forwarded to other law enforcement agencies if deemed appropriate. And international cooperation in this regard among close allies cannot be ruled out.

In the sort of privacy-hostile environment currently faced in the US, UK and much of the world going full tin foil hat is the only way. Any information you want to remain private has to be encrypted by a system fully under your control before it leaves your computer and your passphrase has to not just be secure, but NSA/GCHQ secure. And it wouldn't hurt to toss in some multifactor authentication and steganography as well.

Re:the cloud is dead

[AHuxley]

Yes they have your tame mainstream OS/cell OS and every hardware "keystroke" before encryption and any needed knowledge of the OS.
Also recall many nations have sent their officer class to the US. They will recall the best years of their lives while working in the telco/security sectors...
Then comes the "just this once" telco/OS favour ....
Close allies or cold war friendships - or a nations law enforcement - its not your cloud.

Re:the cloud is dead

[mr100percent]

The NSA couldn't shut down PGP (though they did try unsuccessfully to restrict the public's access to it), and Snowden said it's still secure.

Re:the cloud is dead

[AHuxley]

They have the cooperation of the average users OS, its code and plain text input. Forms of onetime pads, PGP and other amazing encryption has always been an issue. The solution was Tempest, later weak/cheap global standards and now plain text as entered.

Re:the cloud is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA couldn't shut down PGP (though they did try unsuccessfully to restrict the public's access to it), and Snowden said it's still secure.

That is presuming, of course, that you believe Snowden is genuine and not an NSA 'operative' telling you it's still secure so you will trust it.

Mega

[Anonymous Coward]

So how is this any different from Kim Dotcom's Mega service?

nas

[thephydes]

Why would you put your personal data in "the cloud". It seems to me that there are plenty of just-as-secure options in NAS, or have I been duped by that as well?

Re:nas

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure your local NAS is secure - as long as your router or firewall is not compromised. But the use factor here is "access from anywhere". So your data is only as secure as the VPN you use.

AC because the NSA is watching (naw really because I don't have my /. password handy)

Hee haw ! the captcha is 'enclosed'

will the NSA get access through a court order ?

[Anonymous Coward]

As this is an American company the doors are open for the NSA.
Anybody knows a similar service sold by a European outfit,
or maybe even better a BOLIVIAN one ??

No thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

but I've learned that when it's American it can't be trusted.

Me too?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. sshfs

2. ecryptfs

Can I get 2.5 million dollars as well?

Dejavu?

[Anonymous Coward]

DejaDup dejavu much? As in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duplicity_(software) contains pretty much all of this, just needs a tiny bit of polish more for the masses to understand it.

SpiderOak does it without using Java

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

SpiderOak has had client-only encryption/decryption using 2048-bit RSA & 256-bit AES for its sync/backup/versioning service for years -- I believe ever since they opened in late 2007. That sure sounds like what this newcomer is touting, except that SpiderOak also has free 2GB accounts with live versioning, and uses binary executables on all platforms to do the encryption/decryption (Lockbox uses a Java web client, which I thought was a security no-no).

FWIW, I don't get jack out of pointing out SpiderOak. I've just been really relieved that it has restored documents that I completely fucked up (live versioning FTW) and think it's seriously overlooked/underrated.

Re:SpiderOak does it without using Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good, except that they are USA based, and therefore can be required
to change their code and deliver your keys. You'd never know.

TeamDrive may be a better bet being based in Germany, but them again
according to the recent leaks, they have been complicit, so you never know.
They offer client based encryption and zero knowledge. I'm a customer, not
an employee.

Re:SpiderOak does it without using Java

[Anonymous Coward]

SpiderOak is really nice, but sync is broken (it works only when it wants to). I have changed from SugarSync, 500GB account, to SpiderOak, exactly because of their zero knowledge policy.

  It was pre-snowden.

I will trust them when they get out of the US and go to Russia. Oh, wait.

Re:SpiderOak does it without using Java

[chihowa]

SpiderOak is US based, closed source, and their "zero knowledge" implementation is not technical, but policy based. (Who knows, but the fact that they're not sweating the NSA thing like Lavabit and Silent Circle may indicate that they're already cooperating.)

They may be fine, but there's no way for you to know for certain. Any all-in-one (especially closed source) solution is going to require putting all of your trust in an opaque third party. You're better off with a layered approach.

PGP

[mr100percent]

We already have PGP, which is open-sourced. Will this be better and easier to use?

Let FUD be dismissed and truth be elucidated

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the obvious FUD here is that separating the encryption from the data storage service is pointless due to the various reasons given. There are many reasons why you wouldn't want data to be readable given it was obtained without the user's permission. I would imagine MOST data that is obtained without the user's permission is ILLEGAL in fact and not as a result of NSA (etc).

Let's assume the user encrypts the data themselves, which should be (by default) entirely separate from the service provider. Every possibility provided about how this encryption might be beaten could of course happen, but ASSUMING THEM ALL IN PERPETUITY is PURE AND 100% FUD. All encryption could be beaten eventually. All encryption should be independent of the network and the data storage service for reasons of interception. If a user encrypts the data on their desktop, than they could be using a) any client, b) any encryption protocol, c) any key(s). These ALL would have to be dealt with by somebody who illegally obtained your data.

Also, if you happen to be a data storage provider and you receive a warrant for a particular user's data, you must comply. BUT, you cannot in any way be made responsible for something you fundamentally are not responsible for, so although you might provide some layer of protection on the data, any user encryption scheme would be 100% external to you.

Online or Secure

[toygeek]

Pick one

Re:Online or Secure

[Anonymous Coward]

^^^This^^^

Re:Online or Secure

[Cryptosmith]

Actually the alternatives are between "secure" and "managed by a third party."

The threat isn't being on-line, the threat is when you put unprotected (plaintext) data on a device managed by a third party that can succumb to secret leverage. This isn't just a question of secret FISA demands. The same problem would arise if Apple were so foolish as to store sensitive plaintext emails on a third-party email service that could get bought out by a competitor.

There is no obvious problem with storing properly encrypted data on cloud storage. The problem arises when you decrypt the data to process it further. There are a very tiny number of applications in which you can do further processing of encrypted data without decrypting it first.

Need to close their US office

[bradley13]

Seriously. If they want to be taken seriously as offering a service proof against the NSA, they need to not be an American company and to not have any physical US operations. Otherwise a secret FISA order (e.g., issue a client update that sends the encryption keys along with the next batch of data), and their customers are screwed.

No cloud service (or any other service) in the US can be trusted.

Re:Need to close their US office

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, they're just another US company that talks big but in the end either willingly or unwillingly has to cooperate anyway. Their assurances are worth just as much as those from Microsoft, Google and so on. In such an environment there cannot be privacy or trust.

Re:Need to close their US office

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. If they want to be taken seriously as offering a service proof against the NSA, they need to not be an American company and to not have any physical US operations. Otherwise a secret FISA order (e.g., issue a client update that sends the encryption keys along with the next batch of data), and their customers are screwed.

No cloud service (or any other service) in the US can be trusted.

LOLHARD @ avoiding domestic intelligence gathering by going abroad... that's like avoiding drunk drivers by hiding out in the bar's parking lot.

too incompetant for words

[Anonymous Coward]

mystery interior astrologers joy evil foreshow providence
fragrance Thou remindeth draught far_out_man deliverest
fit conceit urged to-day worketh strengthened seasons
genius wilderness stroke partaketh rudely edit departest
wavered adapted Jews don't_worry don't_even_think_about_it
contrite

Re:too incompetant for words

[Bob_Who]

mystery interior astrologers joy evil foreshow providence
fragrance Thou remindeth draught far_out_man deliverest
fit conceit urged to-day worketh strengthened seasons
genius wilderness stroke partaketh rudely edit departest
wavered adapted Jews don't_worry don't_even_think_about_it
contrite

Re:too incompetant for words

[Bob_Who]

mystery interior astrologers joy evil foreshow providence
fragrance Thou remindeth draught far_out_man deliverest
fit conceit urged to-day worketh strengthened seasons
genius wilderness stroke partaketh rudely edit departest
wavered adapted Jews don't_worry don't_even_think_about_it
contrite

Re:too incompetant for words

[Anonymous Coward]

Decrypt that ya bastards!

Encryption isn't enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you trust their (noble) goals. And even if you trust your computer hardware and even if you trust your OS. And even if your encryption software is perfect and bug free. All of this is meaningless. They [NSA, FBI, GCHQ, ASIO, HBO, FOX] can still find out a) if you have an account and b) how many files files you have. Then judicious use of a monkey wrench will render the entire stack useless. The weakest element is always the human element.

http://xkcd.com/538/

NSL

[Anonymous Coward]

Until a National Security Letter forces Lockebox to push out an update with a NSA backdoor.
The simple truth is you can't offer secure (as in safe from NSA et al) services as a US-based company - or with any part of your infrastructure located there.

Privacy has been outlawed; only outlaws have privacy.

Güncelist

[Anonymous Coward]

Guncelist-Tr sitesinin yazarym sitenizi çeviri sayesinde takip ediyorum. ilginç konular paylasyorsunuz

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

you are so easily fooled.. I'm not going to get into all the false bullshit you lap up. but one thing I do know: you know nothing of the NSA or blackhat culture, other than what the mainstream media has fed you - parrot.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

This blatant attempt at disinfo brought to you by $some_blackhat.

Article or Ad ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads on article ? You can do the same with an owncloud hosted on your private server.
What's new on that ?

Re:Article or Ad ?

[Anonymous Coward]

ownCloud does not have end-to-end client side encryption, see https://github.com/owncloud/core/issues/106

Until

[Anonymous Coward]

This means that [none will] be be able to peer into users' most sensitive and private files

Until a flaw, a bug or a highly effective encryption method is found.

Nothing is forever!

Re: vigintillions

[Bob_Who]

Urban Dictionary: vigintillion ~ www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=vigintillion
a very large number: 1000000000000000000000000000000000. used when wanting to sound smart.

LOL... also used when actually smart (IMO) but I thought that was funny result when I looked it up

Overreaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's much more attention on privacy and encryption these days. Did Snowden's revelations really change the pros and cons of following good security practices all that much?

Even Tahoe-LAFS, after years of being largely ignored, is finally getting some recognition.

I'm not complaining. I like that more people are caring about things that I care about. But I get the feeling that people are going too far with this.

Re:Overreaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Did Snowden's revelations really change the pros and cons of following good security practices all that much?"

He did. Previously we suspected, now we are sure: Don't trust the Americans!

Re:Overreaction?

[AHuxley]

How can one go too far about plain text from trusted encryption?
Good security practices where build on a few basic building blocks/books/skill sets and an ever expanding acceptance of the 'cloud'.
Data and passwords where to be trusted in some distant network with very little thought or understanding.
Now we all understand more and can educate others :)

Lastpass does that for Passwords

[Skylinux]

This is how LastPass.com works. Very good idea and works well but I must trust that future updates are not modified by an "NSA Patch" or some sort of court order.

One way to somewhat "NSA Proof" it would be to separate the encryption and storage software.
Storing an encrypted Linux container on a service like crashplan.com works well

Re:Lastpass does that for Passwords

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how LastPass.com works. Very good idea and works well but I must trust that future updates are not modified by an "NSA Patch" or some sort of court order.

One way to somewhat "NSA Proof" it would be to separate the encryption and storage software.

you mean you should use the open source keepass, and sync your own encrypted database to your own choice of online storage provider (or your own private, self-hosted 'cloud') instead of using the out-of-your-control, closed-source, cloud-based lastpass?

Truecrypy+Dropbox?

[stevegee58]

I don't see the value add of Lockbox. It sounds like what I'm doing now with the Truecrypt/Dropbox combination.

Which is defeated by the rubber hose.

[sethstorm]

If someone wants it bad enough, they will get it. Not only does it apply to cryptography, it also applies to traitors like Edward Snowden.

He will be found, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned.

Re:Which is defeated by the rubber hose.

[Anonymous Coward]

And all the documents will be released.

Re:Which is defeated by the rubber hose.

[sethstorm]

While the people doing the releasing of documents will find themselves as accessories to whatever crimes the Snowden gets convicted of in court.

All that while the persons that helped locate, prosecute, and convict will be the true patriots - without any fear of retaliation.

Re:Which is defeated by the rubber hose.

[AHuxley]

That worked with authors, publishers and journalists until about the 1990's.
Think how well "found, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned" worked for Eastern Europe in the 1980's ... it gets you one person and buys any gov a few years.
The optics of such events catch up fast now.
Even sockpuppets and front groups are losing their traditional hold.

Re:Which is defeated by the rubber hose.

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone wants it bad enough, they will get it. Not only does it apply to cryptography, it also applies to traitors like Edward Snowden.

He will be found, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned.

1)
You obviously have no idea what Putin is like. As long as
Snowden is in Russia the chance that Snowden will be snatched up
is near zero. This is because Putin isn't going to allow this to happen.

2)
Fuck you, you ignorant bootlicking fascist piece of shit.

I think they understimate the cloud

[msobkow]

I think they underestimate the sheer power of the NSA's cloud. If they decide to sic it on a particular encrypted file, they *will* gain access. We're talking about tens of thousands of servers working to decrypt a file.

Sure they can't do it for every piece of data they're interested in, but if they want something badly enough, they will decrypt it.

Re:I think they understimate the cloud

[cheros]

Yawn. Yet another tech answer to what isn't a tech problem to start with. I suspect there will be gazillions more coming your way over the next few months because all the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs want to milk that market before people realise they've been had: IT IS NOT A TECHNICAL PROBLEM.

For a US based company it is 100% pointless to install any defence mechanism if some random official can walk in and ask for corporate data - the owner has to offer the data., unlocked.

For any organisation outside the US, it should simply ask the question: what are the chances that a US based organisation will NOT have a backdoor in its technology if such can be legally prescribed? As you have seen with Lavabit and Silent Circle, there are in principle only two ways forward: comply, or close shop. I leave you to note the clear risk in using security products from those who provide security products who have not closed down yet. Note: I'm not stating that all US sourced security products HAVE been provided with a backdoor, merely that it is legally possible to force the suppliers to implement them.

Eventually, someone will realise the real risk to the US economy: it's a profound lack of trust. This will take decades to fix, mainly because it involves a fight to either repeal those emergency laws or introduce some independent transparency and supervision. Meanwhile, whole swaths of Silicon Valley people will continue to sell what is at best privacy theatre, but which also risks becoming nothing more than security theatre as well.

Because backdoors and security do not combine very well.

Re:I think they understimate the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

That's idiotic. They can't break the best encryption algorithms in any human lifetime. Seriously, the NSA isn't magic.

Re:I think they understimate the cloud

[AHuxley]

You dont need to "break" anything if you can walk into the server room, install new hardware or just read the text from a users computer as entered.
The US has never really been bothered with that aspect of consumer grade encryption it seems.
You could present it, talk about it, break it, share it ... sell it, give it away free...
The encryption algorithms as sold had many eyes on them and worked just fine in many respects.
The OS, server or telco was the only key needed and works just fine in real time with any plain text.
The magic was letting generations of experts travel the world reviewing each others encryption algorithms and report back as been very confident.
If only more people had thought about the input side or output side.

Re:I think they understimate the cloud

[msobkow]

2048 bit encryption, yes, but lower key sizes? The decryption time increases exponentially with the size of the key.

1500 years was quoted by one article I read as the time for a "standard desktop" to crack a 1024bit key (worst case.) Given that the NSA has tens of thousands of processors at their disposal, that means it's probably more on the order hours for their clusters to crack a 1024 bit key.

The point is: just using encryption isn't enough. The encryption has to be sufficiently hard to be of any value, and your keys have to be securely stored in such a fashion that the NSA can't just steal them with one of their software-based attacks. And unless you're running a version of Linux where you've reviewed all the code personally and compiled from source, you have absolutely no guarantees about a lack of backdoors for the NSA and their ilk to use to steal your keys.

Re:I think they understimate the cloud

[msobkow]

Case in point: The Snowden files carried by that "companion" of a British journalist have already been partially cracked -- I believe they claim they have access to 75% of the TrueCrypt-protected data so far.

Re:I think they understimate the cloud

[bingoUV]

But that is the whole point, isn't it? To make blanket data acquisition difficult. One of the reasons why judicial approval is required (aka warrant) so that the executive cannot search the whole population in a blanket "search" of their "secrets".

So if decryption difficulty replaces judicial oversight, it sort of serves half the purpose of a warrant.

PS : Yes, the other reason for warrants is so that executive doesn't target someone because they are the opposing political party. That is not mitigated by this, so I accept your point in this limited way.

Blog post in summary is factally inaccurate

[Anonymous Coward]

Linked blog post needs to research its facts a bit better.

It says "It's also worth nothing that Lockbox developed the encryption libraries that Google uses in its Android operating system." which is completely incorrect.

The Legion of the Bouncycastle developed the crypto libraries used in Android many, many years before Lockbox was formed.

Re:Blog post in summary is factally inaccurate

[behrooz0az]

Just a bit late for getting my modpoints.

Hmmm...

[santosh.k83]

I just use GPG on client side, encrypt, and then transfer the files to any cloud service. The service doesn't have the key and their client cannot get at my key. The only way would be to infiltrate my system, bundle malware into GPG, or use the rubber hose on me, all of which are rather extreme scenarios! :-P

Don't kid yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason we are even allowed to _have_ encryption is because the NSA can break it. If there were actually an encryption algorithm they couldn't break, it would be criminalized immediately.

Now, kneel before your new Gods.

The Root Problem

[some old guy]

The root problem, appalling pun gleefully intended, is political, not technical.

Between unlimited resources and questionable legal tactics, the NSA and other sigint agencies can and will always compel or bribe that which they cannot hack. Software crowbars, legal hammers, and moneybags of grease are everything they need. For every new solution, they will create a new problem.

The only guaranteed solutions are either the (don't hold your breath) complete abolition these government entities, with no successor remakes, or the courts and Congress must hamstring them with crystal-clear transparency (still possible, but politically unlikely).

To believe otherwise underestimates the present unfettered powers, technical, legal, and financial, of the government.

Re:The Root Problem

[PPH]

the NSA and other sigint agencies can and will always compel or bribe that which they cannot hack.

The concept behind Lockbox isn't anything new. You have been able to encrypt and upload your own stuff to any server for years. I'm sure that this product is a point and click solution to something that the average Slashdotter could shell script. So it will be made available to a wider sector of the public.

The advantages of the 'roll your own' solution are: Each will differ just enough that the NSA will have to expend major resources to sort them all out. And if they need your keys, they will have to craft a custom 'bot to attack each platform. Or pay a visit to each user to waterboard the information out of them. There is no central point of weakness.

So, thanks for the effort. But I'll GnuPG my own files.

Re:The Root Problem

[dubist]

Yea I would agree with that.. This is a good blog posting on the topic.. http://www.autochthonous.org/blog/

Pricing?

[Shemmie]

£500 a year for 20 users, and 15 GB?

Really?

It seems what is needed here is to give up some

[mark_reh]

convenience. No modern OS should be used, no modern hardware, and no internet connection. I'm going to dig out my old 386 computer, stack of OS/2 floppies, and an old copy of PGP that I have on a floppy from when it first came out. The encrypted files will be stored on 5" floppies in my off-site safe and if they need to be shared with others, it will be done by sneaker net.

Wait, isn't that what Al queda does? Wait, if that is what Al Queda does, why is the NSA monitoring everything on the internet? What is their real purpose?

Re:It seems what is needed here is to give up some

[Anonymous Coward]

They use the Internet to communicate.

Re:It seems what is needed here is to give up some

[santosh.k83]

LOL... Or concerned and highly knowledgeable people can invest in ground-up (from the hardware level) effort towards building alternative infrastructures. Not impossible if enough interested parties can come together and work honestly...

Re:It seems what is needed here is to give up some

[mark_reh]

Yeah, but like Morcheeba says, "Who can you trust?"

Re:It seems what is needed here is to give up some

[santosh.k83]

Strictly speaking, no one, but that doesn't mean NSA would've got their hands and backdoors everywhere. And even if they "implant" at the hardware level, shouldn't it be possible to detect this by close analysis and reverse engineering, and there ought to be some way to cripple the function once it is detected? Regularly audited code-bases for operating systems (like OpenBSD) could be stored on international servers, and all it'd take is a single clean copy of compiler to bootstrap. At the application level, strong encryption ought to set them back for some more years yet. Anyway I guess we ought to continue to take reasonable steps instead of despairing at NSA's perceived omniscience and doing nothing...

sparkleshare does this already

[Anonymous Coward]

sparkleshare, the open source dropbox alternative already offers end-to-end encryption, for free ...

OK Hypothetically

[Greyfox]

You deploy an app that is actually capable of NSA-Proofing the internet. How long do you reckon it'd be before someone pulls up next to your car at a light and shoots you in the ear? I doubt they'd actually be that unsubtle, but you know what they say... "Accidents happen ALL the time... to people who try to NSA-Proof the Internet."

Re:OK Hypothetically

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you know the real reason I don't drive anymore.

(I keed, I keed.)

Re:OK Hypothetically

[jon3k]

Naah they'd just snatch him up, tie him to a chair in a room and explain very carefully how he was going to backdoor his software. If you just kill him someone will just pop up next week doing the same thing. Better to just have a silent backdoor and let everyone go on thinking it's "safe".

Re:OK Hypothetically

[AHuxley]

Step one is the wealth generating deal that takes your developer/team/firm in an amazing new direction.
Step two is the buy in/out/offer.
Step three is the gov representative with very good news just for you as your so smart....
....
More offers, deals... do you have a legal team?
Finally your wealthy and making toys/sport games now or just wealthy or part of a new huge team ...

Exactly

[Bruco]

I was going to say something similar. EncFS + rsync over ssh. Somebody slap a GUI on my ugly shell script and let's sell this thing!

An alternative privacy friendly platform

[Anonymous Coward]

In our case, we create an end to end encrypted connection from the browser to your hardware (located at the place you want) which runs your server ( a privacy friendly platform ). We also let you migrate seamlessly from our cloud to your hardware. We started a couple of years ago as well, and currently support file storage, ebook (pdf) view, search and share; and a photo-album system. Please do check us out: https://register.blib.us/ - In the past month we doubled our pre-alpha users, and we are looking for more early adopters. We hope to revamp our webpage next week.

(Clown Computing!!!?? Stop already.)-Free Network

[marienf]

Focusing on the network can also mean taking it back into our own hands:

https://commons.thefnf.org/index.php/FreeNetworkStack :-)

Opensource?

[Lawrence_Bird]

If lockbox is not opensource then there is no way to be sure what is going on or what is happening to those keys. Perhaps they are appended to the end of the "encrypted" file with Lockbox's own key? Encrypt on your own first with a program you can probably trust (there is no 100% certainty even for open source).

Acid test

[sirnomad99]

If you want a good test to see if this service can actually do what it claims then watch the company closely and see if there is a move by the government to shut it down or otherwise strong arm it into being co-opted..

NSA compromising Swiss companies

[Anonymous Coward]

I would opt for a European country with more a sensible legal system like Switzerland. It will take years for the NSA to get in and the fight would be public. I know that they got into the banks but we all knew about it long before they got there. There are still other option with more effective privacy options and zero corruption but outside of Europe you know they are easily bought.

Poppy cock:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG
http://cryptome.org/jya/nsa-sun.htm

No US-based cloud service can really fight the NSA

[bagofbeans]

There's fighting without fighting, as the late Mr Lee would say.

The problem is "NSA agents will descend upon them, and provide a legal order requiring" something, as you say.

Make that ineffective. Host end doesn't hold any keys is easy. No make the client end that uploads open source AND externalise the key handling and algo choice from the client. A script into Truecrypt is a crude example of externalising.

Now, if the upload client suddenly starts wanting keys or anything else unecessary the user will be suspicious, and the knowledgeable can scrutinise the code.

Privacy laws

[bradley13]

Two points:

- Most other first-world countries have actual privacy laws. Which are actually enforced. The US is unusual in having no such laws. The fourth amendment is supposed to restrain at least the government, but lack of enforcement makes it pretty meaningless.

- If you go outside of first world countries, with the possible exceptions of China and Russia, the governments simply do not have the resources to spy on their entire population.

So the US is unique: A lack of effective privacy legislation combined with a government that does have the resources to monitor essentially everyone.

Re:Privacy laws

[Kazoo the Clown]

More important is whether or not they even care if you're hosting end-to-end encryption services. As long as they're getting their palms greased, they probably don't-- if they even have any idea what end-to-end encryption is.

Network speed

[santosh.k83]

For people like me in India, 256 kbps connections are still pretty much considered "broadband" and are expensive enough. With such a connection the security implications of Cloud storage matters less than whether it is feasible at all to use it in the first place. For example I've got about 300 Gb of data on my harddrive and about 5 Gb on my Google Drive which I spent around 10 days uploading with the patience of a saint! I simply won't be able to upload all my data to any Cloud with the kind of connections here. Besides loosing control of your data, Cloud is also dependent on the network quality, and that's the big killer for much of the world. Data duplicated across two different hard disks ought to be very safe, for individual users. Companies would of course need to maintain copies at several geographic locations. The great advantage of Cloud is mobility, but with storage densities increasing much of that attraction is getting diluted too. Combine that with loss of control and security risks and I can't see what the great fuss is about.

Patterns of Access

[hhr]

There is a additional security hole here that I'd love to see a solution to-- how to hide your patterns of access. The NSA is every bit as interested in who is access what data, when and where, as it is in the contents of the data. If a person of interested has accessed an encrypted file, then other people who access that same file are also very interesting. The actual contents of the file may just be icing on the cake.

IPsec

[Skapare]

I've been using IPsec for years. I bet the reason they are not using IPsec is because they can't patent troll it. That and I compress files BEFORE the encryption step since that uses less CPU for encryption step.

Its called GPG

[MikeBabcock]

I've been recommending to clients to use GPG to encrypt their backups to the cloud for a very long time now for simple hacker-proofness, NSA aside.

It shocks me that these cloud companies are storing private data online for people in the first place.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, one of the documents leaked by Edward Snowden shows that the NSA has contributed $2.5M in seed funding for encryption-related businesses.

so what will you do with that key?

[Anonymous Coward]

leave it on your pc? Send it to your friend over the internet?

I Want $2.5 Million For GPG and SCP

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got this great business plan that entails people running GPG or PGP to encrypt their data before uploading it somewhere. Oh yeah, and paying me money too for the idea or something.

RLY? Switzerland?

[TarPitt]

It's been done already:

For half a century, Crypto AG, a Swiss company located in Zug, has sold to more than 100 countries the encryption machines their officials rely upon to exchange their most sensitive economic, diplomatic and military messages. Crypto AG was founded in 1952 by the legendary (Russian born) Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin. During World War II, Hagelin sold 140,000 of his machine to the US Army.

"In the meantime, the Crypto AG has built up long standing cooperative relations with customers in 130 countries," states a prospectus of the company. The home page of the company Web site says, "Crypto AG is the preferred top-security partner for civilian and military authorities worldwide. Security is our business and will always remain our business."

And for all those years, US eavesdroppers could read these messages without the least difficulty. A decade after the end of WWII, the NSA, also known as No Such Agency, had rigged the Crypto AG machines in various ways according to the targeted countries. It is probably no exaggeration to state that this 20th century version of the "Trojan horse" is quite likely the greatest sting in modern history.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/nsa_backdoors_i.html

Encryption will be broken

[manu0601]

Any encryption will be broken, it is just a matter of time. And we can expect NSA to have first grade encryption cracking capabilities.

The first line of defense when trying to keep data private is to avoid leaking it, even encrypted.

Funding Seed

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't funded recently by someone acting as if they weren't employed by the NSA by chance was it?

Screen door effect

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple thing about encryption is its rather like taking a Loom and laying it over your two dimensional data field. Then workign a shuttlecock back and forth over it to weave it into the "fabric" of the encryption media.

Unfortunately, no matter the algorithm that is used, randomness is a myth.. in reality it does not exist. By definition it is a pattern that cannot be discerned.. but that is the trap.

As soon as you weave your data into the Tapestry, you combine the two patterns and reduce the randomness. The larger the Tapestry the easier it is to see the data hidden beneath. Worse the more sophisticated the algorithm, the easier it becomes to separate the real data from the algorithm.

Stenography is kind of at odds with this.. a known or perceived pattern is co-mingled with data to be hidden and offers up not obfuscation but distraction.. which is the real data?

There isn't a true way to hide data for very long.. the only good insolvent.. is to send short messages entwined with contextual meaning which is never repeated.

Wuala has been doing this for some time

[ITDruid]

Wuala, http://www.wuala.com/ has been doing the client side encryption for quite some time. They also offer lower pieces than Lockbox, including a free tier.

Re:Wuala has been doing this for some time

[Anonymous Coward]

Wuala know your private key, as evidenced by their ability to "share" your files over the web to random anonymous clients.

What's the point?

[skovnymfe]

They won't ever catch up with a government that essentially prints its own money to fight against terrorism.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/08/feds-plow-10-billion-into-groundbreaking-crypto-cracking-program/

ReneeJRodriguez@rhyta.com

[Anonymous Coward]

my roomate's step-sister makes $80 every hour on the laptop. She has been out of a job for nine months but last month her check was $20389 just working on the laptop for a few hours. browse around here ...
WWW.Bay92.COM

Re: SpiderOak

[Figj]

Currently, SpiderOak isn't very private when sharing (hence the "expectation" sentance above). The core reason is that their sharing keys are server-side (see - https://spideroak.com/blog/20120507010958-increasing-transparency-alongside-privacy). Conversly, all Lockbox keys (and certificates) are purely client-side (there are no server-side keys) so that the "cloud" only ever stores encrypted blobs and is totally "blind" to all information being exchanged. If Lockbox got a legal (or NSA) demand they couldn't hand over anything except encrypted blobs of data (as they just don't have the keys). If SpiderOak got a legal demand, they'd have to hand over their shared data (as they do have access to the sharing keys).

Hope they're not based in the US

[Kazoo the Clown]

Good idea if either it's open source or based in Venezuela or somewhere... Otherwise, say hi to the TLA visitors you're about to have.

There's more to Encryption than SSL/SSH

[BuckB]

Relying on SSL/SSH only protects the socket between you and the server that you're talking to - which may not be the server that you think you're talking to. You are including a whole lot of stuff in your trust circle. Now if you meant use OpenSSL or similar libraries for your encryption core, then I agree.

Mega

[Anonymous Coward]

This website is just a copy of mega.co.nz, why is this news?