Do not ever encrypt your iPhone backup!

UGHH!! But I don't care about the old backups. My iPhone is fine. I want to delete the old backups and just create a new encrypted backup with a new password that I remember. This is a major pain. I'm *NOT* going to wipe my iphone just so I can back it up. I'm *NOT* going to start paying Apple's monthly iCloud fees so I have enough size to iCloud-backup my phone. I'm going to mark this as Apple's insane security policy that I don't need, screwing me once again. I'm not rich, I'm not a criminal, I don't need this much security causing me this much hassle. Android wins over Apple for the consumer here. Very disappointed. Do NOT ever encrypt your iPhone backup!

Old post I know. Consider though that you want the data on your phone protected. You happen to leave it connected to the computer you already trusted and someone has access to it. They would simply have to turn off encryption, make a backup and then they have access to the data you wanted to protect.

Security is more than a password or a passcode ... its a frame of mind that one commits to in order to keep private things private. Anything short of that is a false sense of security and a loss of privacy; which is a personal choice.

KKFrank wrote:

I'm *NOT* going to start paying Apple monthly fees so I can back up my phone. I'm going to mark this as Apple's insane security policy that I don't need, screwing me once again.

Depending on the size of your back up, you may not need to a pay anything. Apple gives you 5 gigs for free. You could also subscribe, back up your phone your phone to iCloud, wipe it and deal with getting rid of the encrypted back up. Then, restore your phone from iCloud, cancel the larger capacity and go back to backing up your phone as insecurely as you like. A 50-gig storage plan cost a whopping .99/month. That seems like little enough to pay to deal with the fact you forgot your passcode.

"I'm not rich, I'm not a criminal, I don't need this much security causing me this much hassle. "

I guess the real question is "What are you trying to accomplish?" If you're not a criminal and you don't like hassle and you're not worried about someone compromising your phone then why encrypt at all ? It sounds like your using a capability that far exceeds your needs and is causing you a problem.

Situations where Apple's policy makes a lot of sense is for people that use their phone for work and personal activities. they have business contacts, perhaps e-mail, security information like passwords or WiFi passcodes on their phone and they want to ensure that sensitive information isn't compromised. Its a good system to ensure your data remains under your control and cannot be easily compromised.

In terms of backup, I have my iPhone setup to backup wirelessly to my Mac and that backup is encrypted. Despite Apple's best efforts, I feel like a local backup on my own computer that's encrypted is more safe than one in the cloud. Not sure why you feel you're being forced to iCloud.

Security can be a hassle, but, its also a choice. If the benefits and needs for it warrant it then it makes total sense. In your case, it sounds like encryption is overkill to begin with.

I was encrypting because I am recording my weight daily and the health data doesn't get backed up unless you use encryption. So, after years of unencrypted backups I decided to go encrypted to get the health stuff onto the backup 'cause I don't want to lose it. When I get this all resolved, I probably will continue with the encrypted backups, but the password is going to be my username, in case I forget it again!

The "forced to use iCloud" feeling was coming from Apple's support page that said your two choices once you forget your backup password were to switch to using iCloud backup or reset your phone and lose all your data.

Turns out though, if you use both solutions together, you can clear your backup password without losing your data. I hope. Talked with Apple Support today, I'm trying it out.

KKFrank wrote:

Turns out though, if you use both solutions together, you can clear your backup password without losing your data. I hope. Talked with Apple Support today, I'm trying it out.

Funny, that's exactly what I told you at 11am this morning.

It definitely is NOT a bug, nor should Apple consider it such. Just what do you think a password is for?

If you can't remember your encryption password, your only option is to restore your phone and set it up as a new device.

From http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766

"Warning: If you encrypt an iPhone backup in iTunes and then forget your password, you will not be able to restore from backup and your data will be unrecoverable. If you forget the password you can continue to do backups and use the device, however you will not be able to restore the encrypted backup to any device without the password. You do not need to enter the password for your backup each time you back up or sync.

If you cannot remember the password and want to start again, you will have to do a full software restore and when prompted by iTunes to select the backup to restore from, choose Set up as a new device."

http://www.venticentostudio.it/site/iAccounts.htm

I use this, and its companion desktop app, to remember my passwords. More secure than a post-it note.

nw3227 wrote:

A password is supposed to prevent access to the encrypted file, not to prevent a new backup file from being created without encryption or with a different password.

Wrong. The purpose of encrypting the backup is to prevent unauthorized access to backups, not just the particular one on the computer already. The security of encrypted backups is severely degraded if the phone can be backed up again without encryption by an unauthorized individual (i.e. someone without the password).

In fact, it would be a serious bug if this worked the way that occurs to you, rather than the way it does!

You were given full warning about retaining the password and the consequences if you don't.

The problem is your failure to remember the password. The encrypted backup has done it's job. No one, including yourself, can restore from your encrypted backup to obtain access to your data.

The solution is to restore your phone and set it up as a new device, and remember the encryption if you choose to use encrypted backups.

Msecure is also a popular password vault.

http://msevensoftware.com/msecure_ios