How Encryption Works

There is an iPhone setting that federal agents are trained to check before they execute a warrant on your iCloud data. If you have it turned on, there is nothing they can do. It is called Advanced Data Protection. When it is on, your iCloud backup, your photos, your notes, your messages are encrypted so completely that Apple itself cannot read them. That means when federal investigators serve Apple with a warrant for your account, Apple's response is: we cannot produce this data. I have received