nextPage® security strategies

The NextPage Global Service never transmits or stores files, filenames or built-in file properties. Instead, it stores only the metadata DNA. Users continue to work with files exactly as they did prior to subscribing to the NextPage service.

Consequently, many of the security vulnerabilities that typically arise with conventional document systems with central repositories simply do not apply to the NextPage service.

The number one document security question on every user’s mind is this: who will be able to see my files? In the vast majority of cases, people are most comfortable with a simple combination of space on a personal machine and a secure e-mail account. This makes it possible to store sensitive files in locations where no one else can access them. When the author of a document is ready to involve other people, she simply sends the file to those people as an e-mail attachment—effectively eliminating anyone who should not be involved.

A conventional document system complicates this simple process by placing files in a common area that must be managed with rules and policies for access control. There is always a concern that administrator error or even a software defect will expose sensitive files to the wrong people. This situation becomes particularly difficult as a document progresses from draft to published form—with the corresponding need to constantly change access rights.

Because of these and many other complications, people tend to abandon centralized document systems and revert to e-mail.

With NextPage products, people see only the versions of files you want them to see. For example, sending the final version of a proposal to a customer does not give him the ability to obtain or see previous versions of the file, even if he is a subscriber of a NextPage product.

This security principle has deep implications. A hacker who understands the NextPage metadata format cannot use the DNA of a document to obtain access to a different version of the same file. In this way, NextPage metadata DNA works like biological DNA. Suppose John is Bob’s son. No amount of testing on John’s DNA would enable a scientist, no matter how gifted, to reconstruct Bob. However, if you have DNA from both John and Bob, you can tell that John is descended from Bob. But unlike biological DNA, NextPage can detect this genetic relationship with 100% certainty.

Some organizations use encryption software to protect documents from unauthorized viewing while they are in transit via e-mail or some other transport medium.

This does not present a problem for the NextPage service, which decodes a file’s genetic ancestry without regard to how it travels. As soon as a document is decrypted by its intended recipient, the NextPage 2 tracking service detects its presence and continues to track it.

This is yet another example of how using NextPage products allows you to leverage all of your existing security tools, conventions, practices and policies.