60 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Q&A
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layout: default
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permalink: /q&a.html
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---
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# Q&A
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#### How does the Distrust Disaster Recovery system work?
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The Distrust Disaster Recovery system is based on
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[Quorum Key Management (QKM)](https://docs.distrust.co/qkm), a highly
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opinionated framework for managing cryptographic material securely in offline,
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hardened environments. One of the core tenants of QKM is that the cryptographic
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material is sharded (split up), and distributed in different geographical
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locations, so that it takes the cooperation of multiple individuals from
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different regions in order to reconstruct the key which allows for decryption.
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#### Where is the data stored?
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You may choose to have Distrust Disaster Recovery redundantly store your
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encrypted data, but this means that Distrust Disaster Recovery staff would be
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able to decrypt your data, although it would require a quorum of
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[Shard Bearers](#what-are-shard-bearers) to assemble physically as all
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cryptographic material is stored fully offline. This is very much unlike the
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current market offerings which store both your encrypted data, and the keys used
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to decrypt it in online environments, with questionable security, and certainly
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no transparency into how they actually manage your data. With Distrust, the key
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for decryption and any decryption is always performed in fully air-gapped
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environments, and is the reason that recovery is slower - but far more secure.
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Alternatively, you may opt to generate an encryption key, encrypt your data
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using this key, then encrypt that key using the Distrust Disaster Recovery
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public key. You could then destroy the key you used for encrypting your data,
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effectively creating a setup where the only way to decrypt the data is to
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recover the encryption key via DDR. In this setup DDR has no way to decrypt your
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data in plaintext, but you are responsible for encrypted data backups.
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You can learn more about data storage [here](/data-storage.html)
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#### What are "Shard Bearers"?
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Shard Bearers are Distrust Disaster Recovery employees who are responsible for
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managing a shard which is used to reconstruct the private key which can
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decrypt client data. At least 2 shard bearers are required in order to perform
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this task, and the shards are stored offline, and never exposed to any
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environments other than specifically tailored air-gapped environments according
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to [Quroum Key Management](https://docs.distrust.co/qkm) specification.
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#### What quorum threshold does DDR use?
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2 of 3 threshold is used, with [Shard Bearers](#what-are-shard-bearers) located
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in 2 states in the USA, and in Canada.
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#### Can Distrust Disaster Recovery be used instead of Coincover or Keyternal?
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Yes, it can, although the speed of recovery is slower, the security guarantees
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far surpass those currently available in the market. Additionally, Distrust
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Disaster Recovery is the first offering of its kind that allows encryption of
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*any* data as opposed to only blockchain wallet data. |