[Cryptography] Vice: Amazon removes full disk encryption from its Android devices

[Tom Mitchell]

On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 1:31 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1 at pipeline.com> wrote:

> At 01:07 PM 3/3/2016, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> >According to this report, while Apple has been busy increasing the
> security of its products, Amazon has been reducing
>
....

> Perhaps Amazon doesn't have the time or money to fight the FBI & DoJ with
> the same ferocity as Apple.
>
> If Amazon really wanted to throw in the towel on encryption, they'd remove
> all the DRM from their devices, as well.
>
> Keeping DRM (encryption) while deleting user encryption shows that
> encryption isn't allowed for "the little people", only for the corporate
> overlords.
>

In their defense encryption on a number of android devices  has been
default turned
off for years.   The power drain and performance overhead was too much and
turning
if off made marketing and customers happy with the snappy response of their
new toy.

On the other side.
It seems to me that DRM encryption provides a foundation for a method to
communicate secretly.
Some devices like Kindle  allow an email address to mail/deliver content to
a reader.

I wonder if anyone is auditing that channel or mining Amazon for content.
I know that some companies
(departments) use this to send documents to executive level staff for
review.   This seems to
be a simple industrial espionage risk.  Perhaps there is more.

So what does DRM encryption imply in the context of encryption strength and
key management.
Does it matter if the content is well compartmentalized and invisible?



-- 
  T o m    M i t c h e l l
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