Hi Antoine, My part there is mostly review and some advice. The bulk of the work is done by Tham, and by the community members who've reviewed the PR; my frustration is with seeing it in limbo for a while now. Regarding the remaining comments - currently, the main sticking points are the change proposals in this googledoc. Once their status is clarified, I hope Tham will be able to resume addressing the comments (I'll help with some of them if needed).
Cheers, Gidon On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 6:03 PM Antoine Pitrou <anto...@python.org> wrote: > > Hi Gidon, > > Le 16/02/2021 à 16:42, Gidon Gershinsky a écrit : > > Regarding the high-level layer, I think it waits for a progress at > > > https://docs.google.com/document/d/11qz84ajysvVo5ZAV9mXKOeh6ay4-xgkBrubggCP5220/edit?usp=sharing > > No activity there since last November. This is unfortunate, because Tham > > has put a lot of work in coding the high-level layer (and addressing 200+ > > review comments) in the PR https://github.com/apache/arrow/pull/8023. > The > > code is functional, compatible with the Java version in parquet-mr, and > can > > be updated with the threading changes in the doc above. I hope all this > > good work will not be wasted. > > I'm sorry for the possibly frustrating process. Looking at the PR, > though, it seems a bunch of comments were not addressed. Is it possible > to go through them and ensure they get an answer and/or a resolution? > > Best regards > > Antoine. > > > > > > > Cheers, Gidon > > > > > > On Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 6:52 AM Micah Kornfield <emkornfi...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > >> My thoughts: > >> 1. I've lost track of the higher level encryption implementation in > C++. > >> I think we were trying to come to a consensus on the threading/thread > >> safety model? > >> > >> 2. I'm open to exposing the lower level encryption libraries in python > >> (without appropriate namespacing/communication). It seems at least for > >> reading, there is potentially less harm (I'll caveat that with I'm not a > >> security expert). Are both the low level read and write implementations > >> necessary? (it probably makes sense to have a few smaller PRs for > exposing > >> this functionality anyways). > >> > >> > >> > >> On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 7:10 AM Itamar Turner-Trauring < > >> ita...@pythonspeed.com> wrote: > >> > >>> Hi, > >>> > >>> Since the PR for high-level C++ Parquet encryption API appears stalled > ( > >>> https://github.com/apache/arrow/pull/8023), I'm looking into exposing > >> the > >>> low-level Parquet encryption API to Python. > >>> > >>> Arguments for doing this: the low-level API is all the users I'm > talking > >>> to need, at the moment, so it's plausible others would also find some > >>> benefit in having the Pyarrow API expose low-level Parquet encryption. > >> Then > >>> again, it might only be this one company and no one else cares. > >>> > >>> The arguments against, per Gidon Gershinsky: > >>> > >>>> * security: low-level encryption API is easy to misuse (eg giving the > >>> same keys for a number of different files; this'd break the AES GCM > >>> cipher). The high-level encryption layer handles that by applying > >> envelope > >>> encryption and other best practices in data security. Also, this layer > is > >>> maintained by the community, meaning that future improvements and > >> security > >>> fixes can be upstreamed by anyone, and available to all. > >>>> * compatibility: parquet-mr implements the high-level encryption > >> layer. > >>> If we want the files produced by Spark/Presto/etc to be readable by > >>> pandas/PyArrow (and vice versa), we need to provide the Arrow users > with > >>> the high-level API. > >>>> ... > >>>> > >>>> The current situation is not ideal, it'd be good to merge the > >> high-level > >>> PR (and maybe hide the low level), but here we are; also, C++ is a kind > >> of > >>> a low-level language; Python would expose it to a less experienced > >> audience. > >>> > >>> (Source: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-8040) > >>> > >>> I find the compatibility argument less compelling, that's readily > >>> addressed by documentation. I am not a crypto expert so I can't > evaluate > >>> how risky exposing the low-level encryption APIs would be, but I can > see > >>> how that would be a significant concern. > >>> > >>> Some options are: > >>> * Status quo, no Python API for low-level Parquet encryption. This has > >>> two possible outcomes: > >>> * Eventually high-level API gets merged, gets Python binding. > >>> * High-level encryption API is never merged, Python users never get > >>> access to encryption. > >>> * Add low-level Parquet encryption API to Pyarrow, perhaps using > >> "hazmat" > >>> idiom used by the Python cryptography package (API namespace indicating > >>> "use at your own risk, this is dangerous", basically, e.g. > >>> `cryptography.hazmat.primitives.ciphers.aead.``ChaCha20Poly1305`). > >>> * Gidon Gershinsky did not find this suggestion compelling enough to > >>> override his security concerns. > >>> * Low-level encryption done as third party Python package, either > >> private > >>> or open source. This is annoying technically, plausibly would require > >>> maintaining a fork. > >>> Any other ideas? Thoughts on these options? > >>> > >>> —Itamar > >> > > >
