[mbafna]

Am using a Priv. It comes with Full Disk Encryption (FDE) as a default. It's a known issue that it costs Priv (and ofcourse the users) some performance and battery of the phone.

Now, we know that at some point in time, they are going to bring Nougat to this phone. Nougat supports File-based Encryption (FBE) which is far more efficient on phone's resources like battery and CPU.

Does anyone think that Priv's default FDE will be moved to FBE once Nougat enters? If yes, how will the encryption protocol change from FDE to FBE?

Expert comments?

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

1) It's not known if Nougat will make it to the PRIV, some have hinted that it might not.

2) Expert comments would be welcomed, from what I've read.... many experts don't like Android's implementation of FDE, but they aren't all that impressed with Nougat's "half-baked" FBE either.

Either way it's something that requires an existing user to do a factory reset and then restore their data... So I expect BlackBerry will not want to force that on any existing users.

So question might be how was this handled on the KEYone?

[thurask]

If I remember correctly, moving from Marshmallow to Nougat keeps full disk encryption in place. To switch to file based encryption requires a factory reset.

[Rico4you]

PRIV will run better under Nougat. No doubt. Although since and now under Marshmallow plus constant updates I have a very stable excellent (24 hour +) bat life.

Posted via PRIV and or PASSPORT SE

[rthonpm]

The problem with file based encryption is that there's still a very big attack vector in the overall unprotected OS. With physical access to the device and no full disk encryption there's at least the ability to manipulate, and possibly alter or change security settings. As well as to access unencrypted files and applications, which can often have information just as valuable as the encrypted ones.

As with all things security related, it all depends on what you're trying to secure. To my mind, the data on my device as a whole is worth protecting since I have customer contact information and account data, as well as personal pictures and other items that I don't necessarily want others to be able to access. With FDE, I have access to everything at once from directory to directory without having to worry about forgetting to add encryption to a new file, or to forget the password for a file. If I were to lose my Classic, for anyone trying to access it by USB or directly without the password, it's a brick.

Posted via CB10

[mbafna]

Thank you all for your thoughts.

It will be too bad and very unfortunate if Nougat doesn't arrive to Priv as I see no reason why it should not. Also, looking into the performance issues, it makes all the sense to give users an option to choose between Full Disk Encryption or File-based Encryption.

I believe, even KeyOne comes with Full Disk Encryption as a default. Can anyone confirm whether a user have an option to do a factory reset and use File-based Encryption feature of Nougat on KeyOne?