Fully homomorphic encryption: IBM figures out how to keep private data private on the cloud

In this week's upFront.eZine, I've got an article on how Autodesk is using Amazon.com's cloud-based servers to crunch optimization data as a sub-job from inside Inventor. It's as secure as Amazon can make is secure -- which might not be secure enough.

Sure, your data can travel encrypted from your desktop to the Amazon servers, but once inside the server farm, it's decrypted so that Autodesk's software can work out the calculations, and then return it to you encrypted for the journey homeward bound.

That decryption step might not be needed anymore. Craig Gentry of IBM figured out how to perform addition and multiplication on encrypted data. The process needs to be cleaned up, however, as other researchers found:

The usefulness of the scheme is still limited by the fact that, as more operations are performed, successive encrypted answers degrade, becoming "dirty".... That means the current version isn't truly fully homomorphic, since it can't perform any arbitrary calculation.

The process might be viable in five years.

Source.

Comments

[Dave Ault]

Sigh, I wonder where all these cloud "full speed ahead" advocates are when these types of repeated present problems are proven. Add another to the list of show stoppers as far as I am concerned.

Just as an aside here Deelip was commenting on cloud issues the other day and the thought occured to me about another cloud problem. According to a survey I read
recently the average CAD Engineer spends up to 4.5 hours a week on translation problems. I can well believe this considering how some of my weeks go. So let us consider this. Now we have the cloud in full speed mode and you are there. Exciting isn't it. But today you find out that your legacy files did not quite make it through the [insert here a company name like perhaps Solid Works as they are all so gung ho for this stuff it seems]translation wringer and your data has been corrupted. Big problem here and while you have notified everyone about this problem you move on to something you know you can work on. So out comes the file you were working on yesterday and it does not work either. So now you thanklessly spend your time, again, finding out what THIS problem is.

It appears that last night Solid Works updated their software and the translator is broken. Since your company is saving big money by not having to buy those expensive
workstations and internal servers for data storage you are by now pondering just how the data will become accessable again since all control is now in the hands of those that created this fiasco to begin with. Calls to Solid Works tech support are understandably met with "yes, we know there is a problem and we are working on it. Please be patient".

The hired help loves it and the dart board is brought out in the break room. Meanwhile over in the owners office the fifth emergency meeting in a year is going on as they ponder how to tell their customers that they will be missing another deadline and that they may have permanently lost archived cad data this time because the new Solid Works in house translator corrupted the data beyond recovery it seems.

Cad news in the next few weeks reveals that the IT guy over at Solid Works was fired over this as the data backup was not designed to account for things like in house translator screw ups and customer data has been corrupted. Also noted is that Company XYZ went out of business yesterday due to missed critical deadlines and loss of proprietary customer data. XYZ's customer will be suing XYZ and XYZ is pursuing legal channels against Solid
Works for not living up to the promises in the contract XYZ signed with them to get
involved with the beneficial new cost cutting cloud paradigm. A new ad appears in
various Cad publications later in the year advertising where people affected by the loss of their critical cad data can now join a class action lawsuit against Solid Works to recover provable damages.

Now of course this is all an exercise in conjecture in both can it or will it happen. And it is the use of Solid Works as an example because they are proponents of the cloud at this time, not because they have actualy done this but because it could happen and since they LOVE this cloud thing their name is used.

So let me ask you this. Can anyone truthfully say this is an impossible scenario? Wonder what the last thoughs are of the first Lemming as he has lept off the cliff only to discover that in short order the rocks will appear.