We keep your data on professionally maintained servers. All your entries are backed up once a day, and thus in an event of a system failure (such as a hard-drive failure) your work will be protected.

Many security features are built into the system to insure that no one other than those with access can see your information:

Data Facilities
State-of-the-art computing and data storage facilities managed by 1&1. Using a professionally maintained facility allows for data to be safely and securely backed up and for sophisticaed physical security.

Platform
The server runs under the linux operating system and is constantly updated and monitored by our security team. The unix operating system and the timely updating of the server software make the server more secure.

No identity information
Our servers stores no sensitive identity information about you. To achieve this, we process all payments through paypal which securely contains all your payment information and thus prevents information such as credit card numbers, home address or such to be kept in multiple places. Thus your sensitive personal information is only stored on the secure PayPal servers. For information on the PayPal security system visit their security information page.

Enhanced Server Security Structure
The database is shielded from the user interface with additional security features such as an independent password (Server based security). This means that reaching the database is more difficult through an active account. Additionally, the whole server is protected by a CISCO firewall.

Web-Security
To prevent interception of data between the web-browser and the server, all incomming and outgoing traffic is encrypted using the highest SSL protection (128 bits) available to nongovernmental entities. You can check that this security feature is enabled by checking the security properties in your browser (usually indicated by a closed lock symbol).

PKI infrastructure
To enable signing and witnessing of entries, e-nnovate implements a private-public key system based on the industry standard set by PGP.

Backups
The data from all paying customers is backed up once a day using 1and1's proven infrastructure. You can request a cd or dvd with your data for $5 per GB.

Access
Only users designated in the collaboration can access a certain entry. The system logs all acesses to the entry and the user can review it in the property dialog.

We won't allow anybody except the designated collaborators to access data. We will prosecute to the fullest extend allowed by law anybody who tries to access your data without your consent. If legally required we will give law enforcement agencies access to your data and inform you about this access unless this would infringe upon their current investigations. In case we need to access your data we will only do so after you gave us your consent.

We know that security is an important concern for all researchers. If you have any questions about security please feel free to contact us and ask!

Illustrative Case #1: The uncoperative hard-drive

Joy has been working on an experiment for the past three month. She finally gets everything to work right and has her "golden" data set acquired from the imaging machine. When the data is finally ready, she begins working on the paper that her advisor wants submitted by Monday.

On Friday morning, the hard-drive on the computer begins to make funny noises and soon the screen freezes. Upon restarting, the computer does not boot up and states that there is no operating system. She calls the "computer guy" in their lab, and he comes over and takes a look at the computer. He looks at the computer for a while and tells her that the hard-drive is "fried".

He tells her that luckily for her, he convinced the lab manager to install a back up program that makes backups of everything once a week on Friday evening when noone is using the computer. He offers her the back-ups but she needs the data that she had acquired during that week.

Outcome #1:
To repeat the experiment would take ordering more supplies, spending another week and hoping that everything worked at the same time. She decides she cannot afford this and calls the IT people at the department.They tell her that there are companies specializing in "data recovery".

She calls them and they tell her that because ths is likely to be a mechanical failure, they charge somewhere around 300-400 dollars to recover the data if they are able to do so. To make things even more complicated, other people in the lab use the same machine and they are not there for her to ask their advice/permission as to how to proceed, since the recovery company warns her that she may loose all data.

Outcome #2
Joy has been using e-nnovate to maintain a data-book. As she collects data, no matter what computer in the lab she is using, she uploads the data into her data-book and comments upon the conditions of the experiment. She also uses the computer to view and update her protocols. As such, her data is all safe and ready for her to use. She tells the IT office to come and repair the image acquisition computer, while she downloads her data back into her laptop and begins working on her paper.