Tao Effect Forums

Maybe I just haven't looked in the right place, or maybe I have and didn't understand what I read, but how does Espionage 3's password prompting work in practice. I'm not talking about application encryption or passwords.

I bought Espionage 2 for 1 reason. So that when I first access a protected file or folder, I am prompted for the password to decrypt. Then when I'm done, I select Lock from the menu item, and it gets encrypted again. I could have different passwords for each file or folder, although that was only a nice to have. The application associations made things both simple and complicated. The requirement to password prompt and decrypt was needed regardless of when the file or folder was accessed. Whether through the Finder or another application. Espionage 2 required me to associate the file with a specific application. That was fine by me but not really what I card about.

So, bottom line, I want to encrypt a specific mailbox folder. What I expect to happen is that when I open the Mail app and the Mail app attempts to access that mailbox, I will get prompted for the password. If I enter the password correctly, the mailbox is decrypted and all is well. If I don't enter the password, Mail will do whatever Mail does when it can't access a mailbox. That is how I expect it to work. The same logic applies to opening any encrypted file or folder, whether from the Finder, Mail, Preview, Word, etc. When the app accesses, prompt for the password. Note that this is not an application association because I could access an image file from a variety of apps. This should also work whether I open a file from within an app or double click a file which, once decrypted, opens in its default app.

That's what I expect and why i purchased Espionage. Tell me how close does Espionage 3 come to this scenario and what are the differences.

Thanks

Bob

Hi Bob, in Espionage 3, there is no password prompt and it while it can (once we release the next update) encrypt application data like Mail, it's nowhere as convenient as it was in the previous version, you have to manually unlock the folders before launching the application. Some might call this a downgrade and I would not argue with them. This is a downgrade in some respects, while an upgrade in others. The application is different, it's much simpler, it's focused mainly on encrypting documents in folders, and that's part of the reason why we reduced the price. With Espionage 3 you unlock and lock folders not through the Finder but through its interface.

The reasons we decided to do this are technical in nature but ultimately boil down to Espionage 2 being too difficult to continue supporting.

Espionage 3 is no better than Disk Utility on Mac... why do you even have this app now? Espionage 2 actually had a purpose, but because your company is too lazy to continue supporting the features, you basically just made a better gui for Disk Utility in creating encrypted DMG's... wow, you are so cool. I bought Espionage 2 because it was NOT like Disk Utility and actually made encrypting important application date painless. Now you want me to upgrade to Espionage 3, which should be called Disk Utility Pro instead, because it is absolutely useless and does nothing I can't already do with standard encrypted dmg's... smart move to screw your customers over because you are lazy and don't want to work with the changes in the OS. I will use Espionage 2 until it doesn't work anymore and then I will move on. I will also be starting an anti Tao Effects / Espionage web site to save other people the headache of spending money on a useless product.

I'm a software product manager and i understand the difficulties and decisions that go into creating and maintaining a software product. So basically the product does not work as I described it at all. Granted that Espionage 2 doesn't quite work that way either but is certainly much closer to what it appears everyone wants.

You're correct when you say that Espionage 3 should have been given a different product name. It is nothing like Espionage 2 other than it encrypts data. The fact that is doesn't prompt for a password, in my opinion, defeats the purpose of having a separate application. I might as well use File Vault 2 and have the log in password be the trigger to allow decryption.

It's quite obvious that what people are looking for is something that decrypts on a password prompt and response. If that prompt occurs when the file or folder is accessed, that make it much more useful. I really don't want to have to remember to unlock before I use it. That's not what I expect in modern user-friendly software.

You suggest that changes in Lion made supporting the application locking mechanism very difficult. I purchased Espionage 2 in February. Was there any mention of these difficulties in any article or FAQ on your web site? Based on what you're saying, there is no future in Espionage 2. I doubt you'll be maintaining it because you state that it is too difficult. I believe you. However, since I expect that Mountain Lion will build on the changes in Lion, it's going to be a fairly short time until Espionage 2 no longer works as expected. And the last thing we need is for an encryption program to stop working, potentially taking our precious data with it. I wonder how many people will upgrade to Mountain Lion without thinking that maybe they should decrypt their data first. So saying that people can continue to use Espionage 2 is misleading, in my opinion.

As I said, I purchased in February for $35. I now feel that was money wasted. Not that I found anything better at the time, but I would have looked for a different solution or restructured my encryption needs if I knew it would have such as short life span.

Bob