Clarification requested

Started by harringg, May 29, 2012, 07:47:17 PM

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harringg

I currently have a DevonThink Professional Office folder encrypted in Espionage2.  I launch DTPO and get prompted for a password, enter it, and access my databases, .dt2base files.  Quit DTPO and it re-encrypts it.  Perfect workflow.

/Users/MyAccount/Documents/DevonThinkProOffice/Locked-DTPO

If I read correctly, in Espionage3, I'll need to keep the folder unlocked while logged in or use FileVault (I've never used it before).  If I need to keep it unlocked all the time, whether DTPO is running or not, defeats the purpose of encryption.  Using FileVault defeats the purpose of upgrading to E3.

This is literally the only reason I use Espionage 2, that single folder, nothing else is encrypted with it.  My DTPO database contains taxes, paystubs, receipts, and other PII (personally identifiable information).

Should I stick with E2 in this workflow?

zsolt

#1
Hello Harringg,

You are correct, the application protection, i.e. the automatic unlock and lock when an application is lauched/quit is not present in V3.
The application protection started to become a challenge to maintain it working perfect so the V3 focused on being simple and reliable for a start. The application protection might show up again in future revisions but for the time being it is not there.

If you use a screen saver with password then your mac should be protected whenever started and you are not present, or if you put it to sleep and it requires password upon wake. If you log out or shut down, the V3 will lock the folder so you are safe again. If you use the unlock on logon option then you do not have to remember to unlock the folder before starting the app.

Indeed, it is not so convenient as in V2. So you can give it a second thought or stick to V2 for the moment.

Let me know if you have further questions.
Rgds
Zsolt

EDIT: as mentioned below, Espionage 3.5 makes this much easier now.
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pdadoc

#2
harringg-

Thanks so much for this post! This is *exactly* what I'm looking at espionage for, to use with DTPO. One question, if you happen to know.... If I want to encrypt only 1 or 2 of 4 databases, will it work to put those 1 or 2 in their own folder inside the DevonThink folder in the Documents folder (and then just encrypt that folder)? Or will DTPO only "see" the files in the one DevonThink folder?

zsolt

#3
Hello Harringg,

Now at the end I do not know if you want to use V2 or V3, so I do not know if your last question is related to V2 or V3. But in short, V2 uses so called symlinks to trick the finder or other application to think that the folder is there where it is expected, where it is in fact on a mounted disk image.
In some cases this did not work well and the apps would realize that it is not the real folder but a symlink.
V3 uses different mechanism where the transparency should be better and less or no apps will be aware that it is not the real folder.

But the best way to go is to simply test. Create a new DB and test with it, I do not believe that you can mess something up, but in case you do backups, then do one before you start :-)

Rgds
Zsolt
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harringg

#4
Quote from: "zsolt"Hello Harringg,

Now at the end I do not know if you want to use V2 or V3, so I do not know if your last question is related to V2 or V3. But in short, V2 uses so called symlinks to trick the finder or other application to think that the folder is there where it is expected, where it is in fact on a mounted disk image.
In some cases this did not work well and the apps would realize that it is not the real folder but a symlink.
V3 uses different mechanism where the transparency should be better and less or no apps will be aware that it is not the real folder.

But the best way to go is to simply test. Create a new DB and test with it, I do not believe that you can mess something up, but in case you do backups, then do one before you start :-)

Rgds
Zsolt

I never had any luck with v3 and DTPO. Now that 3.5 uses Folder Actions I wanted to download and try it, but get an error message that my trial period has expired.  Which it has, because when I last used v3 and it didn't work as I had been using v2 I abandoned it.

Does anyone have any real-world advice if DTPO and v3.5 with Folder Actions works since I can't try for myself.

zsolt

#5
You can reset the password by deleting the following folder

hold down the option key, go to "Go" menu in Finder and select Library from list.
Then go into Application support and rename the folder named com.taoefeect.Espionage3

Launch Espionage and it should start from scratch, then you can test again.

Rgds
Zsolt

NOTE: Only delete the com.taoeffect.Espionage3 folder if you don't have anything encrypted with Espionage 3. If you do have files encrypted with this folder and delete it, you will lose all of your data (unless you keep good backups, e.g. in Time Machine or something).
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greg

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harringg

Thanks for allowing the ability to re-trial v3.5!

I made a test .dtBase2 file, encrypted it, added some test documents to it, decrypted it and got the following message (see end of this message)

Was it something in my workflow, or has DTPO not been tested with Espionage 3.5?  Is the error message an issue with DTPO or Espionage is my question.

I'll do some more testing before moving my 2GB DTPO folder to Espionage's encryption.

Also, so I'm clear, the way it worked in Ev2, where I double click on DTPO in the Finder, it prompts me for a password, Ev2 unlocked the folder, I did my work, and quit DTPO and Ev2 locked the folder on exit and this IS NOT how Ev3.5 works?

I have to unlock in the Ev3.5 menu bar and then it unlocks the .dtBase2 folder and launches DTPO?

Is this scriptable (unlocking Ev3.5 folders)?  I'd like to invoke it via an AppleScript or some other method using Alfred v2.

---
Some files were left inside of this folder and couldn't be moved:

/Users/harringg/Documents/DTPO/13MBP.dtBase2/fa\rINt_GP

Details: Error during copy: "Settings.plist" couldn't be moved to "13MBP.dtBase2" because an item with the same name already exists.

Could not copy all of: /Users/harringg/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3/Data/Temp/fa\rINt_GP

See system log for more.
---

zsolt

#8
Hello, it is a bit difficult to understand what went wrong, but I suspect the the DTPO was running at the time you were encrypting the folder and somehow wanted to create a new plist when the original was deleted at the moment folder got locked.
So please make sure the app whose data you want to protect is not running at the moment you are adding the folder to espionage.

re scripting, no, I do not believe you can script it, unless you use UI scripting.

If you want to run Espionage in trial mode again, just quit it, delete the HomeFOlder/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3 folder and launch espionage again, it will start from scratch. WARNING: only delete the 'com.taoeffect.Espionage3' folder if you do not have any folders encrypted with Espionage 3! If you delete it otherwise, and don't have a backup of it, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DATA.

Let me know how it went.

Rgds
Zsolt
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