Can I remotely wipe 1Password touch?
For now, the answer to this question is: “yes and no.”
Background
Some of our customers have asked if 1Password touch contains a remote wipe feature, which is sometimes called a “remote kill switch.” This feature is popular in the business world because it allows owners or IT administrators to erase a device if it is lost or stolen, even if it is halfway across the city or country.
Unfortunately, 1Password touch does not have such a feature, largely because Apple does not allow third-party developers like us to run background processes. We have no way to enable 1Password touch to “listen” for a command to remotely wipe its database and protect it from loss or theft.
Apple’s Find My iPhone is an option for iPhone owners
While we cannot yet build a remote wipe feature into 1Password touch, you do have an option for remotely wiping your entire iPhone with Apple’s Find my iPhone feature which is now available to both paid MobileMe users and to anyone who has an Apple ID.
If you lose your iPhone or it gets stolen, you can use MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” feature at me.com or via the free Find my iPhone app on another iOS device to initiate a remote wipe. This is a great way to remotely erase not only your 1Password information, but any other sensitive data like contacts, emails, files stored in third-party apps, saved games, and more.
Plus, if you’re a paid subscriber, MobileMe continuously syncs your email, contacts, and calendars with your Mac, PC, and web account, and iTunes syncs your media and apps, you can easily restore everything if you recover your device or buy a new one. If you sync your 1Password touch data with 1Password for Mac or through Dropbox, you can restore all your 1Password information, too.
Can 1Password touch auto-destruct data after too many incorrect unlock attempts?
We have carefully considered the possibility of adding an auto-destruct feature that could wipe your data after too many incorrect attempts of entering either an Access Code or the Master Password. While in theory this may help keep 1Password touch data secure, it is much more likely people will accidentally shoot themselves in the foot. Imagine if you added some important data to your iPhone, and then your coworker or 4-year-old daughter plays with the unlock screen and all your data ends up being deleted.
Auto-destruct features like these are easily circumvented anyway because the first thing most criminals would do is actually steal your device, then copy your data off so they can attack it on a computer with real hacking tools.
As a compromise, we added an increasing delay when the PIN code and Master Password are entered incorrectly. This delay will thwart “inquisitive” coworkers and playing children from accidentally (or perhaps even maliciously) accessing your data.