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 in order to keep it secret from others. So, encrypted text can be reversed only if you have the key. Most applications claim that they encrypt the data or that the data is never saved to disk. While this is true for some, most are simply encoded. Encoding options can vary, but the most common for smartphone data is Base64. Messaging apps often rely on Base64 encoding to make the data appear...