Dangers of Updating your Mac and Apps

Started by jackmoore, April 23, 2010, 05:01:40 PM

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jackmoore

Hi, I want to password protect Apple Mail with your software app.  But I'm concerned that once I do this I may have future issues when I try to apply Apple update to the system that might include updates to Apple Mail and it's supports files (the ones that apparently get encrypted by Espionage).

Am I going to need to disable Espionage's images and restore it back whenever I want to apply Apple updates that may affect Apple Mail to be on the safe side here?

Also, your Search system here is pretty draconian.  If I try to search for the words Apple Mail Update or Updating it says the words are too generic and refused to do the search.  So this subject might have already been covered, but I'm not going to sift through each and every topic to find it.  Maybe loosen up on that search a little and potentially put the brakes on redundancy in this forum maybe.

Anyway, thanks for your time.  :mrgreen:

greg

#1
Quote from: "jackmoore"Am I going to need to disable Espionage's images and restore it back whenever I want to apply Apple updates that may affect Apple Mail to be on the safe side here?

There is very little chance of this being necessary. System updates update applications. For example, a system update could install a new version of the Mail application, but Mail's data would be left untouched until the next time you ran Mail. For example, between the update from 10.5 to 10.6 Mail updated its internal data, but everything went fine even though it was encrypted by Espionage.

QuoteAlso, your Search system here is pretty draconian.  If I try to search for the words Apple Mail Update or Updating it says the words are too generic and refused to do the search.  So this subject might have already been covered, but I'm not going to sift through each and every topic to find it.  Maybe loosen up on that search a little and potentially put the brakes on redundancy in this forum maybe.

Thanks for pointing this out! I've adjusted the board's search settings, hopefully it should be better now, let us know though if it's still flaky.
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DavidB

#2
Quote from: "greg"
Quote from: "jackmoore"
QuoteAlso, your Search system here is pretty draconian.  If I try to search for the words Apple Mail Update or Updating it says the words are too generic and refused to do the search.  So this subject might have already been covered, but I'm not going to sift through each and every topic to find it.  Maybe loosen up on that search a little and potentially put the brakes on redundancy in this forum maybe.

Thanks for pointing this out! I've adjusted the board's search settings, hopefully it should be better now, let us know though if it's still flaky.

It still seems to be the same.

David

greg

#3
QuoteIt still seems to be the same.

Hmm... What word did you search?
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greg

#4
Ah OK, this time it should be fixed. :-)
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DavidB

#5
Quote from: "greg"Ah OK, this time it should be fixed. :-)

Yes--it seems to work fine now. (I had been searching "keychain" and "keychain login," among other terms.)

David

cc1

#6
QuoteThere is very little chance of this being necessary. System updates update applications. For example, a system update could install a new version of the Mail application, but Mail's data would be left untouched until the next time you ran Mail. For example, between the update from 10.5 to 10.6 Mail updated its internal data, but everything went fine even though it was encrypted by Espionage.

Could you explain this more? If Mail's data is encrypted by Espionage and the installer attempts to access content in the protected folder for updating purposes, how would it be possible without first unlocking the protected data in that folder? I have a similar concern in locking Adobe Dreamweaver. The CS suite sometimes issues updates when Dreamweaver isn't running for instance, so theoretically if there were an update that needed access to DW's data folder and it happened to be locked by Espionage at the time, how would the update process be possible in that scenario?

BTW - loving Espionage so far, it's a fantastic piece of software. My only concern is with the updating of apps in the situation above (which I realize is probably rare as you mentioned).

Thanks!

greg

#7
Quote from: "cc1"
QuoteThere is very little chance of this being necessary. System updates update applications. For example, a system update could install a new version of the Mail application, but Mail's data would be left untouched until the next time you ran Mail. For example, between the update from 10.5 to 10.6 Mail updated its internal data, but everything went fine even though it was encrypted by Espionage.

Could you explain this more? If Mail's data is encrypted by Espionage and the installer attempts to access content in the protected folder for updating purposes, how would it be possible without first unlocking the protected data in that folder?

Sure, as I mentioned, system updates rarely ever touch application data, they only modify the application itself. I personally have never seen an installer from Apple that modifies app data, that's simply not how it's done.

QuoteI have a similar concern in locking Adobe Dreamweaver. The CS suite sometimes issues updates when Dreamweaver isn't running for instance, so theoretically if there were an update that needed access to DW's data folder and it happened to be locked by Espionage at the time, how would the update process be possible in that scenario?

That's a big *if*. You'll find out though if that happens, the password prompt will appear, and you'll be able to unlock the folder. The first access attempt by the updater could fail, and so the update might need to be re-run, but that's all that would happen. Again though, this is very unlikely to happen at all as installers/updaters 99.999% of the time update applications and not data.

QuoteBTW - loving Espionage so far, it's a fantastic piece of software.

Thanks! :-)

Cheers,
Greg, Tao Effect
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

cc1

#8
ah, makes me feel a lot better. thanks for the detailed explanation!