Task Force on Network Storage Architecture: Information Security

James P. Hughes and Aloke Guha - Research and Advanced Development,
Network Systems Group, Storage Technology Corp, Brooklyn Park, MN 55428

All popular file systems consider the file server itself to 
be impenetrable, the archival and backup systems inherently 
secure, and that the administrators are beyond reproach. 
This is the basis for the common wisdom that the only security
necessary, is access control and protection of the data 
when it is in-flight between the file server and the user. It is 
the authors' opinion that this is not the paradigm that should 
be brought forward to future Network Attached Storage 
architectures.  Instead, the data should be protected when it 
is produced, and then unprotected only by authorized consumers
of the data. This allows the security of the information
to be independent of the security of the data repository, 
interconnect networks, hierarchical storage systems and 
backup methods.