Check out the new USENIX Web site.

Home About USENIX Events Membership Publications Students
FAST '03 Abstract

Plutus: Scalable Secure File Sharing on Untrusted Storage

Mahesh Kallahalla, Hewlett-Packard Labs; Erik Riedel, Seagate Research; Ram Swaminathan, Hewlett-Packard Labs; Qian Wang, Pennsylvania State University; and Kevin Fu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract

Plutus is a cryptographic storage system that enables secure file sharing without placing much trust on the file servers. In particular, it makes novel use of cryptographic primitives to protect and share files. Plutus features highly scalable key management while allowing individual users to retain direct control over who gets access to their files. We explain the mechanisms in Plutus to reduce the number of cryptographic keys exchanged between users by using filegroups, distinguish file read and write access, handle user revocation efficiently, and allow an untrusted server to authorize file writes. We have built a prototype of Plutus on OpenAFS. Measurements of this prototype show that Plutus achieves strong security with overhead comparable to systems that encrypt all network traffic.
  • View the full text of this paper in HTML or PDF.
    Click here if you have forgotten your password Until May 2004, you will need your USENIX membership identification in order to access the full papers. The Proceedings are published as a collective work, © 2003 by the USENIX Association. All Rights Reserved. Rights to individual papers remain with the author or the author's employer. Permission is granted for the noncommercial reproduction of the complete work for educational or research purposes. USENIX acknowledges all trademarks within this paper.

  • If you need the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download it from Adobe's site.
To become a USENIX Member, please see our Membership Information.

?Need help? Use our Contacts page.

Last changed: 7 Nov. 2003 jel
Technical Program
FAST '03 Home
USENIX home