How to protect your iPhone even if Apple lets the Feds have their way with it

A US federal judge has ordered Apple to help the FBI break into the iPhone of one of the attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California last December. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, said the company won’t help the FBI get past the passcode on the iPhone 5C belonging to one of the killers, Syed Rizwan Farook, as it would set a “dangerous precedent” for letting the government (and thus potentially anyone else) break into anyone’s phone.

But information from a 2015 court case in New York, uncovered by the Daily Beast, suggests that Apple may have cooperated with the government and unlocked phones up to 70 times in the past. In other words, Apple may now be taking a strong stance on privacy as a public-relations tactic, rather than a deep desire to protect the privacy of the average citizen. The Daily Beast’s report also implies the government might have developed its own ways of getting into at least some iPhones.

So if the Feds—or for that matter, criminals or other governments—can now or in the future crack iPhone passcodes, with or without Apple’s cooperation, how can you safeguard your data? The answer is pretty simple: just set a longer passcode.
Read more @ http://qz.com/619492/how-to-protect-your-iphone-even-if-apple-lets-the-feds-have-their-way-with-it/

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~