Chris Tell, a founder of Lockbox explains how their client side encryption is genuinely secure and thanks our intrusive government and “spineless” Silicon Valley companies for allowing him to get richer.
Lockbox is different from Dropbox and other cloud storage sites because the encryption is done on the client side. Users create the encryption keys on their own computer, encrypt files, then upload them. Lockbox can’t be forced to decrypt the files or turn over the keys to NSA because it doesn’t have the keys. Users can also share files, and know they are genuinely secure. They are using proven, world-class, unbreakable encryption methods like RSA 2048.
RSA Labs claim that 2048-bit keys are 2^32 times harder to break using NFS, than 1024-bit keys. 2^32 = 4,294,967,296 or almost 4.3 billion, therefore breaking a DigiCert 2048-bit SSL certificate would take about 4.3 billion times longer (using the same standard desktop processing) than doing it for a 1024-bit key. It is therefore estimated, that standard desktop computing power would take 4,294,967,296 x 1.5 million years to break a DigiCert 2048-bit SSL certificate. Or, in other words, a little over 6.4 quadrillion years.
Tell interviews Lockbox CEO Nathan Brumley.
Chris: Nathan, can you give me the quick and dirty download on what Lockbox actually is and does?
Nathan: Lockbox quite simply is a locks and keys company. It empowers the owner of any content via client side encryption to encrypt (locks), select and allow (keys) who they share content with. There is no middle man.
Chris: Can you explain to me what would happen if a government or in fact anyone wanted to obtain access to user files, would they be able to?
Nathan: Specifically because Lockbox enables a locks and keys relationship between an owner on the client side and who they choose to share with no one but that owner and and their trusted relationships has access to the locks and keys. This is truly decentralized key management.
Anybody outside that trusted relationship including Lockbox itself has no access and would be required to go directly to the parties involved to seek access. This is fundamentally different to how things work today and in what is evidenced with PRISM, In those scenarios owners were not required, as centralized locks and keys simply meant the interested party simply had to go to the provider.
…I’d like to thank the NSA, the FBI, Google, Microsoft, Verizon and the many, many spineless companies and bureaucrats who have assisted Lockbox and companies like them in achieving accelerating demand for their product and helping us get richer…because after all, that’s how we capitalists roll.
While other document sharing services focus on protecting their infrastructure—their data centers, servers, connections, etc.—Lockbox focuses on protecting your documents. Lockbox solves the “cloud privacy” problem by empowering you to protect your information with “client-side” encryption and encryption keys.
With client-side encryption, files stored in the cloud or in transit over the Internet appear as meaningless gibberish to administrators, hackers or anyone else who might gain access to them.
With client-side encryption key generation, you control the access keys, so you have complete control over who can access your files. No one, not even Lockbox, can override your control.
All data is digitally signed, making it possible to independently confirm who entered data into a Lockbox and ensure that the information has not been tampered with.
Each new Lockbox, whether for a client or a collaboration workspace, has its own distinct encryption key, so private file sharing can be maintained even within the same company.
Lockbox is aimed at businesses now. Prices start at $50 a month. Let’s hope their technology will be rolled out for personal users soon too.