10. Be Secure

Most of the best qualities of the iPod can also be liabilities. It’s portable, so you’re more likely to take it with you to a coffee shop or to class where there’s greater chance of losing it or having it stolen. Being out “in the wild” also increases the chance that the wireless network you connect to—or even someone at the next table—is scanning for sensitive data like credit card numbers. The iPad stores your personal digital information, so a thief would have access to your contact information.

Security isn’t all cloak-and-dagger stuff, though. If you’re sharing an iPad among your family, you may not want the kids to get online and download all of their favorite albums from the iTunes Store—on your credit card. With some reasonable precautions, you can make your iPad experience more secure.

Set a Passcode to Unlock

The easiest front-line measure you can take to improve the iPad’s security is to set a four-digit passcode lock that must be entered when the iPad is woken from sleep.

1. Go to Settings > General and tap the Passcode Lock button.
2. Tap the Turn Passcode On button, which brings up the Set Passcode dialog (Figure 10.1).

   Figure 10.1. Setting a passcode

   

3. Enter a four-digit code, then re-enter it to confirm.
4. The passcode dialog is initially set to appear whenever you wake the iPad. If that’s too aggressive, tap the Require Passcode button and choose a timing during which the passcode isn’t needed after entering it successfully once.
5. If you don’t want anyone seeing your photos in the Picture Frame mode, turn the Picture Frame mode to Off. The Picture Frame button no longer appears on the lock screen.
6. To give the passcode lock some more teeth, enable the Erase Data option (Figure 10.2). If an incorrect password is attempted 10 times, the iPad wipes its memory.

   Figure 10.2. Erase Data enabled

   

Use a VPN

When you connect to a public Wi-Fi hotspot, there’s a real chance that someone could be analyzing traffic on the network. The way to protect against it (other than choose not to use public Wi-Fi networks, but that’s not a good option) is to set up a Virtual Private Network. A VPN establishes a secure connection to the Internet and protects your traffic from prying eyes.

Your employer may have provided you with VPN connection information, or you might prefer to pay for a service such as PublicVPN (www.publicvpn.com) or WiTopia (www.witopia.net). With the account information, configure the VPN settings so you can switch on the VPN when you need it.

1. Go to Settings > General > Network, and tap the Add VPN Configuration button.
2. Enter the server and settings provided to you (Figure 10.3).

   Figure 10.3. VPN settings

   

3. Tap the Save button.

When you want to activate the VPN, return to Settings > Network and tap the VPN On button. After the connection is made and authenticated, a VPN icon appears in the status bar (Figure 10.4).

Figure 10.4. VPN settings

The VPN preferences screen keeps tabs on how long you’ve been connected; tapping the Status button also reveals more information such as the VPN server name and the IP address assigned to your iPad.

When you no longer need the connection, tap the VPN switch to Off.

Set Up Usage Restrictions

One unsurprising trend I’ve seen since the iPad was released is that it’s a device that gets shared—whether you intend it to be shared or not. A good friend bought an iPad just before leaving on vacation, and he quickly discovered that it makes a great traveling companion. His young son used it on the plane to play educational games and watch videos, and then his wife used it to read ebooks in the evenings. He was happy to get his hands on the iPad late at night after everyone else went to bed.

The problem is that the iPad isn’t set up like a Mac or PC, which have the capability to host multiple separate accounts. So, for example, my friend’s email messages were exposed to anyone who wanted to go looking (or accidentally deleting), and he wasn’t able to prevent the boy from stumbling onto Web sites that are inappropriate for a three-year-old.

That’s where the iPad’s Restrictions settings come in. They don’t cover all possibilities—I’d like to see a future version of the operating system have a guest mode optimized for handing the iPad over to someone—but they do help prevent unwanted access.

1. Go to Settings > General > Restrictions to access the settings.
2. Tap the Enable Restrictions button.
3. Enter a Restrictions passcode in the keypad that appears, then enter it again for verification. This passcode is separate from the one you may have set up to lock the iPad.
4. In the first block of settings, determine which apps and services are allowed to run (Figure 10.5). When you switch an option to Off, the app disappears from the Home screen. When Location is disabled, the iPad doesnt’ share its location with apps that request it.

   Figure 10.5. App restrictions

   

5. In the second block of settings, choose which media can be viewed (Figure 10.6). For example, you may wish to limit videos to movies rated no higher than PG when the kids are awake, and then change the rating or disable restrictions when you want to watch something rated R after the kids have gone to bed.

   Figure 10.6. Media restrictions

   

Find My iPad

Apple’s MobileMe has at least one feature that you may find is worth the yearly subscription fee, even if you don’t touch any other part of the service. Find My iPad can locate your iPad on a map (even the Wi-Fi–only model, provided it’s connected to a hotspot), send sounds or messages to it, or remotely erase its data if you think you’ll never see it again.

Set Up Find My iPad

Do the following to make sure Find My iPad is active; you don’t want to discover too late that you may not have set up the feature.

1. On the iPad, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tap your MobileMe (me.com) account.

   (If you haven’t created one yet, tap Add Account, tap MobileMe, and enter your account information.)

2. Set the Find My iPad option to On.
3. Tap Allow in the dialog that appears to grant the feature access to location data.

   Note

   For Find My iPad to work, the Location Services option (in the General pane) must be turned on.

Take Action on a Lost iPad

Whether your iPad has fallen behind the back cushion on the couch or fallen into the wrong hands, you can take several actions using Find My iPad to help locate it.

• Find: In a Web browser, go to www.me.com and sign in. Then click the Find My iPad icon. After a few minutes, your iPad should appear with a map noting its location (Figure 10.7).

Figure 10.7. Find My iPad, found

Unless there’s a solid fix on the iPad’s signal, the location may not be too accurate. After a few minutes, a better location is resolved. You can also click the Update Location button to refresh the view, which is if the iPad seems to be on the move.

• Display a Message: If you suspect you’ve simply misplaced the iPad in your home (where the top-down map wouldn’t provide enough resolution), click the Display a Message button. Enter a message and optionally mark the option to Play a sound for 2 minutes with this message (Figure 10.8). (The sound resembles a submarine’s sonar ping and plays loud, despite the iPad’s volume setting.)

Figure 10.8. Find My iPad message being sent and received

• Remote Lock: This feature locks the iPad immediately (even if someone is in the middle of using the device) with a four-digit passcode of your choosing. Pick a code that’s different from the screen unlock code in case whoever has the iPad might know your code. The new passcode replaces the one you set in the Passcode Lock settings on the iPad.

• Remote Wipe: If you think the iPad is gone for good, or you don’t want to risk that someone may get past the passcode and access sensitive information, click the Remote Wipe button. You’re asked to confirm your choice and then click the Erase All Data button (Figure 10.9).

Figure 10.9. Are you sure?

All data on the iPad is automatically hardware-encrypted, so performing a remote wipe actually changes the encryption key; it doesn’t remove any data (but the data that’s left is useless). As a result, wiping is fast, taking only a minute and a half.

If the iPad does turn up after a remote wipe, connect it to your computer and restore everything from the last backup.

Encrypt iPad Backup

Speaking of the iPad’s backup, you can perform remote wipes all day and it won’t matter if the computer you sync with was stolen along with the iPad. You can get some measure of relief if you also encrypt the iPad data backup that’s stored on the computer’s hard disk.

In iTunes with the iPad selected in the sidebar, go to the Summary pane and enable the Encrypt iPad backup option (Figure 10.10).

Figure 10.10. Encrypt iPad backup option