Geolocation of Data in the Cloud
Abstract
We introduce and analyze a general framework for authentically
binding data to a location while providing strong
assurances against cloud storage providers that (either accidentally
or maliciously) attempt to re-locate cloud data.
We then evaluate a preliminary solution in this framework
that combines constraint-based host geolocation with proofs
of data possession, called constraint-based data geolocation
(CBDG). We evaluate CBDG using a combination of experiments
with PlanetLab and real cloud storage services,
demonstrating that we can bind fetched data to the location
originally hosting it with high precision. We geolocate
data hosted on the majority of our PlanetLab targets to regions
no larger than 118,000 km2, and we geolocate data
hosted on Amazon S3 to an area no larger than 12,000 km2,
sufficiently small to identify the state or service region.