[sorinv]

Just be aware if your phone dies or? Your card will be unreadable in anything else. Re Bluetooth, wouldn't turning on not discoverable keep the door shut?

Yes. It would. However, then you will not use the function. Which is my point with both bluetooth and apps. Use them and your phone is vulnerable!

[m3mb3rsh1p]

Regarding the Bluetooth pairing, I too, was surprised to see a list of my email addresses on the Windows system tray. I didn't know it allowed such access

Anyway, I think if you actively managed your pairings then it might be okay e.g. I disabled the email access and you can delete saved pairings, disable discovery etc.

The Bluetooth notification should show you that something is connected.

As far as device encryption is concerned, I wish it was enabled by default.

[JuiciPatties]

Encryption must have some impact on performance. I can't say what the exact processing hit it takes, but I assume there has to be some impact. In addition, I think the security modules definitely influence the boot up time. I'm on my employer's BES and the amount of time it takes to reboot is unbelievable. I attributed this to the security modules it needed to load and perhaps some special stuff from the BES. I have a secondary phone (z10) that is not connected to a BES and it boots much faster. On the z30 that is connected to BES, I need to wait quite a long time until I see the login prompt. I can get to the lock screen and am able to see some of the lock screen notifications, but swiping up does nothing. It is like the screen goes blank. Quite a few minutes later, the login prompt appears.

So my guess is that the various security measures (including encryption) does impact performance and because everything takes longer, it must impact battery life. I have no scientific proof and it is really just my thoughts and observations

[arfin]

Same here. I encrypted the Passport from day one in October 2014 and the SD card (128Gbytes) a few weeks ago. I saw no difference in battery life.


However, on a related question, I don't know if that makes it secure to intrusion via WI-FI or through a bluetooth connection with a paired device that has been hacked or simply controlled by others.

I had an interesting experience with the entertainment system of a rented car to which I had paired my passport via bluetooth. I had left the car the night before listening to a piece of music on my phone.
When I returned the next day, my music player on the phone was not turned on, but the car activated it automatically and started playing the song from where it had stopped the night before.

I have no clue who can access that car's bluetooth or the car itself remotely. But if the car can start apps on my phone.. there is no security!

Just proves how we give up our privacy when we pair with other devices which we do not fully control. I don't even want to think about android apps and other apps that ask for permissions to files and PIN...

I don't think that's the car controlling your phone, but more like the phone automatically recognizing that you've connected your phone to a bluetooth music device, so it opens the music app. (I actually really like this feature)



Posted via CB10

[sorinv]

It should prompt me to give it access.
I repeated the experiment. I exited the car and stopped the music app. Closed the app on the phone. Did not turn off bluetooth. Went back in the car. Started the car. The car entertainment system searched for my passport, paired it, turned on the music app and started playing the song where it left off.
This should definitely not happen. I can see how some people might like it, but it is not secure.

[dejanh]

It should prompt me to give it access.
I repeated the experiment. I exited the car stopped the music app. Closed it. Did not turn off bluetooth. Went back in the car, started the car, the car entertainment system searched for my passport, paired it and turned on the music app and started playing the song where it left off.
This should definitely not happen.
It is not secure.

Convenience over security. I don't understand why you're so surprised. This definitely does not impact the core BlackBerry customers in any way so why would they even bother changing it. You also have the ability to set up the Bluetooth profile for each device and tell it exactly what it can and cannot access (well, not exactly, but broadly).

Posted via CB10

[sorinv]

Convenience over security. I don't understand why you're so surprised. This definitely does not impact the core BlackBerry customers in any way so why would they even bother changing it. You also have the ability to set up the Bluetooth profile for each device and tell it exactly what it can and cannot access (well, not exactly, but broadly).

Posted via CB10

So, if you are a business user you are not going to rent a car and pair it with your phone for a variety of hands-free services? Are you kidding me?
That's what all the sales people I know do ( I am not one!).
Sure, you can argue that they don't have anything valuable on their phones...but I doubt it.

[sorinv]

It certainly always asks for permission when you connect with link or wi-fi. Why not with paired devices over bluetooth? It should ask for permission everytime I reconnect and certainly not allow a bluetooth device to turn on apps on my phone!

[deiop]

The BlackBerry asks before every Bluetooth connection, EXCEPT to hit the button / checkbox for 'do not ask again'

Posted via CB10

[Chris Chin]

So, if you are a business user you are not going to rent a car and pair it with your phone for a variety of hands-free services? Are you kidding me?
That's what all the sales people I know do ( I am not one!).
Sure, you can argue that they don't have anything valuable on their phones...but I doubt it.

I do pair my phone with rented cars. But I also are sure the address list is deleted before I return the car.

Traveling abroad I would even disconnect the battery in the car for 10 minutes before giving back the car.

Paranoid... maybe. But I've never had a problem with data getting into the wild.

Sent from my Z30 on CB10

[hellomoto921]

It's takes time but you need to decrypt it on your device first

Posted via CB10

Yes you need to decrypt first but a bit of advice to all. Backup your files first prior to decrypting and moving the card to a new device. I had mine encrypted on z10. Decrypted it and put it in z30 and encrypted again. Worked for few weeks then started getting weird errors saying encryption will begin in 5 minutes, usually when phone was rebooted. Anyway, this occurred a few times till suddenly card was wiped and unreadable. So make sure you backup your stuff prior to transferring to new phone and I would also recommend deleting and formatting the card again as well.

[ibercheci]

I've had my passport paired to my car ever since I bought it, a few months ago. When I first paired it, it asked if that was my car or not. I imagine that was the point at which "trust" is placed on that "relationship".
Just to note I run 10.3.1

Posted via CB10

[sorinv]

I do pair my phone with rented cars. But I also are sure the address list is deleted before I return the car.

Traveling abroad I would even disconnect the battery in the car for 10 minutes before giving back the car.

Paranoid... maybe. But I've never had a problem with data getting into the wild.

Sent from my Z30 on CB10

How do you know the rental car company or someone working for it
does not have access to your data while you are using your car?
Anyway, thank you for sharing your experience. I think you are doing the right thing.

[sorinv]

The BlackBerry asks before every Bluetooth connection, EXCEPT to hit the button / checkbox for 'do not ask again'

Posted via CB10

I did not get that option.
However, I was now able to check the paired device details on my passport and was able to switch off the option that gave the bluetooth device control of my media player.
Good to know that the option exists.

Other people I talked to about this issue mentioned that they had their contacts copied in the car files. They were using an iphone.
I will check to see if my contacts were copied in the car files. That kind of option does not show up for the bluetooth connected car.

[kbz1960]

When I pair with my sync system it asks "download address book" I said yes because it's my car. I could just as easy say no.

[sorinv]

When I pair with my sync system it asks "download address book" I said yes because it's my car. I could just as easy say no.

Sure. As long as the car system is as secure as a BlackBerry phone should be and nobody else has control over its bluetooth connection.

[Chris Chin]

How do you know the rental car company or someone working for it
does not have access to your data while you are using your car?
Anyway, thank you for sharing your experience. I think you are doing the right thing.

Well, ... I suppose they could. In my experience, most monitoring systems and tracking that are used in commercial vehicles run off the onboard computer and various sensors. Not sure how the "entertainment" system links to that. Models will vary.

Back when I used International Road Dynamics products for telemetry, we had most of the truck's parameters sent ... can't remember if we could know anything about the entertainment system.

In the BB BT setup, it asks if it is connecting to "my car" ... I'm not sure what it does if I say "no".

[Plummerdc88]

Hi. I sincerely apologize if this is a duplicate post as I tried searching here and bing.

Among many reasons I got the passport is strong security.

I've given up on android because I do not trust Google with my privacy and dislike their snooping tactics.

My past android phones all had the capability of encrypting the entire device along with the SD card, but this almost always resulted in quite a noticeable reduction of performance, but more importantly, battery life.

Windows phones have no such capability at all at the moment.

For those here that have encrypted their passports along with the sd card can you please share your observations on performance and battery life?

Thanks in advance!!

Posted via CB10

I just discovered one noticeable performance issue, i suppose its to be expected thou. I am transferring some music files to my encrypted SD through my Blackberry via USB from my PC. I notice the transfer rate of my files went from around the 1.8-2.5 Mbps down to around 500kb. I suppose this is to be expected i am guessing it is encrypting on the fly the files i am transferring. Anyways there is a noticeable performance impact i just discovered.