Re: ideas on an encrypted BSD filesystem (LONG, technical)

[mab@vax135.att.com]

I've built something that has a similar flavor; it was presented
at the works-in-progress session at the January '93 USENIX conference.
A full paper (and hopefully the released software) will be forthcoming
("any day now").  Here's the abstract that was at USENIX:

.TL
A Cryptographic File System
.AU
Matt Blaze
.AI
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Holmdel, NJ 07733
mab@research.att.com

January 14, 1993
.PP
As computing systems (especially distributed ones) grow in size,
issues of data security and privacy become increasingly complex.
Cryptographic techniques can help ensure that data are not read by
unauthorized persons, but most encryption software requires either
that special purpose application software be used or that the user
manually encipher and decipher files as needed.
.PP
The Cryptographic File System (CFS) makes it easier to take
advantage, in a secure manner, of file system services (storage,
backup, etc.) on potentially insecure servers and networks.
.PP
CFS provides a transparent Unix file system interface to directory
hierarchies which are automatically DES encrypted with user-specified
keys.  Users "attach" an encrypted directory by providing a key, the
name of a directory where the encrypted files are to be stored, and
the name of a cryptographic "mount point" to be created under /crypt.
Directories under /crypt are accessible with all standard system calls
and tools to the users who created them.  The underlying encrypted
files (with encrypted names) can reside on any accessible file system
(including remote file systems such as NFS); routine system
administration tasks, such as file backup and restore, can be
performed on the encrypted directories in the ordinary manner without
knowledge of the key.  When run on a client workstation, CFS ensures
that cleartext is never stored on a disk or transmitted over a
network.  CFS uses a standard portable NFS client interface and has
has been implemented for a variety of Unix platforms.