Macintosh HD + iPhoto encryption

[aj_cairo]

Hi...

So when i tried to encrypt some folders in the "Macintosh HD"..I always get a message that says "Permission error- Espionage needs to be abe to write to the parent folder(/).!

another issue, is when i tried to encrypt "iPhoto" from the inside of Espionage, i can't and i receive this message: "Mission application data - Espionage cannot find any of the application's folder" /users/AJ/pictures/iPhoto Library - this can happen if the application hasn't run yet or was recently updated an has moved its data."

[zsolt]

Hello,

So when i tried to encrypt some folders in the "Macintosh HD"..I always get a message that says "Permission error- Espionage needs to be abe to write to the parent folder(/).!

In the process of unlocking a protected folder, Espionage 2 is moving the disk image in which the protected data reside into the parent folder of the protected folder. Normally this is not a problem, because if you protect a folder inside your user folder, or any of subfolders, the disk image will be moved around inside your user holder where you have the permission to do so. However if you protect a folder outside your user folder, then you might run into the problem you mentioned above. It is simply that Espionage does not have permissions to move the disk image into that folder and therefore it cannot work.
It is possible to overcome this by adjusting the folder permissions, but this might create a security loophole in your system. So the best practice is to protect folders inside your home/user folder.

Espionage cannot find any of the application's folder" /users/AJ/pictures/iPhoto Library

When you want to protect an application, what happens is that you tell Espionage to look into his own application template and determine which folders need to be protected in order to protect the application. Protecting an application is basically a protection of a predefined set of folders which will be unlocked upon launching that application (once you entered the password).
For iPhoto the folder which has to be protected is the iPhoto Library (folder, although it appears as a file, but it is a folder in fact), so Espionage is looking for it at the default path. If you keep your iPhoto Library in some other path, then instead of protecting iPhoto, just add by hand the iPhoto Library, where ever it is, to Espionage, then click onto application association button in the lower left part of the screen and add iPhoto as an application associated with this folder. That should do it.
Pls make sure you have enough free disk space for encryption of your entire iPhoto Library before adding the iPhoto to Espionage.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Rgds
Zsolt

[aj_cairo]

I'm kinda new to Mac.. so I'm trying to get familiar with all terms mentioned.. :?

now to get this straight:
1- The way Espionage works is just like file vault??.. so it creates disk images? or it changes the targeted folder from a "folder" into a "disk image"?
2- is the disk image has the exact size as the original folder? so it's a matter of duplication?
3- i successfully encrypted the iphoto library and it eventually encrypted iPhoto   ... but, all of my photos were originally put in a folder called "photos" in Macintosh HD main folder.. what about that folder? the content is still out there...
4- as much of what i understood from your answer about the first issue, if I managed to move the targeted folder into Users/user name/***** "folder", would that allow Espionage to encrypt it?

seriously, I'm quiet confused here.. 15 years of using Windows to Mac.. it's a big loop...

my regards

[zsolt]

Hello

1- The way Espionage works is just like file vault??.. so it creates disk images? or it changes the targeted folder from a "folder" into a "disk image"?

Yes and no :-), also depending which file vault do we talk about, pre Lion or post Lion. The older version of file vault used the very same encrypted disk image to store the entire user folder, the newer version of file vault encrypts the entire hard disk

But to stick to Espionage: when you add a folder to Espionage it will create a disk image, copy the files from the folder into that disk image, move the original files to trash and put the disk image (invisible) into the protected folder.
Example: you protect a folder HomeFolder/Documents/Personal inside which are 2 files, personalfile1 and personalfile2. When you add the folder to Espionage, it will create an encrypted disk image named .Personal.sparsebundle (note the dot at the beginning of the name, this makes the disk image invisible in Finder), with the password you provide, mount the disk image, copy the files personalfile1 and 2 into the disk image, move the original files to trash, unmount the disk image and place it into HomeFolder/Documents/Personal folder, along with 3 folders named "this folder contains protected data do not modify....etc"
When you unlock the folder, Espionage mounts the disk image and uses your HomeFolder/Documents/Personal as mount point, so to you it appears like you are accessing the HomeFolder/Documents/Personal directly, but you are not, you are just accessing the content of the disk image THROUGH HomeFolder/Documents/Personal folder.
I hope this helps :-)

2- is the disk image has the exact size as the original folder? so it's a matter of duplication?

No, it is another OS X trickery. The sparsebundle kind of disk image is a disk image which knows how to "grow". Say you protect a folder containing 10MB of data, Espionage will create an disk image which is a bit bigger then 10MB due to metadata overhead. But this disk image is allowed to grow up to a certain amount , say 100MB. So you are free to put some more data into this protected folder when it is unlocked. So the bottom line, this protection does use a bit more of disk space in comparison if the folder would not be protected, but not much more. It is however important that you have enough disk space during initial encryption, because as I said, the original file will be moved into trash, so if you protect a folder 100MB big, you will end up with 110MB disk image and 100MB data in trash, simplified.

3- i successfully encrypted the iphoto library and it eventually encrypted iPhoto   ... but, all of my photos were originally put in a folder called "photos" in Macintosh HD main folder.. what about that folder? the content is still out there...

As I told you before, all the photos you add to iPhoto will end up in iPhoto Library, so protecting iPhoto will protect those too. If you have some more photos which are not added to iPhoto, those will remain unprotected. To protect those too, just put them all in one folder and add this folder to Espionage. Note however, that this folder will not be automatically unlocked when you launch iPhoto, it does not need to be, but if you want this to happen, you have to add iPhoto into application association of that folder.

4- as much of what i understood from your answer about the first issue, if I managed to move the targeted folder into Users/user name/***** "folder", would that allow Espionage to encrypt it?

Yes. As long as you are protecting folders inside your user folder, you should be fine.

If you need some general help with mac, understanding the terms, or figuring out how things work, just visit my web page at www.macmesupport.com and we can get in touch. Welcome to the Mac :-)

Rgds
Zsolt

[aj_cairo]

this is just a wonderful explanation..    
thank so much for help, patience, and for making such a nice app!

now all my personal files are protected and safe...