Practical Mobile Forensics - Fourth Edition

Encoding versus encryption

The terms encoding and encryption are used so frequently when discussing applications and smartphone data that they are often confused. Encoding is essentially the process of obfuscating a message or piece of information to appear as raw code. In some cases, the goal of encoding is to make the data unrecognizable to the computer or the user. In reality, the primary goal of encoding is to transform the input into a different format using a publicly available scheme. In other words, anyone can easily decode an encoded value. Encryption, however, transforms the data using a key to keep its content confidential. So, encrypted text can only be reversed if you have the key.

Most applications claim that they encrypt data ...