Cloud Data Processing via Trusted Execution Environment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users prefer to keep their data private while using cloud services, but existing technologies often require cloud service providers to access and process sensitive information, compromising user privacy.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a trusted computing base in the cloud that processes user data in an encrypted format, using a trusted execution environment with secure communication protocols like TLS to ensure only authorized parties have access to unencrypted data, and utilizing a trusted third party or enterprise service for secure data processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If cloud service providers access and process user data directly, then processing capability and service availability are improved, but user data privacy and confidentiality deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments data processing into two distinct components: encrypted data processing by the cloud service provider and key management by the user's device. The data is divided into encrypted form (processed in cloud) and decryption keys (retained locally), allowing the cloud to process data without accessing plaintext information, thus maintaining privacy while enabling processing capability.
Solution Approach 2:
Encrypted data acts as an intermediary between the user's device and the cloud service provider. The cloud provider processes this intermediate encrypted form without revealing the actual user data, enabling third-party processing while preserving confidentiality through the mediating encrypted representation.
2Loss of information
If data is encrypted during cloud processing, then user data privacy is improved, but processing complexity and computational overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The user's device performs self-service encryption of data before transmission to the cloud, and self-service decryption of results after processing. This distributes the computational burden of encryption/decryption to the user's device rather than requiring complex encrypted processing infrastructure in the cloud, simplifying the overall system architecture while maintaining security.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the state of data from plaintext to encrypted form during transmission and processing, then back to plaintext after processing. This parameter change (encryption state) enables privacy protection during cloud processing while the cloud provider handles only the encrypted form, reducing their security requirements and simplifying their processing infrastructure.
3Reliability
If trusted execution environments are implemented in the cloud, then data security is improved, but infrastructure complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts the critical security function (key storage and decryption) from the cloud infrastructure and places it in the user's device. This removes the need for complex trusted execution environments in the cloud, as the cloud only needs to handle encrypted data without requiring specialized secure processing hardware or software.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of making the cloud infrastructure secure and trusted, the system inverts the trust model by making the user's device the trusted component that holds decryption keys. The cloud infrastructure becomes untrusted by design, but this is acceptable because it only processes encrypted data and never accesses plaintext information.
Data Source
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AI summary
While cloud services can offer processing from personal devices or synthesized data from multiple sources, many users prefer their data to remain private. According to some embodiments, private user data may be processed in the cloud without revealing the user identity to the cloud service provider. Only the user or an authorized agent of the user and the service's hardware platform have access to certain keys. The service application software and operating system only have access to encrypted data.