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git-annex mostly does not use encryption. Anyone with access to a git
repository can see all the filenames in it, its history, and can access
any annexed file contents.
Encryption is needed when using [[special_remotes]] like Amazon S3, where
file content is sent to an untrusted party who does not have access to the
git repository.
Such an encrypted remote uses strong encryption on the contents of files,
as well as the filenames. The size of the encrypted files, and access
patterns of the data, should be the only clues to what type of is stored in
such a remote.
[[!toc]]
## encryption backends
It makes sense to support multiple encryption backends. So, there
should be a way to tell what backend is responsible for a given filename
in an encrypted remote. (And since special remotes can also store files
unencrypted, differentiate from those as well.)
At a high level, an encryption backend needs to support these operations:
* Create a new encrypted cipher, or update the cipher. Some input
parameters will specifiy things like the gpg public keys that
can access the cipher.
* Initialize an instance of the encryption backend, that will use a
specified encrypted cipher.
* Given a key/value backend key, produce and return an encrypted key.
The same naming scheme git-annex uses for keys in regular key/value
[[backends]] can be used. So a filename for a key might be
"GPG-s12345--armoureddatahere"
* Given a streaming source of file content, encrypt it, and send it in
a stream to an action that consumes the encrypted content.
* Given a streaming source of encrypted content, decrypt it, and send
it in a stream to an anction that consumes the decrypted content.
* Clean up.
* Configure an encryption key to use.
The rest of this page will describe a single encryption backend using GPG.
Probably only one will be needed, but who knows? Maybe that backend will
turn out badly designed, or some other encryptor needed. Designing
with more than one encryption backend in mind helps future-proofing.
## encryption key management
[[!template id=note text="""
The basis of this scheme was originally developed by Lars Wirzenius et al
[for Obnam](http://braawi.org/obnam/encryption/).
"""]]
Data is encrypted by gpg, using a symmetric cipher. The passphrase of the
cipher is itself checked into your git repository, encrypted using one or
more gpg public keys. This scheme allows new gpg private keys to be given
access to content that has already been stored in the remote.
Different encrypted remotes need to be able to each use different ciphers.
There does not seem to be a benefit to allowing multiple cipers to be
used within a single remote, and it would add a lot of complexity.
Instead, if you want a new cipher, create a new S3 bucket, or whatever.
There does not seem to be much benefit to using the same cipher for
two different enrypted remotes.
So, the encrypted cipher could just be stored with the rest of a remote's
configuration in `.git-annex/remotes.log` (see [[internals]]). When `git
annex intiremote` makes a remote, it can generate a random symmetric
cipher, and encrypt it with the specified gpg key. To allow another gpg
public key access, update the encrypted cipher to be encrypted to both gpg
keys.
## filename enumeration
If the names of files are encrypted, this makes it harder for
git-annex (let alone untrusted third parties!) to get a list
of the files that are stored on a given enrypted remote. This has been
a concern, and it has been considered to use a hash like HMAC, rather
than gpg encrypting filenames, to make it easier. (For git-annex, but
possibly also for attackers!) But, does git-annex really ever need to do
such an enumeration?
Apparently not. `git annex unused --from remote` can now check for
unused data that is stored on a remote, and it does so based only on
location log data for the remote. This assumes that the location log is
kept accurately.
What about `git annex fsck --from remote`? Such a command should be able to,
for each file in the repository, contact the encrypted remote to check
if it has the file. This can be done without enumeration, although it will
mean running gpg once per file fscked, to get the encrypted filename.
## risks
A risk of this scheme is that, once the symmetric cipher has been obtained, it
allows full access to all the encrypted content. This scheme does not allow
revoking a given gpg key access to the cipher, since anyone with such a key
could have already decrypted the cipher and stored a copy.
If git-annex stores the decrypted symmetric cipher in memory, then there
is a risk that it could be intercepted from there by an attacker. Gpg
amelorates these type of risks by using locked memory.
This design does not support obfuscating the size of files by chunking
them, as that would have added a lot of complexity, for dubious benefits.
If the untrusted party running the encrypted remote wants to know file sizes,
they could correlate chunks that are accessed together. Encrypting data
changes the original file size enough to avoid it being used as a direct
fingerprint at least.
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