# Plex Cloud - Add Strong Client Side Encryption to Cloud Disks **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Suggestions\ **Created:** [September 26, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348 "2016-09-26T17:46:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![plxin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@plxin](https://forums.plex.tv/u/plxin)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/1 "2016-09-26T17:46:14Z")
Cloud industry standard best practices recommend encrypting all data uploaded to the Cloud as a default measure. No personal data should be written to Cloud disks unless it is protected by strong, client side encryption using keys the Cloud provider does not have access to. If it is anything less, Cloud providers will automatically scan your files for content they deem inappropriate, illegal, immoral, or objectionable. It [happens everyday](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-helps-bust-a-child-pornographer-through-a-picasa-library-search-2013-11) and has been going on for years at Cloud services ranging from Google’s Picasa to DropBox. We shouldn’t be going back to the bad old days where our servers were open to man in the middle attacks due to lack of TLS on connections to the server. Industry standard best practices should be the minimum we expect from a newly launched product that could expose our data to Amazon, hackers, Plex, or lawyers looking to sue over what might be in the Cloud disks. Encryption is not negotiable. tl;dr Plex Cloud exposes our files to Amazon scanning processes and fingerprinting software unless those files are encrypted. Please add strong, client side encryption to protect us from scanning that is already going on at Cloud providers across the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Aaron-W](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/aaron-w/32/199023_2.png) [@Aaron-W](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Aaron-W)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/2 "2016-09-26T18:12:40Z")
Agreed. In this day and age, encryption between personal computers and cloud services should be the first feature implemented when building software. ---
**Author:** ![jkaberg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90db22/32.png) [@jkaberg](https://forums.plex.tv/u/jkaberg)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/3 "2016-09-26T19:37:58Z")
While I fully agreed and all that, encrypting _everything_ will effectivly kill ACD business plan. ACD would end up like Bitcasa. ---
**Author:** ![hthighway](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/hthighway/32/82003_2.png) [@hthighway](https://forums.plex.tv/u/hthighway)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/4 "2016-09-26T19:42:53Z")
> @jkaberg said: > While I fully agreed and all that, encrypting _everything_ will effectivly kill ACD business plan. ACD would end up like Bitcasa. oh `Bitcasa`, I still hate them 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![plxin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@plxin](https://forums.plex.tv/u/plxin)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/5 "2016-09-26T20:14:07Z")
It is a fair point that Cloud providers need to make a profit and Bitcasa is an example of what not to do. I don’t want to think about what I lost there. I don’t know that Cloud providers depend on deduplication or similar technologies for their margins though. In most cases, using my family as an example, the data generated wouldn’t be deduplicated anyway even without encryption. Photos/videos taken with phones, voice memos, tax returns, film projects from school using footage she shot with a dashcam style camera, and more for hundreds of gigabytes. That is a typical, home user generating data they need a secure place to put. That is increasing rapidly as 4K video is adopted and hundreds of gigabytes becomes 10TB+. It is similar to how residential ISPs oversell to profit. Most users don’t use as much as they are actually allocated, some use a lot more, and targeting the most abusive users keeps things under control. Profit after costs. Amazon is doing the same at scale doing what Bitcasa probably couldn’t. Amazon is larger on the scale of Walmart and hosts huge parts of the internet including parts of Netflix. Encryption is becoming the norm rather than the exception for more users as desktop and sync apps adopt it for their next paid version. Plex needs to be skating to where the puck will be rather than where it is. ---
**Author:** ![luche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@luche](https://forums.plex.tv/u/luche)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/6 "2016-09-26T20:29:23Z")
+1 Came here to ask about encryption / tokenization of data living in amazon cloud drive… very pleased to see that I’m not the first asking whether or not this will be implemented. Also, as i’ve got unlimited amazon cloud drive basically wasted atm since i’ve not yet got anything that hooks into it… any chance there’s some kind of structure on the amazon side to silo which services are allowed in which directories? ---
**Author:** ![bsarps](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bsarps/32/12749_2.png) [@bsarps](https://forums.plex.tv/u/bsarps)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/7 "2016-09-26T20:29:45Z")
Completely agreed. Come on Plex, this service is risky to use for many of your users without this functionality. ---
**Author:** ![joshsims.1991](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@joshsims.1991](https://forums.plex.tv/u/joshsims.1991)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/8 "2016-09-26T22:50:10Z")
I hope this gets to a lot of the users so it can be upvoted. ---
**Author:** ![MegatronCupcakes](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/megatroncupcakes/32/4781_2.png) [@MegatronCupcakes](https://forums.plex.tv/u/MegatronCupcakes)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 11:00pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/9 "2016-09-26T23:00:56Z")
+1 Enthusiastic about the possibilities but will not adopt without file encryption. ---
**Author:** ![bzirbel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbce88/32.png) [@bzirbel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/bzirbel)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/10 "2016-09-26T23:06:45Z")
Here’s a solution to encrypting ACD, i didn’t write this up but its a good read. [https://amc.ovh/2015/08/15/uniting-encrypted-encfs-filesystems.html](https://amc.ovh/2015/08/15/uniting-encrypted-encfs-filesystems.html) ---
**Author:** ![mdnitoil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f07891/32.png) [@mdnitoil](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mdnitoil)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 11:22pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/11 "2016-09-26T23:22:38Z")
> @bzirbel said: > Here’s a solution to encrypting ACD, i didn’t write this up but its a good read. [https://amc.ovh/2015/08/15/uniting-encrypted-encfs-filesystems.html](https://amc.ovh/2015/08/15/uniting-encrypted-encfs-filesystems.html) That’s all well and good, but the cloud server will have no way of reading your encrypted data and streaming it back to you. The solution has to be driven by Plex, to some degree, even if it’s only partnering with some readily available software. ---
**Author:** ![robot2xl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/robot2xl/32/4102_2.png) [@robot2xl](https://forums.plex.tv/u/robot2xl)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 11:24pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/12 "2016-09-26T23:24:27Z")
> @jkaberg said: > oh `Bitcasa`, I still hate them 🙂 I still hate Bitcasa too ---
**Author:** ![xdblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/edb3f5/32.png) [@xdblue](https://forums.plex.tv/u/xdblue)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:30am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/13 "2016-09-28T05:30:40Z")
That’s actually an excellent idea, and the only way I would actually be confident enough to use this service. ---
**Author:** ![kaileu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a698b9/32.png) [@kaileu](https://forums.plex.tv/u/kaileu)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:44am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/14 "2016-09-28T05:44:39Z")
+1 Encryption is a must have feature ---
**Author:** ![MediaHorder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/mediahorder/32/160753_2.png) [@MediaHorder](https://forums.plex.tv/u/MediaHorder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/15 "2016-09-28T05:51:00Z")
> @kaileu said: > +1 > Encryption is a must have feature LIKE THE FIRST POST. ---
**Author:** ![transatlantic](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/transatlantic/32/10879_2.png) [@transatlantic](https://forums.plex.tv/u/transatlantic)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 7:08am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/16 "2016-09-28T07:08:50Z")
+1 lack of ability to encrypt files is my only hesitation on using the new cloud service ---
**Author:** ![elPerstin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ccd318/32.png) [@elPerstin](https://forums.plex.tv/u/elPerstin)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 7:14am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/17 "2016-09-28T07:14:04Z")
For clarification, as some posts here read as if the posters want the connection between client and ACD to be encrypted. \*\*This connection already is secure and encrypted. \*\* The thing most of the users here are concerned about is the encryption of the cloud storage, which, in fact has to be a application-driven (in this case PLEX-driven) solution, as this application has to ready the files. Maybe there’s a possibility for PLEX to add something like a veracrypt-container-reader, and the possibility to enter the password for this containers in the plex.tv-webApp (server-configuration for PLEX Cloud). ---
**Author:** ![TomasJAnderson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ab097/32.png) [@TomasJAnderson](https://forums.plex.tv/u/TomasJAnderson)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/18 "2016-09-28T19:19:38Z")
Agreed that encryption would be a good first step for this to be adopted by a larger userbase. ---
**Author:** ![mherm88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/41988e/32.png) [@mherm88](https://forums.plex.tv/u/mherm88)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/19 "2016-09-29T20:34:32Z")
PLEASE put in full disk encryption on ACD. I don’t allow my drives at home to not be encrypted, there’s no chance I’d use ACD unless it was fully encrypted. ---
**Author:** ![ufo56](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/59ef9b/32.png) [@ufo56](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ufo56)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 11:43am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348/20 "2016-09-30T11:43:22Z")
Encryption is needed! [Next page](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-add-strong-client-side-encryption-to-cloud-disks/160348.md?page=2)