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by benlivengood 1969 days ago
Google compute platform even offers user-provided keys at instance startup; they persist in RAM only for the lifetime of the instance and you can provide an rsa-encrypted symmetric key to GCP if you don't trust the box responsible for calling the GCP API.

Combined with AMD-based (SEV) confidential computing and shielded vm you can get close to what on-premises hardware offers.

Nothing can truly replace hardware you own (except maybe fast fully homomorphic encryption eventually) but if you can trust the firmware that Intel/AMD, HP, Dell, or Supermicro ships in a box then the cloud is 99% as good at this point.
1 comments
londons_explore 1969 days ago
If you don't trust Google, even this doesn't help you. They run enough code in and near your VM, they could find a way to steal data out if it if they wanted.

If you do trust Google, this is of no benefit. They encrypt your disk at rest anyway with their own keys if you don't provide yours.

The only reason to use any of the above tech is to change the legal burden of who has to provide data if a court order is made. If you provide the keys then the court has to come to you to provide data on demand.

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cromwellian 1969 days ago
That's actually a pretty compelling use case. Instead of the US Government being able to routinely compel Apple, Google, FB, Amazon, etc to to hand over data they just say "we don't have the keys". The fact that any of these entities could find a way to get the data if they wanted (yes, even Apple, even with E2E could have an insider attack where a rogue spy employee implanted some code in the OS to intercept data)

Allowing the service providers to say "we don't have it", makes widespread government attack less scalable, because instead of focusing on one entity, suddenly they've got to chase down thousands of individuals and compel them. And the individuals usually have a lot less to lose if they don't obey than a tech company with billions on the line.

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benlivengood 1968 days ago
> If you don't trust Google, even this doesn't help you. They run enough code in and near your VM, they could find a way to steal data out if it if they wanted.

Exactly, but so can Intel/AMD/Dell/HP/$HW_VENDOR. That's why we have libreboot and friends trying to disable ME and other firmware blobs.

You could airgap your hardware in a SCIF and shred it when you're done with it but as stuxnet and other attacks have shown if you want to do useful network computing you can't be totally secure.

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