Ask Slashdot: Secure DropBox Alternative For a Small Business? 274
First time accepted submitter MrClappy writes "I manage the network for a defense contractor that needs a cloud-based storage service and am having a lot of trouble finding an appropriate solution that meets our requirements. We are currently using DropBox and I am terrified of seeing another data leak like last year. Some of our data is classified under International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) which requires that all data to remain inside the US, including any cloud storage or redundant backups. We tried using Box as a more secure replacement but ended up canceling the service due to lack of functionality; 40,000 file sync limit, Linux-based domain controller compatibility issues and the fact that the sync application does not work while our computers are locked (which is an explicit policy for my users). I've been calling different companies and just can't seem to find a decent solution. Unless I'm severely missing something, I'm just blown away that no one offers this functionality with today's tech capabilities. Am I wrong?"
I call bull (Score:5, Interesting)
AWS? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cloud 0? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone needs to write a RAID 0 style encrypted 'driver' that stores your data striped on Google Drive, Skydrive and Dropbox (and what ever else).
Re:You are kidding right? (Score:5, Interesting)
ITAR simply requires State-Side storage. It doesn't have to be secure from the NSA, in fact they would probably object if it was.
There is SpiderOak, which is US based, but they don't have the ability to decrypt your data, all decryption is done at the client.
Re:You are kidding right? (Score:4, Interesting)
As many posters indicated in their comments, compliance is not even checked against your arbitrary list of technical measures. It is checked against an approved list of measures and actions that you are supposed to have and perform.
Good encryption would be a solution. You could have a server in North Korea and safely store all the secrets of portable nukes there, as long as they are well encrypted.
But the devil is in details. What does it mean "well encrypted?" What is even the criteria for "wellness" of your encryption? Would it be OK if I use ROT13? Ok, perhaps not. What if I use AES256? Now you are happy. Right? No, wrong - because I used a key that consists of all zeros. Or ones. Or something equally trivial.
But let's imagine you have a secure key. You used /dev/random, and it is random enough. Is it secure now? No, it isn't. You now have a known plaintext attack. AES may prevent you from reversing the key, but it still a block cipher - and many technical documents have similarities that can be exploited. Unless salted, every block of same plaintext will produce the same ciphertext. This is already a leak of data. Is it important? Maybe not. But there was no such leak before, and now there is a foothold. Can you guarantee that it won't get worse? Your adversary has all the resources of the state (albeit a poor one) and they are not constrained as much as you are.
This is why you never invent your own cryptosystem. NSA does that, and they approve and provide cryptosystems for various end users. If you can get NSA to approve a cryptosystem for your setup, you are golden. But chances of that are not very good. If you start building your own, nobody is even going to check what you did. If it is not approved, it's not good. DSS [wikipedia.org] workers are not cryptographers; even most of NSA personnel are not cryptographers (as we know now.) It takes an inordinate amount of effort to approve a cryptosystem for a particular use. One can have a good algorithm that is implemented with a small bug, and that bug turns it from unbreakable to reversable in milliseconds. Cryptographers know what to watch for, and even they make mistakes sometimes. Can you get away with a crypto library that you downloaded from Internet? I don't think so. It may be perfectly secure, but that's not what you will be evaluated against.