Pattern Lock

A key, not a gate

Most "private album" apps keep your photos as ordinary files and put a PIN screen in front of them. Get around the screen and the photos are right there. VaultBe works the other way round: your files only exist in encrypted form, and the pattern is what produces the key. Without it there is nothing readable to find.

How a drawing becomes a 256-bit key

When you lift your finger, VaultBe runs the sequence of dots through Argon2id, a memory-hard key derivation function. It deliberately uses 128 MB of memory and several passes, which costs you a fraction of a second and costs an attacker trying billions of patterns a great deal of hardware.

The result is then mixed with a secret that lives only in your iPhone's Keychain. That means a copy of the app's files taken off your phone cannot be guessed at on someone else's computer: the guesses have to happen on your device, where VaultBe slows them down.

What makes a pattern valid

• It connects at least 6 dots.
• It changes direction at least once, so a single straight line is rejected.
• Dots you pass over on the way are included automatically, as on a phone lock screen.

Longer is better. Each extra dot multiplies the number of patterns an attacker has to try. Our guide to choosing a strong pattern has practical advice.

Guessing is throttled

You get four attempts without any delay. After that, each wrong pattern adds a wait that starts at 30 seconds and grows up to one hour. The counter survives restarting the app.

Hide the trail

In App Settings you can turn off Show Drawing Pattern. The line no longer follows your finger, so someone glancing at your screen sees only dots.

Common questions