Erasure-Coded Fragment Shuffling Against Storage Traffic Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing erasure coding techniques are vulnerable to network traffic analysis and physical attacks, allowing malicious actors to infer data storage locations and potentially decode segments, even with incomplete information.
Innovation Solution
Implement a shuffle index to obfuscate physical storage locations and generate ciphertext fragments with complete inter-dependence, requiring all fragments for decryption, and perform shuffling operations to obscure network traffic patterns.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If erasure coding is used to protect data, then data can be recovered from lost segments, but network traffic patterns reveal physical storage locations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic shuffling of encoded fragments across storage nodes, where the physical location of fragments changes over time rather than remaining static. This dynamic repositioning prevents attackers from inferring data locations through network traffic analysis, while the erasure coding mechanism ensures data can still be recovered when needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary shuffling layer between the erasure coding process and physical storage. This intermediary mechanism decouples the logical data structure from physical storage locations, allowing traffic analysis to be obscured while maintaining data recovery capabilities through the underlying erasure coding system.
2Reliability
If encoded segments are stored on multiple nodes, then data redundancy is achieved, but attackers can infer data locations through traffic analysis
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically shuffles encoded fragments across storage nodes, changing their physical locations over time. This prevents attackers from learning access patterns or inferring data locations through traffic analysis, while maintaining data redundancy across the distributed nodes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of fragment location from static to dynamic by implementing periodic shuffling operations. This parameter change obscures access patterns and prevents traffic analysis while preserving the redundancy property of distributed storage.
3Reliability
If fragments are distributed across storage nodes, then data protection is improved, but complete inter-dependence requires all fragments for decryption
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments data into encoded fragments distributed across multiple storage nodes, with each fragment being essential for decryption. This segmentation provides strong data protection while the systematic shuffling mechanism manages the complexity of tracking fragment locations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms to track and manage fragment locations across storage nodes. This feedback system maintains awareness of fragment positions despite shuffling operations, managing the complexity of complete inter-dependence while preserving data protection.
Data Source
AI summary
A fragment and shuffle erasure coding operation is disclosed. In a transformative operation, encrypted fragments are generated from an input file. The transformative operation includes one or more iterations of chunking the file and mixing the chunks to generate a mixed sequence. The mixed sequence is sliced into encrypted fragments. The encrypted fragments are shuffled in a storage system such that physical locations of the encrypted fragments change over time.