Using ICS Native Encryption?

[reMarkable#AC]

Is anyone out there using the native ICS encryption (found in" Settings / Security / Encrypt phone")?

I wanted to know if there were any known issues to watch out for; my biggest concern is does the phone take a performance hit when this is enabled (and if so - is it significant?)

Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge!

 

[Nex2knotN]

I have been using it since the phone was first release without any problems or noticeable performance issues. One thing to note is you can only use pin password lock for your screen. Pattern and facial lock options are not available.

Also, any reboots require you to enter a pin before the OS is fully loaded.

 

[JNM]

I have been using it since the phone was first release without any problems or noticeable performance issues. One thing to note is you can only use pin password lock for your screen. Pattern and facial lock options are not available.

Also, any reboots require you to enter a pin before the OS is fully loaded.

Are there any other changes when using the encryption? I haven't enabled it yet for concern that there would be performance degradation as well as features or options that would be missing because of it.

 

[Kaveros]

I used it for the first few days without encryption before turning it on. I haven't noticed any performance hit or features missing. As said before, only major difference is you must enter your password during boot to mount the volume. After that, I can't tell the difference.

--edit--

Keep in mind, you can't change your mind afterwards. Once you begin the encryption process, it can take upwards of an hour to complete, and you can't undo it. It will ask you are you sure, but once it starts you're committed. And if you ever forget your password, you are absolutely screwed. Don't forget the entire point of encryption is to keep people that don't know the password out. There's no safety net backdoor you can use to recover or reset the password.

 

[sranger#CB]

I also have my phone encrypted (had to for enterprise access at work), I had my phone for a few weeks unencrypted before that - no issues at all for me. I rooted before encrypting, and there have been no issues for any apps that require root access.

 

[chhall]

I've had mine encrypted since I had it. A few extra things to add... Because the G-Nex doesn't have a real SD -card, the SDcard partition is encrypted along with the rest of the phone. This means that Recovery cannot access it, so you won't be able to load custom ROMs and updates, if you are so inclined. I've yet to receive an official update yet, so I'm not sure how that will work, but I'm hoping it's something that thought of. Also, as stated above, each reboot requires that you enter your pin to finish the boot cycle. Where this really becomes a problem is with an unexpected reboot, like say, in the middle of the night, or while it's in your pocket. You won't know it rebooted, until you look at it, and since it is waiting on your password, you won't receive phone calls, alarms, etc. This doesn't happen too often, but I'd say it happens to me about once or twice a month.

 

[clicq0]

I had device encryption enabled, but I wiped and factory reset my phone just to undo the encryption. I used it with encryption for about two months, and during that time, I had the phone reboot on me in the middle of the night a few times -- since it won't complete booting until you enter the password, this means no alarms, as chhall mentioned.

The phone might still reboot in the middle of the night without encryption, but at least the alarms will work...

The phone also takes a very, very long time to boot with encryption enabled. I think it's around 2.5 minutes from hitting the power button to getting a cellular signal -- without encryption on my phone, it takes about a minute. It's long enough that the guy at the Verizon store commented on it when I went in with a problem. This gets very annoying if you're flying, for example, since you have to boot the phone several times in a day.

Plus, I found that it's a bit useless if you leave USB debugging enabled, as probably many on this forum do. Even if the phone is encrypted, you can still access the phone through adb without entering a pin if the phone is already running. Sure, this isn't a problem if you only have the USB debugging enabled when you need it, but if you forget and leave it on...

I really wanted to have my phone encrypted, but I couldn't live with the problems above. I now use a security app that has remote wipe capability and just hope I can wipe my phone before somebody steals my data .

 

[wayned#AC]

I had my phone encrypted for a while, but I hated not being able to run a password-lock-delay app (since it could no longer switch between slide unlock and pin unlock). One thing I did do was to set a long password for the lock screen prior to encryption, and then switch it to a normal 4-digit pin lock for the unlocking (for a more secure encryption password).

 

[JNM]

I don't know why I didn't consider the possibility of an unexpected reboot while sleeping or any other time. That is something that I have a concern about. I will keep an eye on how this goes for the next week or two. I am no longer sure that I will keep the encryption set.

 

[Remington]

Hello everyone,

so interesting situation i got here.

so i recently bought the droid razr and i decided to enable the device encryption but after a few days i decided i really didn't need it encrypted and went in the settings and thought i disabled it (my previous phones this was no problem) well several days later my phone died because i wasn't able to charge it and when i booted it back up it asked me for the password to Decrypt the device and has done so every since even though i was pretty sure it was suppose to be disabled, now after reading the post by "Kaveros" my question is: "is the device decryption non reversible" is there a way to remove the encryption without a factory reset?

also a side note:

i have notice various performance issues since doing this:

1. dramatically reduced battery life (barely last 8 hours sitting in my pocket with with data shut off and gps shut off)

2. random glitches with the "touch input" - it becomes possessed and decides it wants to click everything on its own, example: press letter a and the l key is pressed or press any key and fifteen keys are typed or even better press a key and a bazillion keys are typed and then it closes the window your in and opens and closes whatever the hell it wants several times and while you attempt to scroll it goes insane and does the above.

3. significantly impaired clarity while in a call - now this issue is intermittent but from what people have told me is it sounds like either a slight echo, muffled speech, or it will speed up my speech (like when a video re-buffers the audio to re-sync it with the video and it fast forwards the audio ever soo slightly but very noticeable)

well if you guys happen to have any information on any of the above mentioned please let me know i need to determine whether or not its a software issue or a hardware issue.

also i only just updated to ICS the other day because Verizon Tier 2 Tech support told me that updating to ICS would solve the call issue. (didn't think that the encryption was playing any part in that issue at the time) all of the above issue were occurring before the ICS update and the keyboard/touch input issues seem to be worse then before the update. any help or input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Guys.

 

[JNM]

The only way to get back to an unencrypted state is to perform a full wipe/factory reset. At least, that is the situation on the Galaxy Nexus, so I assume it is so on other ICS devices.

I did not experience any of the other issues mentioned so I can't give you much helpful information.

 

[kabii]

Hi
I have HTC One X + rooted and crypted. When I try un unencrypt using the setings tab. It does not work. Probably because it cannot read in CWM backup the encrypted drive, so the phone simply restarts. Does anyone have any suggestions what I should do..

 

[puluzulu]

Hello,

i have a question:

i'm trying to understand a specific point in android encryption.

All the encryption keys are software based and are stored locally on the machine, so correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't it mean that attacks on android phones where the attacker gains root access means that the attacker can retrieve the encryption keys?