Date of Award

8-25-2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Computer Science

First Advisor

Remzi Seker

Abstract

The Jigsaw Distributed File System (JigDFS) aims to securely store and retrieve files on large scale networks. While targeting many of the same goals as previous distributed file systems, the design of JigDFS is mainly driven by the privacy needs of users. Files in JigDFS are sliced into small segments using an Information Dispersal Algorithm (IDA) and distributed onto different nodes recursively to increase fault tolerance against node failures. Layered encryption is applied to each file segment with keys produced by a hashed-key chain algorithm, so that encrypted data and keys are stored separately. Recursive IDA and layered encryption enhance users' anonymity and provide a certain level of plausible deniability. When questioned, a JigDFS user can simply claim to be a relaying node rather than the file owner and provide any of the subsequent keys derived from the root password. The adversary has no confidence that the key a user supplies is an incorrect key, since it is a legitimate assumption that any user could only be a middle node. JigDFS is developed using platform independent Java technologies and is envisioned to be an ideal long-term storage solution for developing data archiving systems. This work presents two case studies where JigDFS can provide secure and reliable services. The first one is archiving of medical images and the second one is forming container communities for cargo security.

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