Methods and systems for team collaboration and document management

A method for adding documents to an IPFS file system, comprising:

• by a computing system that hosts a local IPFS node,
• creating a unique encryption key;
• encrypting a first document using a block cipher with the unique encryption key;
• adding a version record to a document data store;
• saving the encrypted first document to the IPFS file system;
• saving a unique content identifier provided by the IPFS file system for the first document to a local data store;
• sending a message to a backup service with the unique content identifier using PubSub;
• and
• updating the local data store with document information.

A method performed by backup server computing system for creating a secure and permanent backup of a user document stored in IPFS, wherein the backup service runs an IPFS node, comprising:

• listening on a PubSub message queue;
• when a secure backup message is received from a sender on the PubSub message queue, decrypting the message with the backup node private key, wherein the message includes a unique IPFS content identifier;
• authenticating and checking the integrity of the secure backup message;
• requesting, using the unique IPFS content identifier, a copy of the sender's encrypted IPFS document for storage by the backup server IPFS node;
• upon receiving the encrypted IPFS document, pinning the document to the backup service node to make it permanent;
• transmitting to the sender a secure PubSub to confirm the backup;
• updating a local data store of the backup server with backup information about the backed-up document;
• and
• updating an audit data store with information about the backup action.

A method of securing PubSub messages, comprising:

• processing an outgoing PubSub message by:
• creating a message key that is a strong symmetric encryption key for the message;
• creating an authentication key that is a strong symmetric key for use with a keyed hash method;
• creating a keyed hash of the message using the authentication key;
• signing the message or a component of the message using a sender's private key;
• encrypting the message key and authentication key with a recipient's public key;
• encrypting the message with the message key;
• creating a message bundle by combining the encrypted message, keyed hash of the message, encrypted message key, encrypted authentication key, and message signature into one binary string;
• character encoding the message bundle;
• transmitting a via PubSub the character encoded message bundle to the recipient;
• and
• processing by a recipient an incoming PubSub message from a sender, by:
• receiving a PubSub message that includes an encrypted message key and authentication key;
• character decoding the message;
• decrypting the message key and the authentication key using the recipient's private key;
• decrypting the message with the message key;
• verifying the signature of the message using the sender's public key;
• creating a keyed hash of the message using the authentication key and comparing the result with the value provided in the message;
• zeroing the message key and authentication key;
• and
• processing instructions included within the message.