Please support "local only" files

[anonperson]

Please add support for people creating and using Fusion 360 files that only exist on the local system, and are never transmitted to the cloud (for any reason).

The present situation (Cloud only) excludes everyone who works on confidential (for any reason) designs.

For them to use Fusion 360 means they need to learn and use two tools (eg Solidworks + Fusion 360, Rhino + Fusion 360, etc).  At a guess :), most people won't bother, and will just keep using/investing in their current tools (eg Solidworks, Rhino, whatever).

Adding support for "local only" files should allow these people to then use Fusion 360, potentially moving to it as their primary platform.

Note - This "idea" seems to have been skirted around before (eg http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-request-a/cloud-and-online-work/idi-p/4652787), but not directly requested.

[daniel_lyall]

you can sort of do this now, but to do it you have to stay off line to do the job has been completed and removed from fusion.

A save only to a local file under the local file system for a selected file in the save function, so you can select the file for it to go to ever a local file or cloud file, this would tie into another idea on the idea station for drawing`s to be saved to the file with the same name, so all related data gets save to the same place in one go.

so you would create a file save to local or cloud, with a name like batman then the drawing`s would be called batman as well and saved to the batman file where you wont it to be.

hell two good idea`s put togetther 

[anonperson]

Thanks for the thought Daniel.  I've done some experimentation while in Offline mode too. 🙂

There doesn't seem to be any guarantee that the files created while offline (even if deleted) don't have some form of metadata transmitted back to the Cloud when going back online.

There's also a file in Preferences that seems to control the number of days something can be cached offline.  I have a feeling that could be a problem if working on an offline fileset for longer than that value. (unsure though)

With the .f3d and .f3z file format's, they're .zip container files (eg you can rename them to .zip and extract their contents).  It's a flexible approach, which would work in with adding drawings like you point out. The current contents of .f3d files already has .png's in there (thumbnail? from memory), if that helps. 😉

[daniel_lyall]

yer I know all that, A auto save to a file in local or cloud, fusion does it for you, for anything done in fusion with the same name as the file it places the files for you to where you wont them being the cam file, or drawing set what ever.

[O.Tan]

Hmm, tbh. I don't see any reason why confidential can't be on cloud cause your emails lives on a cloud (and those have loads of confidential datas), and besides Autodesk doesn't and cannot access your data.

The future upcoming updates (design branching, collaboration) will all make heavy use of your data needed to be on the cloud. And there's already many IdeaStation request that is similar to yours.

[anonperson]

@O.Tan "I don't see any reason why confidential can't be on cloud cause your emails lives on a cloud".

That seems strange to me.  My emails are in a server, run by folks I personally know and trust, with access controls around them I can have adjusted if needed.  They're not "on a cloud".

Hopefully everyone who does store their emails (with confidential data) "on a cloud" has authorisation to do so.  If not - and it's discovered - it can have pretty severe negative consequences for them and their employer.

A current example: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/hillary-clinton-says-sorry-for-confusion-over-e-mail-accou...

[daniel_lyall]

@O.Tan a lot of the people who do nda stuff is for the yanks the thing that is funny about it most of people`s cloud storage is in the same place as where the yank goverment have there cloud storage so the protection is the same. but they demand it so they have to wont it. fusion is that much of a no brainer that it becomes a problem for people doing nda`s ever go to a $10000 plus program that`s not on the cloud or not do the work.

[O.Tan]

@Anonymous If it's in a server, then it's on a cloud (it's a marketing term), the only difference if the data is stored in a local setup or if it's duplicated across different locations. And we're not discussing about how well the servers are maintained (security and backups). 

Unlikely to be discovered unless you're specifically targetted or your server host got hacked (applies to even your company server as well).

@daniel_lyall, sorry, but what you mean by yank? 

If I'm not mistaken, Autodesk uses Amazon to host their datas and I'm certain people have already used it (not Fusion) for projects that's more expensive then we will ever know. And Amazon does it as a business and as a business I'm certain Amazon will maintain their servers and security really well cause any hacks and they'll lose their customers (and revenue) in no time. 

[daniel_lyall]

@O.Tan yank a person from USA just a name nothing meant by it I am a kiwi a person from NZ.

I know where it is stored I have a Amazon cloud storage account.

what I meant was the American government use Amazon cloud storage, like fusion so the safely will be the same supper high, but when people do work for them and have to do a nda they are not allowed to use fusion on a cloud even tho the info may have been stored there in the first place. so it`s demanded of them to not use a cloud storage so they are saying we wont local storage because of the rules they have to work under.

fusion for most people is a no brainier because of the cost of it and how good the cam is, they cant use it under nda`s it breaks the rules so they have to use a non cloud program to do the work, fusion losing customer`s.

so if there was a way to have local and cloud where it was a folder you set up with a name what get`s saved to the local or cloud when you do something to do with that folder fusion sends it to that places for you auto save to where you wont it to go to.

batman rules

[kellings]

@anonperson How often do you email your files to vendors so they can produce parts for you?

[anonperson]

@kellings For anything confidential, never. 🙂

[roambotics_scott]

The future upcoming updates (design branching, collaboration) will all make heavy use of your data needed to be on the cloud.

I'm excited for those things but it makes me nervous to hear you say that.

That seems strange to me. My emails are in a server, run by folks I personally know and trust, with access controls around them I can have adjusted if needed. They're not "on a cloud".

«on a cloud» doesn't really mean anything special. They're in servers, just ones hosted by Amazon rather than Autodesk.

[Assuming everything is designed well*] it's perfectly reasonable that something stored in S3 (Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service / where I think our files live) is at least as secure and trustworthy as anything stored in gmail.

I kinda assume that Autodesk isn't using end-to-end encryption, but if they did, then even with unrestricted access to the data stored, it'd require the concentrated resources of someone like NSA to have any hope of gaining access to the files.

That being said 

Autodesk  10622   smenor   56u  IPv4 0x72504537244c870b      0t0  TCP 192.168.0.20:53170->ec2-54-241-191-232.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com:http (ESTABLISHED)

That F360 has made an unencrypted HTTP connection to an EC2 server doesn't exactly give me the warm and fuzzies (though I didn't see any plain text going over the wire so that's hopefully more just a bad smell than a real hole).

* not a small assumption and I'd not trust it to be accurate unless someone independent who knows what they're doing audits the F360/A360 codebase. I realize they're unrelated but the fact that every time I log into forums.autodesk.com / Ideastation I get a browser warning that things are going over the network unencrypted does not instill confidence in me that AD knows what they're doing when it comes to network security.

[roambotics_scott]

Gah - «That seems strange to me. My emails are in a server, run by folks I personally know and trust, with access controls around them I can have adjusted if needed. They're not "on a cloud".» above should have been blockquoted; sorry.

Never mind - apparently we can edit (though not delete?)

[anonperson]

@roambotics_scott I haven't looked at the traffic sent by F360, though it wouldn't be difficult to use something like Wireshark, or even a local proxy, to get an idea of what's being sent.

It isn't the kind of thing that generally interests me personally.  But hey, if that floats your boat then go for it and please share the analysis. 🙂

Also to point out... obtaining other people's data in Amazon (or any like service provider) isn't restricted to NSA like entities.  There are many other approaches:

• Someone who works at AWS (or the equivalent for other providers), or works there themselves.
• Someone with a suitable remote exploit (this can be a wide category).
• Social engineering.
• Legal scare tactics.

Any of these can be applied to a local (in company) data store too of course... but there's much less attack surface with your own (small) company than with most "cloud" hosting providers.

NDA's / confidentiality is (to me) about risk management.  And (having personally worked in IT Infrastructure for Cloud places) "Cloud" providers just can't tick the checkboxes needed for actual functional confidentiality. 😉

[roambotics_scott]

It's definitely not something that I care enough about to investigate but I thought I'd have a quick look since it came up.

[roambotics_scott]

• Someone who works at AWS (or the equivalent for other providers), or works there themselves.
• Someone with a suitable remote exploit (this can be a wide category).
• Social engineering.
• Legal scare tactics.

Any of these can be applied to a local (in company) data store too of course... but there's much less attack surface with your own (small) company than with most "cloud" hosting providers.

Not much they can do about social engineering but if they used well designed end-to-end encryption, anyone sniffing packets or even with unrestricted access to the storage would just get a bunch of effectively random bits that they'd have to decrypt and Autodesk, themselves, couldn't decrypt it if they wanted to even with a court order. 

Note that I'd be shocked if they actually built it that way, but it's at least possible. 

[Anonymous]

I asked a similar question about ITAR compliance and "cloud" technology on another software's forums:

The facility I work at makes ITAR and DOD controlled components and there are extra measures we must go through to handle these prints.  It would be interesting to hear from an export compliance professional on whether or not cloud based systems are ITAR compatible.  How much access do Autodesk staff members have to user's files?  Is it only in the event that you flag the file to be shared with Autodesk's staff?  I only ask because one of the few things we know about ITAR is that only US citizens are allowed to see any documentation related to an export controlled project (which makes things interesting because the facility is owned by a British conglomerate).  If Autodesk's staff isn't all US citizens and they have some kind of access to user files, this may not be acceptable for ITAR compliance. 

[roambotics_scott]

My experience with ITAR is limited but so far it seems that you can get approval for almost anything pretty easily as long as you go through a paperwork dance.

FWIW - AWS definitely has the ability to be create DOD compliant instances so it might be a nice option to have a secure / «weapons grade» version of F360 (might take a year to set it up but once you do, you can charge a stupid amount of money for and defense contractors will be happy to pay).

[daniel_lyall]

@roambotics_scott

that a very good idea have a high security verson of fusion it would pay for AD to do, how many little machine/job shops can aford to drop 10 to 30 grand to get a program so thay can do DOD stuff.

then the question becomes how many new coustomer`s will AD get if they have the high security verson.

AD what do you say to @roambotics_scott idea

[cekuhnen]

Well I see it this way: if it is in the cloud it can be hacked. Period.

The USA also does not offer the same legal protection against their own government agencies who are quite known to strong arm and bend the law or simply practice industrial espionage.

But I hardly think somebody who uses Fusion works on rocket sience projects.

So I think that discussion about NDA has a point but I think there is more a problem made out of it than it would need to.

The real issue I simply see is that if your internet is down or AD has server issues you basically are done for the day.

That for me is the real serious issue because both cases happened to me few times and nothing is worse than calling somebody

and say sorry cannot log-in!

[kellings]

"Well I see it this way: if it is in the cloud it can be hacked. Period."

Unlike your desktop which is completely secure 😉

"The real issue I simply see is that if your internet is down or AD has server issues you basically are done for the day."

Down for the day may be a little extreme. Yeah, there will be outtages but they seem to have been pretty minimal so far. How often does the network at a corporation go offline or have issues?

I see both sides of this issue, but Fusion 360 was built with the cloud as the backbone.