Hacks are everywhere these days. But if Apple’s new security measure is as good as it says it is, mobile internet may have the leg up on fixed internet.

Photo Credit: viskas cc
Photo Credit: viskas cc

Phone hardware companies seem to be responsive to the public’s concerns about privacy, especially when it comes to privacy from the government. In fact, protection on phones is so secure these days that it’s causing problems for law enforcement. Apple’s newest iPhones have an encryption software that makes it impossible to get any data off of the phone without the user’s password, The Daily Press reports:

Under the new system, the password is more than just a way to unlock the home screen. Instead, it is enmeshed with the phone’s data so deeply that the data is impossible to read without it.

And there is no longer a “back door” allowing law enforcement — or even Apple itself — access to the information. “Apple cannot bypass your pass code and therefore cannot access this data,” the company’s privacy policy reads.

According to press reports last year, Google, which builds the Android operating system used on the majority of smartphones sold in the U.S., also hinted it may soon begin using a similar encryption setup by default.

On a recent visit to Hampton Roads, FBI director James Comey voiced concern about the change.

“We are drifting to a place in this country where there will be zones that are beyond the reach of the law,” Comey said in a Feb. 19 visit to the Norfolk Field Office, saying the nation needs to discuss such a drastic change “as a democracy.”

The Daily Press article notes that while law enforcement won’t have unhindered access to the phone of a criminal or a missing child, they would be able to acquire a warrant with the appropriate companies to access data from the cell phone. All that data is, after all, still there, it’s just harder to get to now without permission.

Which is the principle behind data security, and why mobile is increasingly becoming an attractive option for people: although there have been cloud mishaps in the past, the mobile market has been working hard to keep it secure from any unwanted access.

It’s not wholly unexpected; two years ago, the FTC took an interest in Snapchat as part of a review of the privacy of apps, ultimately issuing a guidance to assist mobile app providers with privacy compliance. The number of mobile users overtook the number of fixed internet users last year, and with smartphones starting to transition to digital wallets security is even more of a major concern.

Fixed internet, meanwhile, seems largely stagnant and susceptible to data leaks: just last year, Microsoft faced its own scandal when Internet Explorer was hacked, part of 317 million malware attacks from last year alone. Add in the Heartbleed virus to the Sony hack, and Internet sources took a real beating last year. And the latest attack, is courtesy of your browser—any browser, as The Daily Dot reports:

Many of the world’s most popular websites and browsers are leaking your location, right down to your country, city, neighborhood, and home address, according to new research from the National University of Singapore.

A “geo-inference attack” allows virtually anyone with a website—even if they don’t have your permission—to narrow down a person’s country, city, and neighborhood by measuring the timing of browser cache queries related to increasingly ubiquitous geo-location services like Google and Craigslist.

The leakage is widespread in the U.S., Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the U.K., affecting an average of 62% those countries’ respective Alexa top 100 websites, according to researcher Yaoqi Jia. It affects Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, he said.

This is a “new attack” with a “big impact,” Yaoqi told the Daily Dot. “It’s the first to utilize timing channels in browsers to infer a user’s geo-location.”

Obviously as mobile grows more and more popular it will attract its share of hackers. But if Apple’s system is as good as it claims to be, and Google enacts a similar protocol with their newer models, it could start a precedent for weaving in privacy from the beginning (which is exactly what the FTC hopes for with the coming Internet of Things) giving more reason to use mobile internet over fixed internet.

Not only is it where the better tech is, it’s also where people are clearly heading. Pew Research Center said 85 percent of young adults are smartphone users, and two-thirds of Americans are smart-phone users. Unsurprisingly, for many it is their key entry point to the online world. And with such tight security what’s not to love?