Now the problem for individuals wanting to dial up their security to this more secure level has typically been a trade off in usability. Ergo it’s a more pro-privacy third party service, given that we know our governments are doing all the digital snooping they can. In other words, client side encryption puts a stop to sneaky backdoor methods for mass eavesdropping on individual user data by compromising the third party service provider. The user also holds their own encryption key - again, meaning the service provider can’t decrypt their data, since they don’t have access to the key. That means that even if forced to hand over user data - by a government agency, say - the provider is still only handing over securely encrypted information, so the snooper would be forced to procure the key directly from the user. This is achieved by doing local encryption (aka client side encryption), on the user’s own device, before uploading any data to the provider’s cloud - as Peak Drive will. ‘Zero knowledge’ means the service providers don’t have access to the customer data they’re storing. Snowden specifically name-checked the long-time security-focused cloud storage service SpiderOak. “It’s the one cloud storage where it’s kind of easy to set up collaboration - so, a shared folder for example - and therefore we think word of mouth will be stronger than for services like SpiderOak.”Įarlier this month NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden slammed cloud storage giant Dropbox as “ hostile to privacy” - and suggested web users who care about protecting their data from prying eyes and snooping governments would be better using a ‘zero knowledge’ alternative. “The usefulness of Peak Drive over other secure cloud services lies in collaboration,” he adds. But Peak Drive is different because all the data that is stored inside it will be encrypted directly on the users’ devices.” “This is what it feels like for the user - so it feels like Dropbox.
“Peak Drive behaves for the user like Dropbox, in terms of it’s a cloud storage where you have files on your desktop device or laptop or smartphone, and every file you put in there is syncronized with our servers and therefore syncronized to your other devices where you are logged in as well,” says Blaesing. That’s what will set it apart from similarly secure Dropbox rivals, he argues. The team is also focused on making sure convenient collaboration features, such as the ability to share a folder with one or more users, are not edited out of the service because of its security focus.
#SPIDEROAK DROPBOX FOR MAC#
The new kid on the secure cloud storage block is called Peak Drive, and it’s due to launch this September - initially for Mac and iOS - after being developed as a side project last year by a couple of German physics students attending Heidelberg University.Ī core focus for Peak Drive‘s bootstrapping team, who came up with the idea for the service back in February 2013 - just before Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks revealed the extent of government security agencies’ digital snooping - is ease of use and accessibility to the average consumer, says co-founder Marius Blaesing. And yes, the usability proof of the pudding will be in the eating. So yes, this is a ‘cake and eat it’ type claim. Yet this startup is also shooting to be as usable as Dropbox - and therefore more user friendly than other security-focused cloud storage services that do local encryption. A new German cloud storage startup is preparing to launch a service it bills as more secure than Dropbox, thanks to offering client-side encryption (which Dropbox does not).
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