Disappointing: Google Not Yet Requiring Phone Makers To Encrypt By Default

from the get-things-up-to-speed dept

The real question we have to ask is whether or not any of these storage benchmarks really matter on a mobile device. After all, the number of intensive storage I/O operations being done on smartphones and tablets is still relatively low, and some of the situations where NAND slowdowns are really going to have an effect can be offset by holding things in memory.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Well, this is disappointing. Back in September, we were happy to see both AppleGoogle announced that their mobile platforms would be encrypted by default (for local storage, not for data transmissions), which has kicked off something of a new round of Crypto Wars , as law enforcement types have shoved each other aside to spread as much possible FUD about the "dangers" of mobile encryption (ignoring that they also recommend mobile encryption to keep your data safe).However, as Ars Technica reported earlier this week, it appears that while Googleencrypting by default on its own Nexus phones that have the latest Android (Lollipop), it slightly eased back the requirements for its OEM partners such as Motorola and Samsung who make their own devices. Default encryption is now "very strongly RECOMMENDED" rather than required. And even with that "very strong RECOMMENDATION," it appears that neither Samsung or Motorola are enabling default encryption on its latest devices.While some will likely jump to the conclusion that law enforcement pressure is at work here, a much more likely explanation is just the performance drag created by encryption. Last fall, Anandtech did some benchmarking of the Nexus 6 both with encryption on and off, and as the site itself says, the results are "not pretty." Given the competitive market, there's a decent chance that the big phone manufacturers didn't want to get bad benchmark ratings when phones are compared, and those made the decision to go against the "very strong recommendation."Hopefully this gets sorted out quickly, as phonemakers can optimize new phones for encryption. And, honestly, as the Anandtech report itself notes, these benchmarks are basically meaningless for real world performance:But, it appears, while mobile phone makers don't want to take the chance of bad benchmarks hurting their reputation, they're less concerned about leaving consumers' data exposed.It's disappointing that this is where things are today, after so much focus on default encryption just a few months ago, but hopefully it's just a temporary situation and we'll get to default encryption very, very soon.

Filed Under: android, benchmarks, encryption, mobile encryption, oems, privacy

Companies: google, motorola, samsung