Android Security Symposium 2017

Privacy with Cryptomator:
End-to-end cloud encryption – User-friendly and Open Source

About the speakers

Christian Schmickler

Skymatic (Cryptomator), Bonn, Germany
Christian Schmickler is managing partner at Skymatic and responsible for communications and marketing.
Before joining the Cryptomator project, he worked as a systemic consultant for a German consultancy. He holds a master's degree in International Business from Maastricht University and bachelor's degrees in economic sciences and psychology.

Markus Kreusch

Skymatic (Cryptomator), Bonn, Germany
Markus Kreusch is managing partner at Skymatic, the startup behind Cryptomator. At Skymatic he is responsible for the Cryptomator app for Android and supports the development of the desktop application and crypto libraries. Prior to his work at Skymatic he worked as a software architect and it consultant. In this role he got insights into prominent German companies. He graduated extra-occupational at FOM University of Applied Sciences and currently studies applied computer sciences at University of Hagen.

Abstract

Current and past political events have initiated an extensive discussion on privacy and informational self-determination.
The vast majority of consumers states their desire to keep personal data private while in everyday life, they use
services and approve privacy agreements that undermine their informational self-determination on a large scale. This
contradiction is referred to as the privacy paradox. While there are tools designed to keep personal data private,
employing such tools is often associated with reduced functionality and/or usability and new privacy issues resulting
from their use. Such deficiencies inhibit their widespread use.

Cloud storages are one example for a privacy-critical infrastructure as personal data is distributed across a broad
network while the location of storage is often out of the user's control. Client-side (end-to-end) encryption is a
valid way to protect those data independent of security measures taken by the cloud provider and its privacy agreements.
However, existing tools – e.g., for disk or file encryption – do not work seamlessly with the cloud.

The idea behind Cryptomator is to make cloud encryption as user-friendly, transparent, and understandable as possible
to enable everyone to protect their data. In their talk, the developers of Cryptomator emphasize the importance of
privacy in our information society in general and the significance of sophisticated and user-friendly tools to empower
everyone to safeguard their privacy in particular. The general idea behind Cryptomator, its encryption scheme and
challenges when targeting the cloud will be outlined. In addition, the architecture of the app for Android and future
development plans will be illustrated.

Slides

Get the slides here.

Video