Sometimes, that spilled wine might not directly be your own fault, because you could get bumped by someone else in IT terms, spilled data can happen because the operating system decides to “help” in a way you failed to predict or prevent.įor example, many operating systems use a so-called swap file on your hard disk as automatic temporary storage to free up RAM for other programs if your software is idle, quietly and automatically swapping your data back in from disk when you next need it. Unfortunately, as the old adage goes, there’s many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and the same sort of inattention to detail that might lead you to spill red wine down the front of your favourite shirt in real life might lead to a spillage of private data on your computer. That typically means keeping any unencrypted data in memory only, and overwriting that memory as soon as the data is no longer needed. Yes, the app needs temporary access to the raw data you want to send or upload, whether that data is already encrypted or not, so that it can apply its own encryption before transmitting or storing it.īut the app needs to take as much care as it can (and as much care as the underlying operating system will permit) not to let that raw data get stored where it might easily be accessed by anyone else. You do, however, expect security-conscious apps like Keybase to be cautious with how they handle any unencrypted data themselves, such as the text you type into a message or the content of an image file you want to send. If you copy an unencrypted file from a USB drive to your laptop, for example, before uploading it into a service such as Keybase, neither the Keybase app nor the Keybase servers can do anything about those two unencrypted copies of the file that now exist.Īfter all, it’s your choice what to do with your data while it’s outside the Keybase system, and you wouldn’t expect the app to mess with files that you hadn’t explicitly entrusted to it. when the intended recipient exports a file they just received. before it’s loaded into their app for transmission, or after it’s extracted from their service, e.g. What end-to-end encryption systems can’t do is protect your data before it enters their control, e.g. Keybase can store your group’s photos, videos, and documents with end-to-end encryption.” (Indeed, the company can’t even decrypt the data for you if you forget your password, no matter how strongly you can prove that the encrypted files are yours.)Īs Keybase explains it, “We use public key cryptography to ensure your messages stay private. If criminals steal that company’s servers, or the police arrive at the company with a search warrant, neither the crooks nor the cops can decrypt your data, and the company that is storing your encrypted files can’t help them to do so, either. When it comes to instant messaging or file-sharing apps that offer end-to-end encryption, even the company that handles your data is supposed to be merely one of those rest stops, and therefore can’t (or isn’t supposed to be able to) see what’s in your files, no matter how long you store them. It not only means that your data isn’t decrypted while it’s at any “rest stops” along the way, such as when an email message is held at your ISP for delivery later on, but also means that your data cannot be decrypted along the way, no matter whether you trust the person operating that “rest stop” or not. Keybase, owned by online meeting and teleconferencing behemoth Zoom, is a secure messaging and file sharing service that describes itself as providing “end-to-end encryption for things that matter.”Įnd-to-end encryption is pretty much what it says: encryption that starts on your computer, typically inside an individual app such as when a browser submits a login form, and only gets stripped off at the far end when the data arrives at its final destination, such as when a website receives the login form with your username and password in it.Įnd-to-end encryption over the internet doesn’t just mean that your data is encrypted while it’s in transit from node to node along its network journey – it’s supposed to be a stronger guarantee than that.
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