About myself: Johannes Ernst

• entrepreneurial geek
• from embedded to big data,
  from spare bedroom and startup to communities and BigCos
• current: Indie Computing Corp.
  • Let's Bring Our Data Home™
  • UBOS:
    Linux distro for easy self-hosting
    ubos.net
  • UBOSbox Nextcloud:
    pre-configured home servers running Nextcloud
    indiecomputing.com/products

Paradux step 1: create data inventory & metadata

Data inventory:

• locations of all data
• relationships between data locations ("X is backed up to Y")
• data location access credentials
• backup decryption credentials

Plus info about:

• stewards
• location of metadata

Paradux step 2: secure the metadata

• LUKS encrypted volume
• day-to-day access with "everyday passphrase" (never exported)
• recovery secret (never exported as a whole: split into K-of-N parts)
• wrapped in Paradux commands that briefly mounts it when needed

Paradux step 3: distribute the secured metadata

• without at least one copy, recovery is impossible
• reasonably small size
• good locations: cloud hosting; your friend's server
• (relatively short) everyday passphrase is stripped first
• long recovery key

Paradux 0.2: How to get started

• need: Linux box
• install Paradux from github.com/paradux.
• run paradux init
• this will:
  • set up the LUKS volume with an everyday password
  • generate the recovery key
  • generate templates for data inventory, list of stewards etc.

Paradux 0.2: Configuration

Create/update data inventory:

• on your Linux box, run paradux edit-datasets
• requires everyday password
• edit JSON file with data inventory

.. and other metadata:

• identify stewards: paradux edit-stewards
• some user details for recovery sheets: paradux edit-user
• locations of the metadata: paradux edit-metadata-locations

Paradux 0.2: Upload metadata

paradux publish-metadata

• requires everyday password
• strips everyday password
• uploads to all previously defined metadata locations
• currently supported: scp
• should become automatic

Paradux 0.2: Notify stewards

paradux export-steward-packages

• currently stdout only
• future: to paper, to USB sticks

Paradux 0.2: Recover some data (have Paradux box, no amnesia)

• on your Linux box, run paradux status-datasets
• requires everyday password
• tells you about data locations and their relationships,
  so you can find out where the data is backed up you need to recover

Paradux 0.2: Recover Paradux box (no amnesia)

• contact K of your stewards
• download (public, encrypted) LUKS image
• on a spare machine, install Paradux and run paradux recover.
• enter steward-provided data and reconstruct the recovery secret
• you have your paradux configuration back
• continue with previous scenario.

Paradux 0.2: Recover everything (full amnesia)

• "Somebody" wants to recover:
  • executor of estate
  • holder of power of attorney
  • you (with amnesia)
• maybe they are a steward and remember?
• executor traverses social network and finds K stewards.
• continue with previous scenario.

Paradux 0.2: Attack scenarios

• attacker accesses data inventory when LUKS is mounted
  • compare to password manager
• attacker gains access to encrypted data inventory
  • LUKS-encrypted with long secret stored nowhere
  • has no everyday password
• stewards go rogue
  • need conspiracy of at least K stewards who all know each other