Category Archives: Encryption

Google, Apple to introduce default encryption

Posted on by

Google has announced that its next mobile operating system, Android L, will encrypt users data by default.

The measure will make it more difficult for private information to be hacked or handed to law enforcement agencies.

On Thursday, Apple said that devices running its new iOS8 software would be encrypted by default, with even the company itself unable to gain access.

Both firms have offered encryption for some time, but many users were unaware of its existence or had not enabled it.

Earlier this week, Apples boss Tim Cook posted an online message assuring users the companys philosophy was that a great customer experience shouldnt come at the expense of your privacy.

As well as announcing default encryption for all devices running the new iOS8 software, Mr Cook took a thinly veiled swipe at Google, saying that Apple would not use its customers information to sell things to them.

We dont monetise the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud, he wrote, and we dont read your email or your messages to get information to market to you.

He added that although Apple does have an advertising business, called iAd, the function can be disabled by users.

Shortly after, Google announced its stance on privacy, also embracing default encryption. A spokesman said: For over three years, Android has offered encryption, and keys are not stored off of the device, so they cannot be shared with law enforcement.

As part of our next Android release, encryption will be enabled by default out of the box, so you wont even have to think about turning it on.

Read this article:
Google, Apple to introduce default encryption

Free Pro Vpn with encryption, 20+ countries [USA, UK, FR, IT, CH and more!] 09192014, no survey! – Video

Posted on by


Free Pro Vpn with encryption, 20+ countries [USA, UK, FR, IT, CH and more!] 09192014, no survey!
Updated on 09192014! Hello, nowadays privacy is really important and a vpn is what you need if you want to surf the internet safely and anonimously. Here is a pro Vpn which has over 20 different...

By: TheRainPhantom

Link:
Free Pro Vpn with encryption, 20+ countries [USA, UK, FR, IT, CH and more!] 09192014, no survey! - Video

How to turn on Android encryption today (no waiting necessary)

Posted on by

On Thursday Google announced that the next version of Android will have encryption enabled by default, protecting user data from anyone who lacks password access. It's a feature lauded by privacy advocates, and matches Apple's new iPhone policy. But Google's new policy isn't very helpful if you own an Android phone that won't be updated to Android L for a while (if ever).

But let's not get too bent out of shape. We're here to share how you can encrypt your Android devices running the Jelly Bean and Kit Kat systems. That's right: Privacy features are already built in. You just need to turn them on.

Remember: Encryption isn't just about taking a philosophical stance in a post-Snowden legal landscape. Protecting your data against all manner of intrusion may beadvised if youre a doctor, lawyer or business person who has a legal and ethical responsibility to shield sensitive data.

Likewise, your device is full of personal and work information, like account numbers and passwords, that could be useful to racketeers and scammers.No matter who you are, you have a lot of personal and maybe professional data on your phone that you wouldnt want just anyone to access.

Your lock screen just keeps someone from using your phone. But its not too difficult to get at the data residing on your phone by plugging it into a computer via the USB port. Enter encryption, which provides a level of protection far beyond a simple lock screen code, scramblingall the data on your phone with a special cryptographic key. So even if someone pulls all the data off your phone, circumventing the lock screen, the data will be useless without your key.

Bear in mind that its hard to know when youve fully destroyed data on a phone. Forensic analysis of a defunct phone can conceivably expose info like text messages. But if the messages are encrypted to begin with, theres no way that they can be recovered.

Its not all a walk in the park. Be aware that performance on older devices can be slowed through encryption, and it can negatively impact battery life, too. If your Android phone or tablet was made in the last couple years, it likely has special hardware to speed up encryption, and the impact on speed and battery life will be negligible. Also, encryption isnt 100 percent foolproof (though it makes accessing your data so difficult and expensive, crooks probably won't take the time to break it).

Step 1: Plug in your devices power cable and allow the battery to charge. Keep the power cable connected.

Tip: The encryption process can take as long as 30 minutes or more. If your battery dies and the phone shuts off in the middle of the process, the process will fail, and youll lose data.

Step 2: Open the devices Settings and look for the Security menu item. Then select the Screen Lock menu item and choose a PIN or Password and follow the prompts to confirm it.

See the article here:
How to turn on Android encryption today (no waiting necessary)

Google to turn on encryption by default in next Android version

Posted on by

The pre-release window for Android L continues to be full of surprises. The new Android OS, due out before the end of the year, is set to encrypt device data by default, a first for the Android universebut it'll probably be a while before default encryption comes to every Android user.

Savvy Android users already know how to keep their phones and tablets safe with encryption. Beginning with Android Honeycomb in early 2011, Google has offered access to optional full-disk encryption via the Settings app. As Honeycomb was a tablet-only release, smartphones didn't get this feature until Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was released, several months after Honeycomb.

Based on the original report from The Washington Post, it's not clear if the default encryption in Android L will just be the standard encryption Android offers now or if this will be something new. It's also unknown if people with older devices upgrading to Android L will also see encryption turned on by default.

Google was unavailable for comment at this writing, but we've asked the company for more information and will update this story should we get a response.

Defaulting to encryption is nothing but a good thing. It means bad actors (as well as overzealous law enforcement) will have a difficult time cracking into your phone without your authorization. Google won't be able to access (or hand over) your phone's data, eitheralthough law enforcement will still be able to retrieve some information from Google's servers with a proper warrant.

But even with encryption turned on by default in Android L, it will likely be a long time before the majority of Android users have devices that default to a more secure state.

Android suffers from a serious case of fragmentation. At this writing, the majority of Android users worldwide (around 54 percent) were using Android 4.1-4.3 (Jelly Bean), according to Google's own count. Only 24.5 percent meanwhile are running the most recent version of Android, version 4.4 KitKat.

The biggest problem for Android is that Google depends on phone manufacturers and carriers to roll out timely updates to older phones. That severely delays the roll out of new features to usersif devices get updated at all.

That's a decidedly different situation from iOS, where the vast majority of users are always on the latest version of iOS within a few weeks of its release. That level of adoption happens because Apple tends to roll out its latest version of iOS to as many old devices as it reasonably can. Apple also has the advantage of bypassing the carriers and supplying iOS updates directly to users. Apple devices as old as the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 can upgrade to the just-released iOS 8.

Large scale adoption of the newest version of iOS also enables Apple to deliver important new features relatively quickly. In iOS 8, for example, Apple is beefing up device encryption so that Apple can't retrieve data protected behind a passcode. For pre-iOS 8 phones, the company could retrieve select data from iPhones and iPads.

See the rest here:
Google to turn on encryption by default in next Android version

Android L will turn on encryption by default

Posted on by

The pre-release window for Android L continues to be full of surprises. The new Android OS, due out before the end of the year, is set to encrypt device data by default, a first for the Android universebut it'll probably be a while before default encryption comes to every Android user.

Savvy Android users already know how to keep their phones and tablets safe with encryption. Beginning with Android Honeycomb in early 2011, Google has offered access to optional full-disk encryption via the Settings app. As Honeycomb was a tablet-only release, smartphones didn't get this feature until Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich was released, several months after Honeycomb.

Based on the original report from The Washington Post, it's not clear if the default encryption in Android L will just be the standard encryption Android offers now or if this will be something new. It's also unknown if people with older devices upgrading to Android L will also see encryption turned on by default.

Google was unavailable for comment at this writing, but we've asked the company for more information and will update this story should we get a response.

Defaulting to encryption is nothing but a good thing. It means bad actors (as well as overzealous law enforcement) will have a difficult time cracking into your phone without your authorization. Google won't be able to access (or hand over) your phone's data, eitheralthough law enforcement will still be able to retrieve some information from Google's servers with a proper warrant.

But even with encryption turned on by default in Android L, it will likely be a long time before the majority of Android users have devices that default to a more secure state.

Android suffers from a serious case of fragmentation. At this writing, the majority of Android users worldwide (around 54 percent) were using Android 4.1-4.3 (Jelly Bean), according to Google's own count. Only 24.5 percent meanwhile are running the most recent version of Android, version 4.4 KitKat.

The biggest problem for Android is that Google depends on phone manufacturers and carriers to roll out timely updates to older phones. That severely delays the roll out of new features to usersif devices get updated at all.

That's a decidedly different situation from iOS, where the vast majority of users are always on the latest version of iOS within a few weeks of its release. That level of adoption happens because Apple tends to roll out its latest version of iOS to as many old devices as it reasonably can. Apple also has the advantage of bypassing the carriers and supplying iOS updates directly to users. Apple devices as old as the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 can upgrade to the just-released iOS 8.

Large scale adoption of the newest version of iOS also enables Apple to deliver important new features relatively quickly. In iOS 8, for example, Apple is beefing up device encryption so that Apple can't retrieve data protected behind a passcode. For pre-iOS 8 phones, the company could retrieve select data from iPhones and iPads.

View original post here:
Android L will turn on encryption by default

Newest Androids will join iPhones in offering default encryption, blocking police

Posted on by

The next generation of Googles Android operating system, due for release next month, will encrypt data by default for the first time, the company said Thursday, raising yet another barrier to police gaining access to the troves of personal data typically kept on smartphones.

Android has offered optional encryption on some devices since 2011, but security experts say few users have known how to turn on the feature. Now Google is designing the activation procedures for new Android devicesso that encryption happens automatically; only somebody who enters a device's password will be able to see the pictures, videos and communications stored on those smartphones.

The move offers Android, the worlds most popular operating system for smartphones, a degree of protection that resembles what Apple on Wednesdaybegan providing for iPhones, the leading rival to devices running Android operating systems. Both companies have now embraced a form of encryption that in most cases will make it impossible for law enforcement officials to collect evidence from smartphones even when authorities get legally binding search warrants.

For over three years Android has offered encryption, and keysare not stored off of the device, so they cannot be shared with law enforcement, said company spokeswoman Niki Christoff. As part of our next Android release, encryption will be enabled by default out of the box, so you won't even have to think about turning it on.

The move, which Google officials said has been in the works for many months, is part ofa broad shift by American technology companies to make their products more resistant to government snooping in the aftermath of revelations of National Security Agency spying by former contractor Edward Snowden.

Expanded deployment of encryption by Google and Apple, however, will have the most direct impact on law enforcement officials, who have long warned that restrictions on their access to electronic devices make it much harder for them to prevent and solve crimes. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that police needed search warrants to gain access to data stored on phones in most circumstances. But that standard is quickly being rendered moot; eventually no form of legal compulsion will suffice to force the unlocking of most smartphones.

Privacy advocates are ecstatic about the changes by Apple and Google, and especially about their shift toward making encryption automatic, through default settings, so that users get privacy protections without taking any action on their own.

"Most people aren't going to go out of their way to do these things," said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist for the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington-based non-profit group that receives substantial industry support. "It's so awesome, as someone who has worked on these issues for a long time, to see these two companies switch their defaults to where these things will be strongly encrypted, and rightly so."

Apple and Googlehave been engaged in an increasingly pointed competition over the lucrative smartphone market, with Apple in recent weeks portraying the iPhone as a safer, more secure option despite a recent run of bad publicity over the leak of intimate photos from the Apple accounts of celebrities.

There remain significant differences between how Apple and Google are handling encryption. Apple, which controls both the hardware and software on its devices, will be able to deliver the updated encryption on both new iPhones and iPads and also most older ones, as users update their operating systems with the latest release, iOS 8.

Originally posted here:
Newest Androids will join iPhones in offering default encryption, blocking police