Unbreakable crypto for the masses
Recent versions of operating systems by both Apple (iOS 8) and Google (Android Lollipop) offer bold measures to protect the privacy of users by including strong built-in encryption.
Now, all the important data on latest phones by Apple or Google — your photos, messages, contacts, reminders, call history — are encrypted by default and neither company has a master key as it is securely stored locally. The isolated local storage of an encryption key, which is also locally generated, means that even the manufacturers cannot decrypt the information stored on user’s device.
Recently the market has seen a number of releases of such secure mobile platforms, most notably Blackphone, which definitely confirms well-timed nature of these developments that bring unbreakable cryptography to the masses
Although the cryptography was available to users since 90-s, e.g. Pretty Good Privacy — an open-source crypto program, it is the epic security failure on iCloud that resulted in the leak of celebrity nude photos that has brought the issue of users’ privacy to the forefront of technical and marketing agenda of biggest market players.
The technological changes making consumers more secure, however do not law enforcement officials happy. There has been quite a few statements so far coming from US calling on the need to put a technological “backdoor” to crypto security that could be exploited in police investigations. Naturally, creating any “backdoors” would result in security exploits that would totally defeat the purpose of this big privacy improvement.
Especially, that both IT community and law enforcement agencies are well aware that there are much bigger and easier to use security “doors”, such as network transmissions, cloud storage, and other network services that remain very vulnerable to prying eyes even through low-grade hacking and compromise.