Protecting the integrity and privacy of data with storage leases

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9165155-B2
Application number	US-201113282847-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 27, 2011
Priority date	Oct 27, 2010
Publication date	Oct 20, 2015
Grant date	Oct 20, 2015

Abstract

Storage leases specify access restrictions and time periods, restricting access to their associated data during the storage lease time period. Storage leases may be assigned to individual data storage blocks or groups of data storage blocks in a data storage device. A data storage device may include any arbitrary number of different storage leases assigned to different portions of its data storage blocks. Storage lease-enabled devices may provide security certificates to verify that data access operations have been performed as requested and that their storage leases are being enforced. Storage lease-enabled devices compare storage lease information for data units with the current time using a clock isolated from access by storage clients or time certificates from one or more trusted time servers. Storage leases may be used in combination with backup applications, file systems, database systems, peer-to-peer data storage, and cloud storage systems.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including instructions adapted to direct a computer to perform an operation, the operation comprising:
receiving a first storage operation from a storage client, wherein the first storage operation is associated with first stored data;
in response to receiving the first storage operation, accessing first storage lease information stored in one or more exclusive lease blocks specifying a first specific time and a second specific time of restricted access for the first stored data, the second specific time being after the first specific time, wherein the first storage lease information is stored in one or more lease blocks on the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium; wherein the one or more exclusive lease blocks are a portion of the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium configured to only store first storage lease information;
comparing the first storage lease information retrieved from the one or more exclusive lease blocks with a current time reference;
allowing the storage client to access the first stored data in response to the current time reference being before the first specific time specified by the first storage lease information and in response to determining the one or more data blocks associated with the first storage operation are associated with the first storage lease information; and
restricting the storage client from either reading or overwriting the first stored data in response to the one or more data blocks associated with the first storage operation are not associated with the first storage lease information, or the current time reference being after the first specific time and before the second specific time specified by the first storage lease information.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the first storage lease information includes a timestamp.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2 , wherein the timestamp indicates the end of the first specific time period for restricted access to the first stored data.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2 , wherein the timestamp indicates the beginning of the first specific time period for restricted access to the first stored data.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein allowing the first storage operation comprises:
determining a storage space-time rate based on an amount of data consumed and a second time period of restricted storage access for at least one previously performed storage operation;
comparing the storage space-time rate with a storage space-time rate limit; and
allowing the first storage operation in response to the storage space-time rate being less than the storage space-time rate limit.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , comprising: generating a security certificate in response to the completion of at least the first storage operation, wherein the security certificate indicates completion of at least the first storage operation.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the security certificate includes a cryptographic hash based on at least the first storage operation.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the current time reference is received from an internal clock isolated from the storage client.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the current time reference is received from at least one external time server.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the current time reference is received as at least one cryptographically signed time certificate.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the current time reference is based at least in part on a measurement of a periodic process of a storage device.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the first storage operation includes a data write operation.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein the first storage operation includes new storage lease information, the operation comprising:
in response to allowing the first storage operation, updating the first storage lease information with the new storage lease information.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the first storage operation includes a data read operation.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the first storage lease information is associated with a first storage block including the first stored data.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , comprising:
in response to the current time reference being between the first specific time and the second specific time, providing a response message to the storage client indicating that the first storage operation was not performed.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the restricted access to the first stored data includes at least one of reading or writing of the first stored data.

Assignees

• Druschel Peter
• Rodrigues Rodrigo
• Post Ansley
• Gehrke Johannes
• Vahldiek Anjo Lucas
• Max Planck Gesellschaft

Inventors

• Druschel Peter
• Rodrigues Rodrigo
• Post Ansley
• Gehrke Johannes
• Vahldiek Anjo Lucas

Classifications

• G06F21/6218 Primary

  to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database · CPC title

• G06F2221/2137

  Time limited access, e.g. to a computer or data · CPC title