Re: Where does your data want to go today?

[droelke@rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com (Daniel R. Oelke)]

> 
> >From <http://www.pcweek.com/news/0527/27stor.html>:
> 
> >Helping pave the way toward cost-effective disaster recovery
> >systems, MCI Communications Corp. this week will join a growing
> >number of providers offering file backup and storage over the
> >Internet.
> [snip]
> 
> >MCI and Connected house data on servers at two mirrored sites.
> >Both companies are adding an extra dimension of security over the
> >Internet by encrypting data.
> >
> >MCI's networkMCI Backup software, for Windows 95 or 3.x, will
> >scan a file for viruses, encrypt it using an RSA Data Security Inc.
> >public key and compress it before it is uploaded onto MCI's Internet
> >backbone network to a secure storage facility, said MCI officials in
> >Atlanta.
> [snip]
> 
> 
> Some comments (off the top of my head):
> 
> * What kind of encryption? [The article says RSA. ] How big is the key?

Web page, and sign-up email doesn't say...

> * Why encrypt before compression? If the encryption is any good, then the
> encrypted data won't compress much at all. However, compression before
> encryption has its own problems.

This is just confusing wording I am sure - marketing/press-release
people rarely get the details right.
I would guess, that in order it is scanned, compressed, and then encrypted.
Nothing else makes sense.

> * Who does the key management (if any)?
> * Does MCI store copies of the keys used?
> * How does MCI authenticate users who request copies of files, and do they
> then return them encrypted or as plaintext? If encrypted, how does the
> recepient decryt the files? (He/she just had a disk crash, and this is
> their backup medium, remember?)

These are all good questions....

> I looked on MCI's web site <http://www.mci.com>, but couldn't find
> anything. Besides, it's slower than sludge. [ 90 secs/page over my 128K
> link. :-( ]

http://www.mci.com/productview/framelements/backupindex.shtml
(probably need netscape2 for this.)

I requested to be a beta-test member and got confirmation email.
I guess I'll wait until they contact me "early this summer" and
see what their software does....

Dan

------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Oelke                                  Alcatel Network Systems
droelke@aud.alcatel.com                             Richardson, TX