Ability to prevent encryption to become enabled

[meolic]

Hello,

Please, add an option to the very first boot, that will completely disable encryption of phone system.

I am big fan of Jolla, but I am totally uninterested in this kind of privacy on mobile phone. For me, this encryption layer is just another trouble-maker, and this really is in the case of C2.

Regarding banking and similar questions, nowadays always exist solutions that even if somebody have acces to the phone , he will not be able to use my account. If there are no viable safe solution for your particular service, then you simple do not install it on the phone. Problem solved.

[miau]

After installing Sailfish enter recovery mode before first boot rename ‘/var/lib/sailfish-device-encryption/encrypt
-home’ to disable encryption. Doesn’t work on the C2 at the moment.

[nephros]

@meolic

For me, this encryption layer is just another trouble-maker

Disregarding the C2 startup problem, what other problems have encountered?

[Firefox84]

If i understood it right, this is not possible anymore. Like encryption is required by the system in newer versions. You could flash back to a version where encryption wasn’t enabled. But this would mean that you couldn’t have the latest SFOS release. Or tell me if i say something wrong, compose the system yourself from the sources available. But that needs deeper programming and IT skills

[meolic]

Understand. Not good preposition, somehow pushed by reading to much about C2 on this forum and being nervous with waiting

My C2 arrived today and it is working. During the setup, it happens three times that touchscreen was unresponsive, last time immediatelly after updating to 5.0.21, when I was unable to enter PIN - reboot solved.

I agree that in regular use the encryption layer is not a problem. What I can learn is that in beta version this would better to be disabled. Also entering PIN after restart is not needed for beta - oh, I cannot disable this in 5.0 as it was possible on XA2, maybe that phone is not encrypted? All this security are adding complexity and could be enabled later when basic functionality is succesfuly tested - at least for me, phone is a communication device needed for calls, messages, and browsing, and not a vault for secret data.

But for curiosity, it may be completly ireleveant, If every data readed and written must go through encryption layer, how much battery is consumed for this? Do encrypted data need more space? How much is processor loaded with the encryption and how much extra RAM is consumed? I remember, on this forum, sometimes users complains about short battery time and short resources.

[davidrasch]

I thought if you flash an old version without encryption, this dtate would be persistent through the updates. At least I had XA2 Ultra without encryption up to sfos 4.5 until the upgrade to 4.6 crashed my system and I had to do a reflash

[jojomen]

@davidrasch

I thought if you flash an old version without encryption, this dtate would be persistent through the updates.

It is also my impression that upgrading will not encrypt existing storage, but reflashing will. My Xperia X has been upgraded many times since encryption was introduced and now runs the latest (last! for this device) available version of SFOS. It is still unencrypted.

(Edit to clarify that last version applies to this specific device)

[emva]

@meolic

But for curiosity, it may be completely irrelevant, If every data read and written must go through encryption layer, how much battery is consumed for this? Do encrypted data need more space? How much is processor loaded with the encryption and how much extra RAM is consumed? I remember, on this forum, sometimes users complains about short battery time and short resources.

Those questions depends on hardware vs software encryption, if it is hardware it can reduse power consumption and increase speed. Energy-efficient encryption for the internet of things | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Encryption needs more space but is not really a problem, just for fun i used 7-Zip, to compress the Signal setup file with the very secure password: a

As you can see the size increases, but the disk use stays the same

[jrg]

@meolic

Please, add an option to the very first boot, that will completely disable encryption of phone system.

SFOS uses LUKS Encryption of User Data | Sailfish OS Documentation . This should be applied from the beginning, i.e. at first installation time. You may find further information on LUKS here: Home · Wiki · cryptsetup / cryptsetup · GitLab
For me to not encrypt mobile devices by default seems to be outdated in 2024. Especially for the privacy-aware SFOS this feature request seems odd for me and I hope for most users also.

[olf]

@meolic

But for curiosity, it may be completly ireleveant, If every data readed and written must go through encryption layer, how much battery is consumed for this? Do encrypted data need more space? How much is processor loaded with the encryption and how much extra RAM is consumed?

The answers are:

• Not significantly on modern smartphones.
• No. Only the metadata for encryption needs a few hundred additional bytes.
• Not significantly on modern smartphones.

[Volker_S]

I am generally against encryption and would undo it on my phone in particular if I could. Why is this forced on the user if you have to reflash the OS?