Leverage your smartphone and smartwatch for improved personal safety! Version 2.0, updated November 12, 2025 The digital and “real” worlds can both be scary places. The smartphone (and often smartwatch) you already carry with you can help reduce risks, deter theft, and mitigate violence. This book teaches you to secure your hardware, block abuse, automatically call emergency services, connect with others to ensure you arrive where and when you intended, detect stalking by compact trackers, and keep your ecosystem accounts from Apple, Google, and Microsoft secure. You don’t have to be reminded of the virtual and physical risks you face every day. Some of us are targeted more than others. Modern digital features built into mobile operating systems (and some computer operating systems) can help reduce our anxiety by putting more power in our hands to deter, deflect, block, and respond to abuse, threats, and emergencies. Keep Safe Using Mobile Tech looks at both digital threats, like online abuse and account hijacking, and ones in the physical world, like being stalked through Bluetooth trackers, facing domestic violence, or being in a car crash. The book principally covers the iPhone, Apple Watch, Android devices, and Wear OS watches. It also covers more limited but useful features available on the iPad and on computers running macOS or Windows. This second edition incorporates the massive number of new safety features Google added since October 2024 to the Android operating system, some particular to Google Pixel phones and smartwatches, and improved blocking, filtering, and screening added to Apple’s iOS 26 and related operating system updates in fall 2025. This book explores many techniques to help:

Learn how to harden your Apple Account, Google Account, and Microsoft Account beyond just a password or a text-message token. Discover filtering and blocking tools from Apple and Google that can prevent abusive, fraudulent, and phishing messages and calls from reaching you. Block seeing unwanted sensitive images on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, or Android phone—and help your kids receive advice on how not to send them. Turn on tracking on your Apple, Google, and Microsoft devices, and use it to recover or erase stolen hardware. Keep your cloud-archived messages from leaking to attackers. Screen calls with an automated assistant so that you know who wants you before picking up and without sending to voicemail. Lock down your devices to keep thieves and other personal invaders from accessing them. Prepare for emergencies by setting up medical information on your mobile devices. Let a supported smartphone or smartwatch recognize when you’re in a car crash or have taken a hard fall and call emergency services for you (and text your emergency contacts) if you can’t respond. Keep track of heart anomalies through smartwatch alerts and tests on your Apple Watch and many Android Wear smartwatches. Tell others where or when you expect to check in with them again, and let your smartphone alert them if you don’t with your Apple iPhone or Android phone. Deter stalking from tiny Bluetooth trackers. Protect your devices and accounts against access from domestic assailants. Block thieves who steal your phone—potentially threatening you or attacking you in person—from gaining access to the rest of your digital life.

Keep your Mac, iPhone, and iPad safe! Version 1.1.1, published September 28, 2025 Secure your Mac, iPhone, or iPad against attacks from the internet, physical intrusion, and more with the greatest of ease. Glenn Fleishman guides you through protecting yourself from phishing, email, and other exploits, as well as network-based invasive behavior. Learn about built-in privacy settings, the Secure Enclave, FileVault, hardware encryption keys, sandboxing, privacy settings, Advanced Data Protection, Lockdown Mode, resetting your password when all hope seems lost, and much more. The digital world is riddled with danger, even as Apple has done a fairly remarkable job at keeping our Macs, iPhones, and iPads safe. But the best security strategy is staying abreast of past risks and anticipating future ones. This book gives you all the insight and directions you need to ensure your Apple devices and their data are safe. It's up to date with macOS 26 Tahoe, iOS 26, and iPadOS 26. You’ll learn about the enhanced Advanced Data Protection option for iCloud services, allowing you to keep all your private data inaccessible not just to thieves and unwarranted government intrusion, but even to Apple! Also get the rundown on Lockdown Mode to deter direct network and phishing attacks, passkeys and hardware secure keys for the highest level of security for Apple Account and website logins, and Mac-specific features such as encrypted startup volumes and FileVault’s login protection process. Security and privacy are tightly related, and this book helps you understand how macOS, iOS, and iPadOS have increasingly compartmentalized and protected your personal data, and how to allow only the apps you want to access specific folders, your contacts, and other information. Here’s what this book has to offer:

Master the privacy settings on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad Calculate your level of risk and your tolerance for it Use Apple’s Stolen Device Protection feature for iPhone that deflects thieves who extract your passcode through coercion or misdirection. Learn why you’re asked to give permission for apps to access folders and personal data on your Mac Moderate access to your audio, video, screen actions, and other hardware inputs and outputs Get to know the increasing layers of system security deployed over the past few years Prepare against a failure or error that might lock you out of your device Share files and folders securely over a network and through cloud services Upgrade your iCloud data protection to use end-to-end encryption Control other low-level security options to reduce the risk of someone gaining physical access to your Mac—or override them to install system extensions Understand FileVault encryption and protection for Mac, and avoid getting locked out Investigate the security of a virtual private network (VPN) to see whether you should use one Learn how the Secure Enclave in Macs with a T2 chip or M-series Apple silicon affords hardware-level protections Dig into ransomware, the biggest potential threat to Mac users (though rare in practice) Discover recent security and privacy technologies, such as Lockdown Mode and passkeys Learn why your iPhone may restart automatically if it's been idle for several days

Master networking, privacy, and security for iOS and iPadOS! Version 4.2, updated January 29, 2024 Ensuring that your iPhone or iPad’s data remains secure and in your control and that your private data remains private isn’t a battle—if you know what boxes to check and how to configure iOS and iPadOS to your advantage. Take Control of iOS & iPadOS Privacy and Security takes you into the intricacies of Apple’s choices when it comes to networking, data sharing, and encryption—and protecting your personal safety. Substantially updated to cover dozens of changes and new features in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17! Your iPhone and iPad have become the center of your digital identity, and it’s easy to lose track of all the ways in which Apple and other parties access your data legitimately—or without your full knowledge and consent. While Apple nearly always errs on the side of disclosure and permission, many other firms don’t. This book comprehensively explains how to configure iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and iCloud-based services to best protect your privacy with messaging, email, browsing, and much more. The book also shows you how to ensure your devices and data are secure from intrusion from attackers of all types. You’ll get practical strategies and configuration advice to protect yourself against psychological and physical threats, including restrictions on your freedom and safety. For instance, you can now screen images that may contain nude images, while Apple has further enhanced Lockdown Mode to block potential attacks by governments, including your own. Take Control of iOS & iPadOS Privacy and Security covers how to configure the hundreds of privacy and data sharing settings Apple offers in iOS and iPadOS, and which it mediates for third-party apps. Safari now has umpteen different strategies built in by Apple to protect your web surfing habits, personal data, and identity, and new features in Safari, Mail, and Messages that block tracking of your movement across sites, actions on ads, and even when you open and view an email message. In addition to privacy and security, this book also teaches you everything you need to know about networking, whether you’re using 3G, 4G LTE, or 5G cellular, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or combinations of all of them; as well as about AirDrop, AirPlay, Airplane Mode, Personal Hotspot, and tethering. You’ll learn how to:

Twiddle 5G settings to ensure the best network speeds on your iPhone or iPad. Master the options for a Personal Hotspot for yourself and in a Family Sharing group. Set up a device securely from the moment you power up a new or newly restored iPhone or iPad. Manage Apple’s built-in second factor verification code generator for extra-secure website and app logins. Create groups of passwords and passkeys you can share securely with other iPhone, iPad, and Mac users. Decide whether Advanced Data Protection in iCloud, an enhanced encryption option that makes nearly all your iCloud data impossible for even Apple to view, makes sense for you. Use passkeys, a high-security but easy-to-use website login system with industry-wide support. Block unknown (and unwanted) callers, iMessage senders, and phone calls, now including FaceTime. Protect your email by using Hide My Email, a iCloud+ tool to generate an address Apple manages and relays messages through for you—now including email used with Apple Pay transactions. Use Safari’s blocking techniques and how to review websites’ attempts to track you, including the latest improvements in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17. Use Communication Safety, a way to alert your children about sensitive images—but now also a tool to keep unsolicited and unwanted images of private parts from appearing on your devices. Understand why Apple might ask for your iPhone, iPad, or Mac password when you log in on a new device using two-factor authentication. Keep yourself safe when en route to a destination by creating a Check In partner who will be alerted if you don’t reach your intended end point or don’t respond within a period of time. Dig into Private Browsing’s several new features in iOS 17/iPadOS 17, designed to let you leave no trace of your identity or actions behind, while protecting your iPhone or iPad from prying eyes, too. Manage data usage across two phone SIMs (or eSIMS) at home and while traveling. Use a hardware encryption key to strongly protect your Apple ID account. Share a Wi-Fi password with nearby contacts and via a QR Code. Differentiate between encrypted data sessions and end-to-end encryption. Stream music and video to other devices with AirPlay 2. Use iCloud+’s Private Relay, a privacy-protecting browsing service that keeps your habits and locations from prying marketing eyes. Deter brute-force cracking by relying on an Accessories timeout for devices physically being plugged in that use USB and other standards. Configure Bluetooth devices. Enjoy enhanced AirDrop options that let you tap two iPhones to transfer files and continue file transfers over the internet when you move out of range. Protect Apple ID account and iCloud data from unwanted access at a regular level and via the new Safety Check, designed to let you review or sever digital connections with people you know who may wish you harm.