Data loss on smartphones is serious.
Never before in gadget history, has so much vital data and information been so easy to lose. Email, text messages, call logs, chat history, browsing history, as well as sensitive documents, passwords, and other credentials.
Your smartphone is a target for tech theft and data theft. Not to mention smartphones that fall out of pockets, left on top of car (true story), and lost forever.
So, when you factor-in that every time you key-in your unlock code or gesture to unlock your Andoid phone, you’re leaving behind a traceable trail. It’s time to think about an effective security solution.
WhisperCore is that solution.
First, here’s the problem with typical screen lock solutions.
Can you guess what this screen unlock pattern on th left might be? Or what this PIN code on the right might be?
Who thinks of this stuff, anyway?
The trail is pretty evident.
WhisperCore offers some alternative screen unlock patterns that remediate this problem. First is the “vertical PIN” unlock screen. The PIN digits are arranged in a vertical line, and once you enter the correct code, the final action is to drag a puck from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen, which wipes the key presses you made.
Here’s the smudge trail:
Nice, right?
WhisperCore has developed another solution, too:
WhisperCore also includes an option for the “pattern unlock” screen, which prompts the user to wipe the screen after the pattern has been entered successfully. This is normally not possible, because once the screen unlocks, touch events will effect the running applications. The unlock screen measures the amount of wiping you’ve done, and when it is likely that the smudge trail is no longer usable, unlocks the screen.
Here are the same unlock patterns, default pictured left, WhisperCore pictured right:
Money!
There is certainly no trace left.
Something that Whisper Systems points out, is they wanted to design something that would work with muscle memory, instead of against it:
In our testing, we found that users unlocking screens rely heavily on “muscle memory,” and were greatly frustrated by strategies such as randomized layouts, which required them to hunt for the unlock code.
I thought that was pretty insightful. If it’s too complicated, you don’t use it, and good security should be easy to use.
WhisperCore is in beta and is limited in the number of Android devices it’s currently available for. You can see if your model is supported, and check back later if it isn’t, on the WhisperCore website.
It’s completely free, however, ironically enough, Whisper Systems warns:
Do not use this in situations where security or stability are critical.
So, if I were you, I would just remember to keep the screen clean.
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