A few days ago the world came to an end when everyone went ape shit over the fact that iPhones come with a sinister little file called “consolidated.db” that pretty much lets Big Brother know exactly where you are at any given time. Some people are losing their minds over this, whereas others couldn’t care less. I, for one, don’t really see what the big deal is if Steve Jobs knows that I’m “building a log cabin” in my bathroom. My life is simply not that interesting, and neither is the majority of people out there I might add. According to Doug Aamoth of TIME magazine, the real concern is if this data gets into the wrong hands (I would still like to know what these “wrong hands” would do with this, but I’ll go along with it), so they just published this story walking you through the instructions on how to encrypt this data when you sync your iPhone with your iTunes so you can iScrew the bad guys:
1. Connect. Hook up your iPhone to your computer and once you’re in iTunes click on your phone under the “DEVICES” section (some people have nicknames for their phone, or it’s just called plain “iPhone” or “iPod”).
2. Encrypt. In the “SUMMARY” window that shows up in the right-hand side, click “Encrypt iPhone Backup” under the “OPTIONS” heading.
3. Set a password. When you click the “Encrypt iPhone Backup” box you will then be asked to enter a password. Try and choose something easy to remember like “jjei&$^$YDH64@!D)d(DIFkkmdi&^#7^*&”:{})*#@THFDN876″ because this is the most convenient kind of password to have seeing as how you’re not supposed to write them down anywhere.
4. The End. You might have just successfully completed your encryption set-up, but the phone will still be able to track your location. But at least now you can prevent anyone with access to your computer from getting your data and knowing where you’ve been (i.e. bosses, wives, friends, etc.)
