Device Encryption: Doable Privacy Instructions for Android Part Three

2 Basic System Management - Device Encryption

Goal: Make it prohibitively difficult for an attacker who can physically access your device to read, copy, or alter the data on your device.

This part is comparatively easy and self-explanatory. Android and related Operating Systems have the ability to encrypt the disk which contains the system, software, user data, and similar sensitive information. Encryption accomplishes 2 tasks.

• First encryption hides the contents of the storage device by scrambling the information on it in accordance with a private key. When you enter your password, you unlock that private key, which tells the system how to de-scramble the information on the storage device. This keeps people from reading your files.

• Second: partly as a consequence of the first step and partly as a result of design and review in the encryption field, encryption also guarantees that your data hasn't been altered by someone who manipulated your disk from within a running Operating System on another device, and keeps code from being injected in that manner.

Configuring Device Encryption

The best time to encrypt your phone is when it is 1: Fully Charged, 2: Plugged in to a Power Source, and 3: Mostly Unused. This will result in the fastest, most reliable encryption process.

Enable Password

1. Open your device's "Settings" app from the App Menu.
2. Tap the "Security" menu in the "Settings" App.
3. Tap either "PIN" or "Password" to set the password to unlock your device.

When your device goes to sleep, the password will be required to unlock the device.

Enable Encryption

1. Go back to the "Settings" App.
2. Tap the "Security" menu.
3. Tap "Encrypt Phone" or "Encrypt Tablet" depending on your device.

Now when your device goes to sleep, it relinquishes the encryption keys until you re-enter the password you set previously.

Appendix 2

• Upkeep: This pretty much "Just Works" and shouldn't change much, and if it does, it's because something way bigger than you happened. You should remember that without the password, encryption is one-way and cannot be reversed. Don't forget your password.
• Notes: Ideally, you would set two passwords, one to turn the device on, and one to unlock it from sleep mode. This is because each time you enter the password, there is a chance that someone or something is watching which might observe you entering it. A secondary password would keep such an observer from being able to use the screen-unlock password to attack a powered-down device. Since this is not supported in the operating system, keep your disk encrypted but use a second layer of encryption and passwords for sensitive information like the Instant Messengers and Encrypted Notepads we will discuss later.

Appendix 2a, Encryption Vocabulary

Codes and Ciphers

• Code: A "Code" is a way of representing information for a specific purpose. There are codes which are intended to be readable, like Morse Code or computer programming languages, and there are codes that are intended to be unreadable, so-called "Secret Codes" which can be created in many ways. This article mainly deals in when and where you.
• Encryption: "Encryption" is the use of mathematics to obscure the content of a message except to it's intended recipient. That intended recipient has in his or her possession a "key," a unique piece of knowledge that is required to unlock the contents of a message. As a side-effect of the key's uniqueness, it can also verify that a message came from the recipient. This process is what is referred to as a digital signature.
• Key-Pair: Encryption programs generate what are called "Key-Pairs", which are composed of a public and private(sometimes called secret) key. When you generate a key-pair you distribute the public key to people who you want to communicate with. This allows them to encrypt messages and send them to you, and to verify your signature on a message and thus that the message came from you. A private key can be used to sign a message or decrypt a message which was encrypted by the sender with the corresponding public key.
• Ciphertext: "Ciphertext" is the encrypted text of a message. When you use a public key to encrypt a message, the output is the ciphertext. The private key can then be used to decrypt the message.
• Cipher: A "Cipher" is the description of the algorithm used to generate the public and private keys and to encrypt and decrypt messages using those keys.
• Steganography: "Steganography" is the process of concealing the presence of a message from people entrusted to transport it. Concealing information in an image, for instance, is a means of using steganography.
• Somewhat like Steganography, it is advisable to conceal the intended meaning of any potentially dangerous terms even in ciphertext in case a private key is compromised. This is no different from slang. You have an ounce of T-shirts you wanna roll up and smoke.

Addressing and Transport

• Client: A "Client" is a program that you run on your computer to connect to a communications network. Your web browser, ChatSecure, TextSecure, RedPhone, and AnTox are all client programs for connecting to communications networks.
• Server: A "Server" is a program that runs on another computer that you connect to with a client. Facebook mostly runs on a Server which is accessed through the client, which is the web interface in your web browser
• Address: An "Address" is a piece of information that represents the destination of a message. It is also a type of "Metadata," which is information about a message not necessarily related to the content itself. Your address can, but does not have to, give away your location when you send or receive messages. That is what Tor is for, and some forms of peer-to-peer communication offer this type of protection as well.
• Peer-To-Peer: "Peer-To-Peer" refers to methods which require no intervention on the part of a central authority or service provider, such as Facebook or Google. AnTox and Tor Hidden Services are peer-to-peer networks which can be used for communication without central authorities.
• "End to End: Peer-to-peer encryption is also referred to as "End-To-End" encryption, and refers to encryption schemes where only the concerned parties are involved in the encryption and decryption process. This means that even if information is stolen in transit, it's meaning cannot be revealed by downgrading the strength of the encryption while the eavesdropping occurred.