Actually it looks like they're set up for modem access, but I presume that if there's any serious demand they'd do it over the Internet. Of course, Would You Trust Your Backups To This Man? If the random key generated for it was later found to be not random enough, or if any of a dozen other bugs or breakthroughs make the encryption penetrable, would you want to have transmitted every bit of data in your computer, to a site you don't know very well, and to all interested eavesdroppers? Using proprietary and unverified software? Or even using free software? Maybe some reliable cypherpunk should run such a service. Examine what comes through and gets written on tape. Superencipher it yourself before writing it on tape, and keep your own keys securely; maybe with a secret sharing scheme, and a tree of keys that requires going offline to other backup tapes to recover the key for a particular backup tape. And as you look at your customers' data, remember Robert Morris's #1 piece of advice to cryptanalysts: "Look for plaintext". It shows up in the darnedest places where it shouldn't. A c'punk backup service would warn you if you tried to push plaintext into it. Though it'd store it for you regardless: the customer might care a lot more about being able to retain a copy of their data than they care about whether anyone else could see it. I hope they find a market and some workable solutions to these issues. It'd be nice to have automatic backups of my data kept securely in a few spots around the globe for some reasonable price. John Gilmore Forwarded-by: Stanton McCandlish <mech@eff.org> From: Alan Brown <abrown@usaor.net> Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.news Subject: Protect your computer data with remote tape backup. Date: 13 Mar 1996 01:37:12 GMT Organization: National Computer Company Message-ID: <4i58s8$r65@news.usaor.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1 (Windows; U; 16bit) Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable FACT In the Next 3 Months Another 30 Million Computers Will Crash and Lose Data ***************** This Year Alone Over $1 Billion Worth Of Computers Will Be Stolen ********** Each Month 10 Million In-House Accidents, Operator Error, Viruses & Equipment Failure Will Cause Loss Of Data ***************** With National Computer & Data Back-up Company=92s technology we can safel= y,=20 confidentially and automatically encrypt your data, download to our=20 server and store in our offsite water and fireproof vaults. Our proprietary software is loaded on your computer and at a time that=20 you select, normally after business hours, your computer will=20 automatically call our server, compress and encrypt your files and=20 download the days work. We then download your files to tape and store in=20 our vaults in case of future need. Your files are encrypted and only you=20 have the password so noone but you can see your data. It is quick, safe,=20 reliable and you don=92t have the time consuming chore of doing backups.=20 For those outside the 412 area code we have an 800# for you to use to do=20 your backups so you won=92t have a toll charge. Let us help you For As Little As $2.00 Per Day FOR MORE INFO EMAIL US AT abrown@usaor.net OR CALL US TODAY 412-934-0912