Messages

691

Espionage 2 Tips / Using Chronosync (or similar apps) to synchronize folders

« on: April 20, 2009, 11:21:08 PM »

Say you have Espionage installed on two computers on the same internal network, and you'd like to have an encrypted folder that's shared between these two computers. With normal folders you might use a program such as ChronoSync (with Apple File Sharing) to accomplish this task, but with Espionage, you can still use ChronoSync! There's just some things that you need to keep in mind:

• On both machines, have ChronoSync added to Espionage's whitelist.
• Only sync the folders when both the destination and the source folders are locked.
• On the machine you're syncing to, before syncing, disable all of the encrypted folders that are about to be synced. This is only required if you're syncing across the network using Apple file sharing. If you're syncing to a folder that's on an attached USB or Firewire drive, the folder is already "disabled".
• Never do a bi-directional sync on an encrypted folder, sync one way or the other only. You can switch directions at future syncs.

That's about it. To summarize the important points: make sure that ChronoSync (or your favorite synchronization app) is whitelisted, and that you only actually perform the sync operation when all folders that will be synced are locked (or disabled).

692

Espionage 2 / Re: 'More' contextual menu disabled

« on: April 20, 2009, 11:07:35 PM »

Hi nomolo, it may still be that Logitech's installed its "Scroll Enhancer", check the logitech post to see if those files exist on your computer.  Otherwise, don't worry, we're currently working on an awesome little diagnostic app that will be finished very soon (hopefully today) that you can use to send us a bunch of diagnostic information that should help us quickly fix this problem. I will reply to this thread again once that's finished.

693

Espionage 2 / Re: Possible to encrypt Entourage database?

« on: April 18, 2009, 02:03:44 PM »

Sure thing, and another way you'll know is if Espionage suddenly gets an Entourage app template (keep an eye on the release notes).

694

Espionage 2 / Re: Possible to encrypt Entourage database?

« on: April 18, 2009, 01:49:02 AM »

Hey Jo!

Although we wanted to, we did not include an application template for Entourage because of a bug in it associated with how it stores its emails for Spotlight.

Essentially, while there's no problem at all encrypting the Entourage database located here:

Code: [Select]

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2008 Identities/your identity
There is a problem with its Spotlight data which it stores here:

Code: [Select]

~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Microsoft/Entourage
That folder contains Spotlight-readable versions of all of your Entourage email so that you can search for it in Spotlight.  If you don't care about that ability then you can go right ahead and encrypt your entourage database and disable its Spotlight support in the preferences.

If you try to encrypt Entourage's metadata folder, Entourage will ignore it and will not update it as new emails arrive. We *have* contacted Microsoft's Mac Business unit about this problem a while ago, and they replied to us saying that they would look into the issue, but so far I don't think they've done anything about it. Please feel free to contact them though and let the know they should fix it!

To answer your other question, yes, it would be backed up encrypted. Though again, we encourage you to also make use of Espionage's built-in backups because they make restoring a folder easy.

695

Espionage 2 / Re: Error when trying to change to login keychain

« on: April 17, 2009, 05:38:27 PM »

We've quickly thrown together a simple tool called TEDiagnosticTool that gathers many of the files that we would normally ask you to find yourself.  Unfortunately we did not have time to make it very nice and automated (we will improve it at some point though).  For now, just run it, go through the steps, leave the checkboxes selected. It will then quit and open a Finder window with a folder named "TEDT-XXXXXX" (where the X's are numbers) selected.  Right-click on this folder, compress it into a zip file, and email it to our support address.  This should give us the information needed to figure out why Espionage is misbehaving on your system.

Edit: The tool has been updated, it's very much automated now. It should gather the information, zip it up, and send it to us without much intervention on your part (if all goes well).

696

Espionage 2 / Re: Error when trying to change to login keychain

« on: April 15, 2009, 11:03:46 PM »

I'm sorry to hear about the continuing problems. We wouldn't be too thrilled either if Espionage caused such behavior, but thankfully this seems like a special case. We're going to write a simple diagnostic application that will gather various log files and other information (such as settings, file paths, etc) that will help us understand what's going on.

In the meantime, was Espionage ever successfully working for you? Based on that log it looks like you may have already encrypted some folders. Are you encrypting any folders over a network, or perhaps ones in Dropbox?

697

Espionage 2 / Re: Online Backup?

« on: April 14, 2009, 01:50:30 AM »

We have not tested Espionage with Amazon's S3 backup service, but any backup service that is based around folders accessible from the Finder will work.

For example, if you use Dropbox, you can set your backup destination to the Dropbox folder and everything will upload efficiently, taking full advantage of the bands in sparsebundles.  We have also tested similar services like SugarSync and Mozy.  The same concept applies, just set your backup destination to a folder that these services backup.  For more information, see the help topic "Backing up protected folders" in Espionage's built-in help documentation.

698

Espionage 2 / Re: Error when trying to change to login keychain

« on: April 11, 2009, 05:56:03 PM »

That's odd, can you unlock a folder by unchecking the "Locked" checkbox in Espionage?  I suspect that if this is the case then you shouldn't be able to do that.

Since we haven't received any reports of this before I don't think this is a widespread bug (and we're unable to reproduce it here), but it would help us see what's going wrong if you could send the relevant information from the system log that's output when you attempt to switch to the login keychain. The system log is accessible from the Espionage Help menu, and a video that shows how to use it is available here. Please send the log to our support email address (don't post it to this forum).

You can get around the problem by doing this:

• Disable all of the folders that you have in Espionage by unchecking the Enabled checkbox (and don't forget to press "Save Changes")
• After all folders are disabled, move all of them to some temporary location that's different from their current location.
• In Espionage, remove all of the folders from Espionage by pressing the minus button (or pressing the backspace key).
• Espionage will attempt to restore the folders, but since they have been moved it will just complain about not being able to find them
• Switch to using the login keychain. Now there are no passwords to migrate so it should work.
• Move all of the folders back to their original locations.
• Re-add each folder to Espionage using the same password and encryption settings that you used for the folder previously. Espionage will quickly re-add them without re-encrypting them.

Sorry about this problem, the keychain can be odd sometimes and we're actually planning on moving away from it.

- Greg

699

Espionage 2 / Re: Error when trying to change to login keychain

« on: April 10, 2009, 04:39:41 PM »

Have you tried logging out and logging back in and trying it again?

700

Espionage 2 Tips / Disabling Spotlight for a folder

« on: April 10, 2009, 12:32:46 AM »

When unlocking a folder, you may notice that Spotlight takes a couple of seconds to import the Spotlight index associated with the folder:



While this does not mean that the entire contents of the folder are being re-indexed (that only happens the very first time the folder is unlocked), it can still be annoying, especially if you have many folders set to autounlock when you login.

Thankfully, turning off this behavior for a particular folder is simple:

1. Open the Spotlight preferences and click the Privacy tab:



2. Unlock the folder and open it in the Finder.
3. Click and hold the mouse button down on the folder icon in the toolbar until it changes color, then while continuing to hold down the left mouse button, drag it onto the Privacy list:



That's it.  To re-enable Spotlight support for that folder simply remove the folder from the Spotlight privacy list.

701

Espionage 2 Tips / Using Dropbox to synchronize folders across machines

« on: April 02, 2009, 11:40:43 PM »

UPDATE! - These instructions are for storing Espionage'd folders within Dropbox, which is not recommended (though possible). For new instructions on how to encrypt your Dropbox folder safely, see this blog post.

Note: While this tip is for Dropbox, similar (if not exact) considerations can be taken to synchronize Espionage'd folders via different means

We received a support email with the following question from Alan:

Can I somehow configure Espionage to work with Dropbox so I can use my Espionage folders on multiple systems? I see how the backup works, but I was hoping to be able to keep a single Espionage folder in my Dropbox and have it sync on both machines.

While it is possible, currently we do not recommend it because there is no explicit support for Dropbox built-in to Espionage, and because Dropbox changes how the Finder behaves this causes some issues with Espionage when using it to sync folders (as you mentioned though, using it as a backup destination is fine).

If you still want to try though, here's how to do it (we recommend using a dummy test folder first):

• Add Dropbox to Espionage's whitelist on both machines
• Encrypt a folder on the first Mac in your Dropbox and then make sure that it's locked.
• On the second Mac you should soon see your locked Espionage'd folder, wait for it to complete transferring.
• Add that folder to Espionage on the second machine using the *same settings and password*

Finally, you'll have to make sure the two Espionage's are in sync by making sure that the folder is in the same state that the other Espionage expects.  In other words, after you finish working with the folder on one Mac, lock it and do not unlock it on the other mac until both sides have finished receiving the changes. The other Mac's Espionage should expect the folder to be locked as well.

Some other things to keep in mind:

• Whenever you lock or unlock the folder, the entire contents will be resent to Dropbox because the disk image is being moved. (See the built-in help topic "How does Espionage work?" for more information)
• You might have to whitelist any helper apps that Dropbox might use on both machines. You'll know if the password prompt appears on either machine.  You can whitelist it from the prompt itself, just click the blue button in the lower-left of the prompt. To see the full path of the application that's attempting to access the folder, hover the mouse over the text that says: "The application '___' wants access to the folder:"
• Since Dropbox changes how the Finder behaves a little bit by injecting code into it, you may see the password prompt appear by itself after locking a folder
• Using large folders with Dropbox is discouraged since Dropbox will re-upload the entire encrypted data each time because Espionage moves the hidden disk image each time the folder's locked status is changed

702

Espionage 2 Tips / Ensuring optimal Time Machine backups

« on: April 02, 2009, 11:24:51 PM »

These instructions require at least Espionage 2.8

Because Espionage moves a disk image each time a folder is locked or unlocked, Time Machine may end up backing up more than it needs to.

To ensure efficient backups with Time Machine, you can either make sure to run Time Machine when all folders are in the same locked state as they were during the previous backup, or, now with 2.8 you can prevent Time Machine from backing up a folder altogether (and use Espionage’s backups instead) for specific folders:



Stay tuned for more improvements in this area…