Idea: BlackBerry Protect Premium

Here's my idea, don't recall seeing it get mentioned anywhere else. I'd actually appreciate it if someone picked it apart and point out the flaws. There's prob a glaring technical omission staring me in the face.

BlackBerry Protect Premium:

BlackBerry should create a new subscription service called BlackBerry Protect Premium.

The product would offer the same features and capabilities as the 'non premium' version currently does. The extra feature which would make it 'premium' would be to store online in 'the cloud', on BlackBerry owned/operated servers, one fully encrypted system image backup of a subscriber's BlackBerry phone.

New software would be required to be developed by BlackBerry that would enable the subscribed device to create an encrypted system image, including every setting/file/configuration on both the device internal storage and/or media card. The device would have to have content protection turned on for both the on board storage and the external media card.

The encrypted system image would have to be based off a user generated passcode, with the processed system image to be stored temporarily on the phones media card before uploading to BlackBerry servers.

And in the other direction, subscribers could download the system image onto a BlackBerry device, decrypt the file onto the media card and install the system image file which would wipe the device and 'restore' the phone to the settings, configurations, app lists and personalisation as it was on the day of backup.

A weekly/fortnightly/monthly backup reminder would also feature, but would not be automatic unless the user choose to recycle the same passcode as the initial backup.

The end result will be BlackBerry offering upto (at least) 16GB of online 'cloud storage' for a single file, accessible only by subscribed BlackBerry phones and with all data in transit handled via the BlackBerry NOC.

A yearly subscription fee on par with BBM Protected ($CA35) and sold through the same channel seems appropriate.

Such a service would offer:
A cloud backup option to subscribers;
Protection of every part of the backup from prying eyes/private investigators/criminals/hobby hackers;
Easy creation of a 'system restore' point, returning the device to it's personalised individually configured settings after a failed OS update for example;
An easy Backup-Upload-Wipe for movements across authoritarian borders (eg journalists) followed by Download-Unpack-Install once a somewhat secure connection to the NOC can be established;
Encryption of the backup data at rest as all processing completed on-board the already secured device;
Encryption of the backup data in transit as the upload and download will be handled by the NOC;
Provide a direct revenue source to cover development;
A profitable revenue stream to BlackBerry due to low running costs;
No negative publicity or risk security leak for BlackBerry as even a socially engineered attack (like used against iCloud lately) would only yield the attacker the encrypted file which is useless without the user generated passcode;

Limitations:
This idea probably won't work for device switching between different BlackBerry models due to supported antenna frequencies, making an encrypted system image of a BlackBerry Classic SQC100-1 only be compatible/successfully installed onto another Classic SQC100-1, and incompatible with a Z30 STA100-2;
Require a very large external media card with a lot of free space;
BlackBerry can't protect against the stupid who use weak passcodes.

Would love to hear CrackBerry's thoughts (or better yet BlackBerry's =D )

-- Give me a keyboard, a 5 star rated Browser and a fulcrum point and I could move the world.

TL/DR*:
BlackBerry stores a single file, an encrypted backup image. BlackBerry, hackers, third parties will have no ability to decrypt the uploaded file without the matching user generated passcode. BlackBerry charges yearly subscription for the privilege.

*To Long / Didn't Read

-- Give me a keyboard, a 5 star rated Browser and a fulcrum point and I could move the world.

A "BB-owned cloud" would mean BB building multiple very expensive-to-build data centers in different parts of the world. For example, Google has at least 8, and Apple has 5 or 6, and each of them cost more than a billion dollars to build and equip. BB might not need centers as large, or even as many of them, but they certainly don't have even $1B to spend on such a venture in order to find out.

If BB was to offer something like that, the'd have to do it on someone else's cloud - such as Amazon's AWS or Google's cloud.

Originally Posted by Troy Tiscareno

A "BB-owned cloud" would mean BB building multiple very expensive-to-build data centers in different parts of the world. For example, Google has at least 8, and Apple has 5 or 6, and each of them cost more than a billion dollars to build and equip. BB might not need centers as large, or even as many of them, but they certainly don't have even $1B to spend on such a venture in order to find out.

If BB was to offer something like that, the'd have to do it on someone else's cloud - such as Amazon's AWS or Google's cloud.

I guess people has not taken to account the amount of investment made by Google or Amazon in building up their cloud infrastructure.

Originally Posted by Ronindan

I guess people has not taken to account the amount of investment made by Google or Amazon in building up their cloud infrastructure.

Both Google and Amazon have spent over $10B, Apple around $8B, and Microsoft around $7B. BB's total worth is around $5B, just for reference.

Using AWS or Google's backend "Cloud" servers isn't a new thing for cloud storage providers like DropBox.

BlackBerry could 'rent' the space from a third party and, given the file to be stored is already encrypted in this example, there wouldn't be any risk to security.

And if the NOC could handle compression of the uploaded file (as it does/used to do with BBOS), the server space BlackBerry pays for could be smaller.

-- Give me a keyboard, a 5 star rated Browser and a fulcrum point and I could move the world.