Address Book questions

Started by ravedog, July 05, 2009, 12:55:17 AM

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ravedog

I see that you have a template for Address Book, but I am wondering about the fact that Address Book's data is utilized by so many other programs that I have, such as Mail, Adium, iChat, Yahoo, Delicious Library, Neatworks, iPhoto, iTunes, Safari and LaunchBar off the top of my head. (Not to mention Mobile Me). How do I make this work?

Another issue: I tried adding address book to the list, and it said to make sure address book wasn't running.. it wasn't. SO I gave it a password, and clicked GO. Then it told me that MAIL was open and asked me if I was sure I wanted to proceed. So does that have to do with what I was asking above (I had Adium and LaunchBar running when I tried this, so I quit them but still Espionage thought it was in use.) Will Espionage automatically know when an app requires access to Addy Books data? Or do I have to add each application under "Associations."

I quit Mail, was able to add Address Book, and I saw that it had some built-in associations, and I added a few more. I launched Adium as a test and it asked me for a password to access Address Book. Entered. Unlocked. Then I quit Adium and the Address Book Data folder was still unlocked, even though Adium's settings were "Lock on Quit."

When I tried to relock the folder manually, it gave me an error that the app iTunes appears to be running, which it isn't (Does it think it is because the helper app iTunesHelper is running in the background?

greg

#1
Thanks, this is a great question.

QuoteThen I quit Adium and the Address Book Data folder was still unlocked, even though Adium's settings were "Lock on Quit."

If any of the other application associated with the folder are running it will not lock the folder.

QuoteWhen I tried to relock the folder manually, it gave me an error that the app iTunes appears to be running, which it isn't (Does it think it is because the helper app iTunesHelper is running in the background?

Yes, we're not quite sure what to do actually in this case... as helper applications often access the same data as their parent applications.  Read on for my advice...

Quote from: "ravedog"Will Espionage automatically know when an app requires access to Addy Books data? Or do I have to add each application under "Associations."

No.

QuoteHow do I make this work?

If you used the latest version of Espionage (2.0.8) to setup Address Book, it should have already setup up everything properly.  As you point out, Address Book's data is accessed by an innumerable number of applications, and therefore the solution to this problem is to make sure that its data is always unlocked while you're logged in.  Hence the 'auto-unlock at login' option that you mentioned in another thread, this is a great example of its purpose.  This is not an insecure feature, as the idea is that only you should have the password to your account, and therefore only you can login to it. If you use the custom master password, you will be prompted for it upon logging in so that Espionage can unlock folders that are set to auto-unlock.

Along with that, you shouldn't have "Lock On Quit" set for any of the associations.

It's important that if you have any folders set to auto-unlock that you enable the screensaver password (this can be done from the Security System Preferences).  That will protect your Addresses, even if your laptop is stolen while the folder is unlocked.  As I mentioned, Espionage 2.0.8 has the Address Book template to auto-unlock the folder by default, but if you created it with a previous version you should turn it on yourself (and don't forget to disable "Lock On Quit" for all of the associated applications).
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

ravedog

#2
Quote from: "greg"This is not an insecure feature, as the idea is that only you should have the password to your account, and therefore only you can login to it. If you use the custom master password, you will be prompted for it upon logging in so that Espionage can unlock folders that are set to auto-unlock.

Thanks for the explanations. I do have one question about the above instructions. Setting up your mac to require a password to login is great for thwarting the casual user from accessing your Mac, however, anyone with have the technical knowledge of the mac knows that you can boot up from a Mac OS X install CD and reset the admin password for the Mac, thus enabling anyone to login again, and thusly, any of your folders that are set to "auto unlock at login" are open for the taking. SO if someone DOES steal your Mac, resetting the admin password will give them access to locked folders.

Hence why I was worried about the autounlock feature in the first place.

greg

#3
Quote from: "ravedog"Setting up your mac to require a password to login is great for thwarting the casual user from accessing your Mac, however, anyone with have the technical knowledge of the mac knows that you can boot up from a Mac OS X install CD and reset the admin password for the Mac, thus enabling anyone to login again, and thusly, any of your folders that are set to "auto unlock at login" are open for the taking. SO if someone DOES steal your Mac, resetting the admin password will give them access to locked folders.

Actually this is not true, and it's good that you bring it up because it seems to be a common misconception (perhaps this was true for an early version of OS X?).  When you do that, you do change the account password, but the keychain password (where the folders' passwords are stored) remains the same, and requires that the user enter the previous password to update it.

Otherwise it would be a huge security risk to anyone who lost their laptop, as users tend to reuse their passwords for lots of things.
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

ravedog

#4
Yeah I forgot the dear old keychain.  :oops: So yeah, you can reset master password, and login, but you cannot access anything that is in need of of the KC. Brilliant! so we both WIN! Thanks for putting up with my back n forth!