Ask Slashdot: Which Encrypted Cloud Storage Provider? 200
An anonymous reader writes "Almost three years ago, I started looking for a cloud storage service. Encryption and the "zero-knowledge" concept were not concerns. Frankly, after two weeks testing services, it boiled down to one service I used for almost 2 years. It was perfect — in the technical sense — because it simply works as advertised and is one of the cheapest for 500GB. But this year, I decided changing that service for another one, that would encrypt my files before leaving my machine. Some of these services call themselves 'zero-knowledge' services, because (as they claim) clear text does not leave your host: they only receive encrypted data — keys or passwords are not sent. I did all testing I could, with the free bit of their services, and then, chose one of them. After a while, when the load got higher (more files, more folders, more GB...), my horror story began. I started experiencing sync problems of all sorts. In fact, I have paid for and tested another service and both had the same issues with sync. Worse, one of them could not even handle restoring files correctly. I had to restore from my local backup more than once and I ended up losing files for real.
In your experience, which service (or services) are really able to handle more than a hundred files, in sync within 5+ hosts, without messing up (deleting, renaming, duplicating) files and folders?"
Re:Copy (Score:3, Interesting)
A Barracuda will always be able to help in those cases where you forget your password.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/01/backdoors-found-in-barracuda-networks-gear/ [krebsonsecurity.com]
Roll your own - but choose the right SW (Score:3, Interesting)
I've not tried this, but always meant to. Sparkleshare is an attempt to make an open source Dropbox - and a couple of years after I first bookmarked it it's still going strong.
You can get a cheap dedicated server for under £10 a month and roll your own based on this?
Also has client-side encryption
https://github.com/hbons/SparkleShare/wiki/Client-Side-Encryption
Focus on your local encryption method first (Score:5, Interesting)
Your problem isn't the storage, it's whatever you are doing locally that is the issue. I've got tens of thousands of files backed up with no issues, across several devices.
You didn't mention your OS. I'll assume you are running Linux because if you are running WIndows/MacOS you are missing a fundamental weakness already.
On Linux, use EncFS which also has a nice GUI manager via GEncfsM [bitbucket.org] for those that prefer it.
Using EncFS means you don't have to upload entire files when you edit them, only the changes are synced. This is efficient, open-source, and works perfectly.
Once EncFS is working, pick any cloud storage you want and sync the encrypted folder(s). I do it with Dropbox + symlinks and it is flawless, no issues for years now.
TarSnap (Score:5, Interesting)
tarsnap.com. Not very user-friendly, but it does what it says on the tin.
Re:Give it up. (Score:2, Interesting)
Uhm, that property is exactly what you DON'T want in an encryption algorithm. There's a reason we don't use ECB mode. And if you rely on compression for security, you're doing something wrong. Anyway, if you just want to be able to diff encrypted files, what's wrong with counter mode? No need to invent a new mode, right?
I also don't understand why RSA is needed here. What's the point of asymmetric crypto when there's only one party involved?