6.4.2. End to end encryption#
Encryption in vantage6 is handled at organization level. Whether encryption is used or not, is set at collaboration level. All the nodes in the collaboration need to agree on this setting. You can enable or disable encryption in the node configuration file, see the example in All configuration options.
Fig. 6.1 Encryption takes place between organizations therefore all nodes and users from the a single organization should use the same private key.#
The encryption module encrypts data so that the server is unable to read communication between users and nodes. The only messages that go from one organization to another through the server are computation requests and their results. Only the algorithm input and output are encrypted. Other metadata (e.g. time started, finished, etc), can be read by the server.
The encryption module uses RSA keys. The public key is uploaded to the vantage6 server. Tasks and other users can use this public key (this is automatically handled by the python-client and R-client) to send messages to the other parties.
Note
The RSA key is used to create a shared secret which is used for encryption and decryption of the payload.
When the node starts, it checks that the public key stored at the server is derived from the local private key. If this is not the case, the node will replace the public key at the server.
Warning
If an organization has multiple nodes and/or users, they must use the same private key.
To create a new keypair, you can use the command v6 node create-private-key.
This will create the keypair and share the public key with the server. The private key
is stored locally. If a private key already exists locally, the existing key is reused
(unless you use the --force flag). This way, it is easy to configure multiple nodes
to use the same key.
It is also possible to generate the keypair yourself and upload the public key yourself via UI, Python client, or REST API.
Warning
We recommend to always create a new keypair for use within vantage6, and not use an existing keypair that you use for other purposes. This way, an attacker that steals your private key elsewhere cannot use it to decrypt data in vantage6 and vice versa.