This question from Zell in New Mexico came to Jamie Lendino, editor of Smart Device Central:
I've been following your and Sascha's [Sascha Segan, PC Magazine's cell phone analyst] reviews of cell phones for a year now, waiting for Verizon to offer a PDA/multimedia or multimedia/PDA type phone without any cons of the, "Oh, darn, that particular shortcoming is not acceptable," type. Like not being able to sync contacts and calendar with a PC, or not-quite-good-enough basic reception/voice quality. The Q9m, the Voyager, and the XV6800 (HTC Mogul?) each look good, but I'm just itching to use my "new every two" that's been burning a hole in my pocket for half a year now.
Anyway, I'm writing about a capability I haven't seen discussed in reviews. Do any cell phones of this type, either with their native (provided) software or with third-party software, give user the ability to password-protect/hide/limit-access-to/encrypt media files in phone memory or in removable memory? Or contact/schedule files?
Jamie's answer after the jump.
Jamie: Thanks for your message and for reading our product reviews. I don't recall any units that have file encryption built directly into the hardware per se, except for i-mate, which just pulled its devices off the U.S. market. In the enterprise, IT departments usually enable BlackBerrys (or Treos running Good Mobile Messaging) to support file encryption and remote wipe in case of lost or stolen handsets.
On the other hand, I've seen a number of third-party software solutions for encrypting files on individual handsets. Apps range from those with just password security--some phones have this basic feature built in now--to those with encryption for files and for the entire handset. Here are a few names to look into: Airscanner, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, Spb, CodeWallet, and SplashID (depending on whether you're running Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, or Palm OS).
Since I think this is a good topic, look for an encryption how-to roundup on Smart Device Central in the coming weeks.
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March 25, 2008 11:00 AM
Windows Mobile 6 allows you to encrypt any data stored on the storage card and protects data in internal memory by allowing you to specify a pin/password to prevent access to the device.
Also if connected to an exchange server a feature can be enabled that forces a wipe of all data on the machine remotely.
One of the phones you mentioned (mogul/xv6800) is a windows mobile 6 device and would have the above benefits plus a few others.
Disclaimer: I do work for Microsoft but they certainly haven't paid me to say this. I personally use the xv6800 and love it though I openly admit it has a whole host of flaws that trouble me. That said I use it heavily every day and make it fine. The wide selection of 3rd party software is what really sells me on the platform.