Skip to Content

Will 10.7 add a "safe deposit box" to your Mac?

by Josh Helfferich Feb 21st 2011 at 7:00PM

It seems as though Apple is hard at work on new features for OS X 10.7 Lion this summer, and the latest possible addition to the OS is something that would solve a huge problem plaguing the tech world today -- insecurity with remote file storage. According to this find by Patently Apple, we may see a new "Safe Deposit Box" in Lion that aims to protect your files using cloud architecture in the same way that a physical safe deposit box protects your assets at a bank or other location.

The basic idea described in the patent revolves around a single icon that, when the user drops a file onto it, would instantly upload and protect the file using Apple-backed cloud servers (which could possibly be located at their new $1 billion North Carolina data center). All of one's secure files would then be available by logging into the Safe Deposit Box service with a user name and password. For enhanced security, the patent also mentions a small window of time before the login expires to prevent accidental viewing of files by other individuals. This storage center would presumably also store digital copies of iTunes purchases, therefore solving the age old problem of losing your precious collection of tunes in a hard drive failure.

We've seen similar technology in OS X already with FileVault, which encrypts and stores secure files on the fly. However, we've never seen deep internet-based secure storage from Apple, and it would be a welcome addition for those of us who are working with sensitive documents on multiple Macs (I know I'd be more comfortable with this than, say, Dropbox). It certainly looks like a step in the right direction. Let's hope that this idea is under active development at the big fruit company.



View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

OS X

It seems as though Apple is hard at work on new features for OS X 10.7 Lion this summer, and the latest possible addition to the OS is...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum Comment Moderation Enabled. Your comment will appear after it is cleared by an editor.

13 Comments

Filter by:
Darren

@R2B2
I am not even sure, if Dropbox really encrypts the data, before sending to to Amazon S3 storage. Since they offer de-duplication they need to identify duplicate files. So they have to have FULL ACCESS to your data. Read their T&C, they do not write a lot about encryption, I wonder why ;-)

@Kurt
Yes, it would be their only choice, to encrypt the data before sending it to Amazon. But they need full access and they need at least a unique identifier for every of your file. So at the end: They can access your data, no matter how.


If you need some encrypted online storage you could try some other vendors:

- http://spideroak.com has some nice backup features (secure local encryption via client)

- http://www.cloudsafe.com offers some unique access features for emergency situations (two man rules, access codes)

February 27 2011 at 3:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
J.

You can do this now: Vault+Dropbox, Knox+MobileMe, TrueCrypt+Box.net, on and on and on. What does Apple bring to the table? They make it part of the OS, and kill another part of the app ecosystem.

February 22 2011 at 6:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Kalafarski

I'm not sure what would lead anyone to be more comfortable putting data on an Apple server than a Dropbox server. I've had rocksolid dropbox access since beta, and all of Apple's cloud services (iTools, .Mac, MobileMe) has been plagued with performance and availability problems.

Like the other commenters, I added a cloud "safe deposit box" to OS X when I put an encrypted sparsebundle on a server somewhere. My Lockbox.sparsebundle living on dropbox is just about ideal for storing financial data, product keys, etc. I suppose some polish would be nice, like if it could self-eject after a certain period, but this would be much less a feature and more a fresh coat of paint on old tech if it does show up front and center in 10.7.

February 22 2011 at 2:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
snipedude90

I think this would be a fantastic idea even if it is just stored locally. Sure, you can make a secure disk image but how many non advanced users take the time to do that?? having a secure little "box" that is built in and ready to use would be awesome

February 22 2011 at 12:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jraspberry

Doesn't dropbox encrypt all data with AES-256?

February 21 2011 at 10:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to jraspberry's comment
R2B2

That’s true, all of your data is AES-256 encrypted on their servers, but the local copies on your computer are open to anyone with access to your machine, unless of course you use an encrypted sparse bundle disk image.

February 22 2011 at 12:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kurt

Yes and no. It uses a single AES-256 key to encrypt all users' data. It's not your key, so you have no control over who's got it. They have to do this to do their differential uploads - they only store content for you if no other user is storing it, which means they have to have access to the same hashes (which means same key/nonce if they're encrypting).

It's not sufficient encryption, as you're not in control of the key. That's why lots of people use truecrypt and encfs on top of DB. I wish they would just step up and enable per-user encryption.

February 22 2011 at 5:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Zac

I'm not sure if I understand this properly.

Apple is going to make a service that does everything Dropbox does except it likely won't be free and I'll have to spend hours syncing everything to it the first time I use it...why would I do that?

Because it would likely integrate with Pages for iOS? Not worth it, sorry :-)

February 21 2011 at 10:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Xan

They already have this and its called MobileMe you can drop files into it and even share with a public folder I don't know what else you want its even built in so you can drag and drop

February 21 2011 at 8:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Xan's comment
Josh

this was my initial thought too, sound just like mobileme

February 22 2011 at 1:10 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
R2B2

You could always create a large encrypted sparse bundle disk image with Disk Utility and drop that in your Dropbox. This will only consume however much physical data is actually in the disk image, rather than the size you tell the disc image to initially be.

February 21 2011 at 7:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ramkanda

I think that Apple will introduce SOMETHING like this but they will have to develop a more compelling user story. Even Dropbox would need a bit of a facelift to make it a story for regular folks, but this is something that Apple is actually pretty good at. Look at backup, which is a simple enough concept for most of us to grasp: Apple called it Time Machine and it became a way to go back to when things were Ok with your files. I'd love to hear a metaphor that would make this "safe" idea something that I could explain to my mom. "Drag all your sensitive information here"? I don't know if that quite cuts it. WHY is a regular person dragging sensitive information anywhere? It would have to be tied in closely with all your iOS devices. Maybe it's where you put all your passwords so you never have to enter another one on your phone, tablet or computer. That makes a little more sense to me. Even there, the idea is good, but it needs to be framed more succinctly — more poetically.

February 21 2011 at 7:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Logan

This seems like a cool feature, but I wonder what the pricing structure could be? I do like the idea of bring the same Time Machine ease-of-use to secure, remote file storage though: http://www.alltheotherstuff.net/blog/2011/2/21/107-safe-deposit-box.html

February 21 2011 at 7:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.