Google is gearing up to patch one of the biggest holes in its Drive cloud service - encryption. Even though Drive offers a ton of useful features, there’s no native encryption baked in the service and users must rely on add-ons and extensions. Things are about to change, though, as the folks at XDA Developers have found strings of code, suggesting that Google plans to add the encryption support to its Drive app for Android.
"You'll be able to open encrypted files soon" is one of the most interesting strings of the bunch. It suggests that Drive users on Android will be able to open encrypted files directly in the app. There’s the “Upcoming feature” string, along with “Download and decrypt”, which pretty much speak for themselves.
The Android developer and reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi shares more details about the upcoming feature on Twitter. It seems that Google will even allow users to encrypt documents saved on their device by flipping a toggle in the settings of the Drive app. Enabling encryption will erase all copies of the aforementioned documents on the phone, though.
Let's give some more details about it #Google will allow to encrypt documents saved on your device (namely documents marked to be available offline) Changing this settings will erase all copies already downloaded. https://t.co/tizh8OSserpic.twitter.com/58GJjX7y2q
The strings of code, found by the XDA guys, were buried in the Drive app version v2.20.44.1.06.40. There’s no information about the potential rollout of this feature, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Your move, Google.
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Mariyan, a tech enthusiast with a background in Nuclear Physics and Journalism, brings a unique perspective to PhoneArena. His childhood curiosity for gadgets evolved into a professional passion for technology, leading him to the role of Editor-in-Chief at PCWorld Bulgaria before joining PhoneArena. Mariyan's interests range from mainstream Android and iPhone debates to fringe technologies like graphene batteries and nanotechnology. Off-duty, he enjoys playing his electric guitar, practicing Japanese, and revisiting his love for video games and Haruki Murakami's works.
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