doc/book/cookbook/encryption.md

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+title = "Encryption"
+weight = 50
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+
+Encryption is a recurring subject when discussing Garage. 
+Garage does not handle data encryption by itself, but many things can
+already be done with Garage's current feature set and the existing ecosystem.
+
+This page takes a high level approach to security in general and data encryption
+in particular.
+
+
+# Examining your need for encryption
+
+- Why do you want encryption in Garage?
+
+- What is your threat model? What are you fearing?
+  - A stolen HDD?
+  - A curious administrator?
+  - A malicious administrator?
+  - A remote attacker?
+  - etc.
+
+- What services do you want to protect with encryption?
+  - An existing application? Which one? (eg. Nextcloud)
+  - An application that you are writing
+
+- Any expertise you may have on the subject
+
+This page explains what Garage provides, and how you can improve the situation by yourself
+by adding encryption at different levels.
+
+We would be very curious to know your needs and thougs about ideas such as
+encryption practices and things like key management, as we want Garage to be a
+serious base platform for the developpment of secure, encrypted applications.
+Do not hesitate to come talk to us if you have any thoughts or questions on the
+subject.
+
+
+# Capabilities provided by Garage
+
+## Traffic is encrypted between Garage nodes
+
+RPCs between Garage nodes are encrypted. More specifically, contrary to many
+distributed software, it is impossible in Garage to have clear-text RPC.  We
+use the [kuska handshake](https://github.com/Kuska-ssb/handshake) library which
+implements a protocol that has been clearly reviewed, Secure ScuttleButt's
+Secret Handshake protocol.  This is why setting a `rpc_secret` is mandatory,
+and that's also why your nodes have super long identifiers.
+
+## Encrypting traffic between a Garage node and your client
+
+HTTP API endpoints provided by Garage are in clear text.
+You have multiple options to have encryption between your client and a node:
+
+  - Setup a reverse proxy with TLS / ACME / Let's encrypt
+  - Setup a Garage gateway locally, and only contact the garage daemon on `localhost`
+  - Only contact your Garage daemon over a secure, encrypted overlay network such as Wireguard
+
+## Garage stores data in plain text on the filesystem
+
+Garage does not handle data encryption at rest by itself, and instead delegates
+to the user to add encryption, either at the storage layer (LUKS, etc) or on
+the client side (or both). There are no current plans to add data encryption
+directly in Garage.
+
+Implementing data encryption directly in Garage might make things simpler for
+end users, but also raises many more questions, especially around key
+management: for encryption of data, where could Garage get the encryption keys
+from ? If we encrypt data but keep the keys in a plaintext file next to them,
+it's useless. We probably don't want to have to manage secrets in garage as it
+would be very hard to do in a secure way. Maybe integrate with an external
+system such as Hashicorp Vault?
+
+
+# Adding data encryption using external tools
+
+## Encrypting data at rest
+
+Protects against the following threats:
+
+- Stolen HDD
+
+Crucially, does not protect againt malicious sysadmins or remote attackers that
+might gain access to your servers.
+
+Methods include full-disk encryption with tools such as LUKS.
+
+## Encrypting data on the client side
+
+Protects againt the following threats:
+
+- A honest-but-curious administrator
+- A malicious administrator that tries to corrupt your data
+- A remote attacker that can read your server's data
+
+Implementations are very specific to the various applications. Examples:
+
+- Matrix: uses the OLM protocol for E2EE of user messages. Media files stored
+  in Matrix are probably encrypted using symmetric encryption, with a key that is
+  distributed in the end-to-end encrypted message that contains the link to the object.
+
+- Aerogramme: use the user's password as a key to decrypt data in the user's bucket
+