Encrypt vs pin screen lock ?

[Karearea]

Is there any extra security benefit from encrypting your device beyond what you get from using a PIN screen lock ?

System:
Samsung Galaxy Note 2 GT-N7105
Jellybean 4.1.2
It's a personal account, no corporate VPN or policy.

The data I want to store on it is handwritten medical patient notes, photos of records and MS office .docs .xls etc which may have identifiable info. So it's confidential stuff but unlikely to attract professional efforts to break in. I've read that encryption won't protect against installed malware. Its really just if I lose the phone or its stolen that I want it to be secure.

I read at the Android open Source Project site that the encryption is based on your pin. So if someone knows your pin and opens your phone they can just use it and the encryption doesn't add anything. If they don't know the pin they can't get into it anyway ?

From my mac (10.8.3), plugging it in by USB cable, I can't see into the phone unless I use the Samsung link program, Kies. And unless I unlock the phone with the pin I still can't see into the file tree. I haven't tried Android File Transfer.

Windows 7 is a bit more permissive. I still can't see in until I unlock with the pin. But once I do unlock the phone I don't need any special program to see around and open files; it's just like a big USB flash drive. But it doesn't seem as if you can "eject" it. Once the phone has been unlocked with the pin, it stays accessible even if I lock the screen again but of course that's not a real world situation.

Linux (Ubuntu 12.04) also didn't recognise the phone until I unlocked it and, when I did, it alternately saw the phone as an audio player and a camera, couldn't mount it and couldn't unmount it and although I could see folder names I couldn't see the appropriate data files using applications like libre office, gimp or adobe reader.

I didn't try listing from the terminal on any of those systems, just through the GUIs. I haven't tried over wifi.

So, a casual user like me can't easily access the phone's data while the screen is locked.

What would I gain by encrypting the phone ?

Regards,
Karearea.

 

[litlprince]

I dont know much about android encryption and how it works but i do use encrypted file containers daily... Like you said if the password is known its all pointless.

Although even without encryption you may find you may need to unlock your phone to connect it to a computer and view its files... those files can still be accessed with some techno know how. Encryption however basically scrambles all your data so even if it was tapped the files would be unreadable... Unless it was decrypted..

Honestly its a personal choice if you think your files are that important and if anyone other then yourself actually cares... Whoever steals your phones is most likely just gonna look for some nudey pics before doing a factory reset and selling it on ebay... I personally didnt want to do encryption cause im lazy and dont always want to put in a password to unlock my phone.

 

[Karearea]

Well, I decided to:
use a 6 number PIN which is easy to retype in many times a day. Its as quick as pattern lock and only made an error once in umpteen openings so far.
not to encrypt
set up Wheres my droid Pro to enable a remote wipe if ever needed.
Also back up to desktop computer so I could restore most of my records.

I think this will be consistent with professional ethical standards, our organisation's security measures for their apple and blackberry devices, while retaining control myself.