Output details

Fast and secure laptop backups with encrypted de-duplication

<27> Originality: A new solution to the backup problem for hierarchical filesystems which can dramatically reduce the time required to detect changed files, while also supporting deduplication and convergent encryption.

Significance: Convergent encryption supports the use of deduplication with separate private keys. This algorithm allows the immediate detection of common subtrees, avoiding the need for backup programs to examine common parts of a hierarchical filesystem. This work led to a patent application, and an RSE fellowship.

Rigour: An demonstrator implementation was used to validate the technique, and performance statistics were derived by simulation using real, typical data from live machines.