Privacy and Accountability in the Cloud: Based on Exploring Private and Accountable Storage in Distributed and Dynamic Environments

Privacy and accountability in the cloud explores if we can achieve a balance between our demand for privacy, while achieving a level of accountability that is sufficient for a well functioning democracy. Neither privacy or accountability are a binary value - both are better viewed as a continuum. Every society has its own expectations for both privacy and accountability. These expectations will vary with time and current events. The goal here is to explore if we can reach a way of designing systems in the cloud that gives each user a strong enough protection of their privacy, while at the same time proper authorities can conduct a lawful investigation without enormous work effort. The proposed solution must therefore allow individual users to be investigated, while stopping large scale surveillance of larger groups of users. This book will benefit people who are researching, designing, or planning security in the cloud or similar environments.

Espen has worked in such varied areas as mainframes and government approved crypto after his bachelor degree in computing from 1993. In 2004 he finished his master degree in information security at GUC. He has lectured at GUC in the master program, and is currently employed as a senior security adviser at IPnett.