Folder Sets and Plausible Deniability

Started by tzugo, September 21, 2013, 09:27:18 AM

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Murraci

Quote from: zsolt on August 17, 2014, 11:22:37 AM
I'm glad it looks better to you now. If you have any further suggestions, just let us know.

I'm also wondering how to restore backups. Let's say my computer dies and I have a bunch of sparsebundles in my dropbox. How can I remount these on a new computer with another copy of Espionage?

Thanks for your help.

zsolt

Each protected folder requires 3 pieces of Info: the disk image password (stored in the Espionage database), the disk image itself, and the mount point folder which is essentially an empty folder in predefined path and with predefined name.

So to bring the folders alive on another Mac you need to make sure these 3 pieces are available.
By default espionage stores it's data in the home folder/LIbrary/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3, so if you restore this folder on the new mac into this very same location then Espionage will start up showing all the protected folders. The only thing which might be missing are the mount point folders. But this is easy to fix, just create an empty folder for each protected folder in Espionage, click onto small "i" near the folder name in Espionage and with mount point drop down menu, choose the empty folder you created, this should be it.

Let me know if anything unclear.

Rgds
Zsolt
Follow @espionageapp on twitter for news! | For general Mac support, please visit Mac Me Support

Murraci

Quote from: zsolt on August 18, 2014, 11:50:05 PM
Each protected folder requires 3 pieces of Info: the disk image password (stored in the Espionage database), the disk image itself, and the mount point folder which is essentially an empty folder in predefined path and with predefined name.

So to bring the folders alive on another Mac you need to make sure these 3 pieces are available.
By default espionage stores it's data in the home folder/LIbrary/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3, so if you restore this folder on the new mac into this very same location then Espionage will start up showing all the protected folders. The only thing which might be missing are the mount point folders. But this is easy to fix, just create an empty folder for each protected folder in Espionage, click onto small "i" near the folder name in Espionage and with mount point drop down menu, choose the empty folder you created, this should be it.

Let me know if anything unclear.

Rgds
Zsolt

Ah OK. The password was the part I was struggling with. Got it all now. So I need to be backing up the database as well as the images.

Thanks again.

Murraci

Quote from: zsolt on August 18, 2014, 11:50:05 PM
Each protected folder requires 3 pieces of Info: the disk image password (stored in the Espionage database), the disk image itself, and the mount point folder which is essentially an empty folder in predefined path and with predefined name.

So to bring the folders alive on another Mac you need to make sure these 3 pieces are available.
By default espionage stores it's data in the home folder/LIbrary/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3, so if you restore this folder on the new mac into this very same location then Espionage will start up showing all the protected folders. The only thing which might be missing are the mount point folders. But this is easy to fix, just create an empty folder for each protected folder in Espionage, click onto small "i" near the folder name in Espionage and with mount point drop down menu, choose the empty folder you created, this should be it.

Let me know if anything unclear.

Rgds
Zsolt

OK so to test a backup, I copied the whole com.taoeffect.Espionage3 folder to my dropbox and deleted the orignal from my harddrive. I then restored it with the dropbox copy (/Library/Application Support/) and tried to open Espionage. I get a message saying there was an error loading the database.

Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks

zsolt

Well why on Earth to Dropbox. I mean it shouldn't do anything wrong, but still, Dropbox is doing its own wizardry which we might not know into detail.
Why not just rename the folder start espionage then rename it back.
Did you make a copy of the folder?
Do you have a backup?
Do you have any valuable data protected in there in Espionage protected?
Right now I have no idea what could have go wrong, but if you have no data to lose or if you have another copy of the folder, then we can start from there.

Rgds
Zsolt
Follow @espionageapp on twitter for news! | For general Mac support, please visit Mac Me Support

Murraci

#20
Quote from: zsolt on August 20, 2014, 08:22:35 AM
Well why on Earth to Dropbox. I mean it shouldn't do anything wrong, but still, Dropbox is doing its own wizardry which we might not know into detail.
Why not just rename the folder start espionage then rename it back.
Did you make a copy of the folder?
Do you have a backup?
Do you have any valuable data protected in there in Espionage protected?
Right now I have no idea what could have go wrong, but if you have no data to lose or if you have another copy of the folder, then we can start from there.

Rgds
Zsolt

There is nothing important there now but I have no other copy of the folder. I'm just testing the application before deciding whether to trust it. Why dropbox? Because it's in the cloud. It's a backup that's not dependent on hardware. Copying a folder into dropbox doesn't alter it in any way. If I put it back where it came from it should work just like it was restored from anywhere else. Should it not? Simply renaming the folder doesn't perform the test I wish to perform. I want to know I can make restore my data from a backup if my computer dies or is stolen. Thus far, I haven't been able to.


zsolt

Ok, important is that we did not loose any data, and I'm very much glad that you are testing the product before going productive, this is how it should be.
If and what Dropbox does to the files we can just assume, but lets not go into detail here as it will take us nowhere and is in fact irrelevant.

I just tried the same thing as you and had no problems whatsoever.
So just to clarify:
- dropbox folder is not treated as an external volume but as an ordinary folder, so if you drag the com.tao folder into it, it will be not copied but moved, however you said you copied it. Does it mean that you intentionally copied it with copy paste, or with alt/option-drag or?
- did you quit espionage while doing this copy-delete-copy back operation?
- can you please try to reproduce it one more time?
- if it is reproducible, then I would like to make a remote session so that we can look into this together.
- to start from scratch, just quit espionage, delete or rename the com.taoeffect.Espionage3 folder and launch espionage again, it should go through the setup process again.

Please let me know how it went.

Thanks
Zsolt
Follow @espionageapp on twitter for news! | For general Mac support, please visit Mac Me Support

Murraci

Quote from: zsolt on August 20, 2014, 11:45:54 PM
Ok, important is that we did not loose any data, and I'm very much glad that you are testing the product before going productive, this is how it should be.
If and what Dropbox does to the files we can just assume, but lets not go into detail here as it will take us nowhere and is in fact irrelevant.

I just tried the same thing as you and had no problems whatsoever.
So just to clarify:
- dropbox folder is not treated as an external volume but as an ordinary folder, so if you drag the com.tao folder into it, it will be not copied but moved, however you said you copied it. Does it mean that you intentionally copied it with copy paste, or with alt/option-drag or?
- did you quit espionage while doing this copy-delete-copy back operation?
- can you please try to reproduce it one more time?
- if it is reproducible, then I would like to make a remote session so that we can look into this together.
- to start from scratch, just quit espionage, delete or rename the com.taoeffect.Espionage3 folder and launch espionage again, it should go through the setup process again.

Please let me know how it went.

Thanks
Zsolt

I used Command C & Command V so I copied. I can't remember if I quite Espionage whilst doing the move but probably not tbh. I've reproduced it there again as instructed but still no joy. Espionage is just going through the setup assistant now despite the folder being there (this started happening after I restarted my computer). So it's safe to say that Espionage completely doesn't recognise the whole folder.

I have a feeling the issue is something to do with my application support folder. Originally the com.taoeffect folder was hidden. To reveal it I had to perform the "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES" command in the Terminal. However, when I reproduced the folder from the copy in my dropbox, it wasn't a hidden file. Aside from that, it appears identical. Do you think this has something to do with it?

zsolt

I will be at home in about 2 hours from now, would you be available for a remote session, we will do it quicker.
If yes, you can mail me directly at macme@macmesupport.com

Rgds
Zsolt
Follow @espionageapp on twitter for news! | For general Mac support, please visit Mac Me Support

Murraci

Quote from: zsolt on August 21, 2014, 05:35:47 AM
I will be at home in about 2 hours from now, would you be available for a remote session, we will do it quicker.
If yes, you can mail me directly at macme@macmesupport.com

Rgds
Zsolt

Sounds good mate thanks.