what is the best way to encrypt my iphone

This article gives you some details on the data protection in iOS. If you have an iPhone 3GS or newer you'll have hardware encryption setup so that if anyone doesn't have the passcode the only data they can see is psuedo-random nonsense characters.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4175

Basically do this to enable hardware encryption:

• Set Require Passcode to Immediately.
• Disable Simple Passcode to allow the use of longer, alphanumeric, passcodes.
• Enable Erase Data to automatically erase the device after ten failed passcode attempts.

The best passwords are a minimum of 12 characters made up of upper-, lower-case, & special characters that are not words.

The iPhone 4 has hardware encryption built in. If you put a passcode on it no one can view or read it.

You should also encrypt your backup for added security. Check the "encrypt local backup" in iTunes if you back up to your computer. If you back up to iCloud it is automatically encrypted. Just make sure you have a really good iCloud passcode.

Well, on the iPhone, it all starts with Settings > General > Passcode Lock. There you can set a 4 digit code (simple passcode) or a more complicated code if you wish.

You can also instruct your phone to erase its data after 10 failed passcode attempts.

tcl10101 wrote:

I am talking about the device police hook up to your phone to extract data without using a passcode. Will the content still be visible or unreadable after they extreact it?

Honestly, if you are at the point the police are electronically snooping around on your device, then there is nothing you can do to keep them from doing it. You cannot completely encrypt the device contents with anything like AES encryption (not sure it could even work - the computation load from having to decrypt anything anytime it was needed would likely make a smart phone into a useless door stop for all practical purposes).

Fact: You have the right equiptment & knowledge, you can recover just about anything you want from any device you want. You don't want data recovered...either don't put it on your phone or destroy your phone after doing so.

iPhone is about as good as it gets. Read here:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428477/the-iphone-has-passed-a-key-security -threshold/

tcl10101 wrote:

I am talking about the device police hook up to your phone to extract data without using a passcode. Will the content still be visible or unreadable after they extreact it?

DOJ says iPhone is so secure they can't crack it

wjosten wrote:

Fact: You have the right equiptment & knowledge, you can recover just about anything you want from any device you want. You don't want data recovered...either don't put it on your phone or destroy your phone after doing so.

iPhone is about as good as it gets. Read here:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428477/the-iphone-has-passed-a-key-security -threshold/

Quoted from the very page you linked:

After more than a decade of exhaustive analysis, AES is widely regarded as unbreakable. The algorithm is so strong that no computer imaginable for the foreseeable future—even a quantum computer—would be able to crack a truly random 256-bit AES key.

I know what DOJ says & what the article says...I provided the link. You steal nuclear launch codes or similar & hide them on your phone & believe the data can't be retrieved...you're gonna be in for a big surprise 😎.

Michael Black wrote:

You cannot completely encrypt the device contents with anything like AES encryption (not sure it could even work - the computation load from having to decrypt anything anytime it was needed would likely make a smart phone into a useless door stop for all practical purposes).

Um... from above referenced article:

"Apple designed iOS devices so that the hardware that encrypts data is in the path the data travels when it moves from flash storage to the iPhone’s main memory. This means that data can be automatically decrypted when read from flash into memory and reëncrypted when saved from memory back to flash. On the iPhone, encryption is essentially free."

While you are correct, you are also almost 2 years late.