Modelling cloud computing architecture without compromising privacy

As privacy issues are sure to be central to user concerns about the adoption of Cloud computing, building such protections into the design and operation of the Cloud is vital to the future success of this new networking paradigm. [...] For instance, while the encryption of data addresses many of the privacy and security concerns of the data subject and/or data holder, significant meta-data may still be generated based on patterns of data access (including the identities of the data requestors), which might belie the contents of the data itself. [...] The consumer’s agent encrypts data prior to sending it to the Cloud DSP, and issues access delegation to the Cloud ACSP that will handle data utilization requests from the requestor. [...] Should the requestor want to access the consumer’s data in the Cloud, requests would not go directly to the Cloud DSP, which, for the sake of privacy protection, does not hold the encryption key for the data it holds. [...] Second, the Cloud ACSP would include in the message any available information regarding the subset of data to be released to the requestor, with the goal of restricting requestor access to be only the minimum required for its stated purposes.