Messages

Forgive me if this question seems dumb but please would you explain how to use GPG Tools to verify the signed message in the page source from Safari? 

I've tried copying and pasting it to a text file but receive a verification error when I try to use the OpenPGP: Validate service.

Hmm, you are right, this is odd, I might need to speak with the GPGTools team about this, as it's not verifying on my end either now (it seems it was signed with a key that is a subkey of A884B988, but why it fails to verify even on *my* machine, even after re-signing, I do not fully understand).

Don't panic though: as of September 14, 2014 10:48PM PDT, we still haven't received a NSL letter or anything of the sort.

If this problem isn't fixed within two weeks of this message posting, consider that a sign that the FBI *has* been here (or I got hit by a bus).

[Go to Folder...]

What happens if you try to manually eject the folder? You can do this by choosing Go to Folder... from the Finder's Go menu, and pasting in: ~/Library

In there you should see a folder called Mail. Try right-clicking on it and choosing Eject, let us know what happens.

We introduced a fix for a related problem in 3.6 that is causing this. It can happen depending on your finder settings:



For now, try playing around with those setting until you get it how you like it. We'll work on addressing this situation on our end too (for a future update).

[better than the PD you get from TrueCrypt]

I think this is a very important point. I know Greg acknowledged it but I'd like to explore it a little more. Before its mysterious demise, I used TrueCrypt. When creating a hidden volume with it, there is zero trace on my computer of this hidden volume or its contents. It seems irrelevant to me to allow the creation of multiple folder sets if the a sparsebundle of the encrypted contents of these folders is located in plain site on my computer for all to see. That's not plausible deniability. In fact quite the opposite, there's zero deniability to the existence of encrypted contents in my Espionage folders. Or am I missing a trick?

It sounds like there's misunderstanding going on.

You have very strong Plausible Deniability with Espionage: better than the PD you get from TrueCrypt.

Ishan: right now you can accomplish half of what you want.

Have your script simply run this command:

Code Select Expand

hdiutil detach /path/to/your/encrypted/folder

This way you can ensure the folder is locked before doing the sync. For now, you'll need to manually unlock it again.

This type of automation stuff is on our TODO list though. :)

You can email them to support@taoeffect.com. If you need to encrypt your email with GPG, our public key is https://www.taoeffect.com/other/A884B988.asc

Greg

Well, I've made some progress. The problem was caused by DrivePulse, a feature of Drive Genius 3, which constantly monitors the drive for problems. Turning this off allows my Mail folder to lock. Turning it back on blocks locking.

Awesome! Congrats on figuring that out, and actually this is a known issue, I should have remembered to ask. I just created an issue right now to auto-detect Drive Genius and warn users about this conflict so that hopefully this won't happen again.

Folder actions are still not working properly, either to unlock or lock.  I have to manually quit Mail before it will lock. If I try to lock with Mail running I get a Critical Alert.

What does it say? Could you post more logs that contain that error?

Once Mail is locked I have to separately lock the com.apple.mail folder.  The problem on unlocking is as I've previously described (a manual click on the "i" is needed.)

Yes, this we'll have fixed in the next release, please allow us some time though as one of our core devs is on vacation and won't be back until after August 3rd. We'll try to fix this before then but I can't guarantee we'll be able to.

One question: I see that Library>Containers also contains a folder called "com.apple.MailServiceAgent".  Is there any need to encrypt this?

Thanks for all your help!

It doesn't seem to contain anything of value on my end, but verify for yourself. Check folders that don't have the little arrow in their icon (those are aliases that point to the real location of the folder so they can be skipped).

Keep us posted on this. We'll also make sure that the unlock/size calc bug is fixed for the next bugfix update.

OK, thank you for that very helpful description! Please ask us, btw, if you think you should re-install Mavericks, as that's a very long process that we don't want you to have to go through if it's unnecessary (it wasn't necessary in this case).

The "clicking on the info icon to unlock com.apple.Mail" problem looks it's due partly to a bug in Espionage (the size of the folder is calculated synchronously with the unlock operation; it should be asynchronous), and partly because of how huge your Mail folder is. Somewhat comedically, you were "saved" by another bug that interrupted the folder size calc and allowed the unlock to proceed (clicking the Info icon shouldn't disrupt the folder size calculation).

The reason the folder fails to lock, however, doesn't seem to have anything to do with the above, but rather it may simply be that something is using the Mail folder and preventing it from locking. You said you "left Mail unlocked for several hours to allow Spotlight to finish indexing", but then you restored the folder. That sortof defeats the purpose, as now you'll need to leave it unlocked again and let Spotlight finish. I suspect that's why the folder isn't locking (because Spotlight is madly indexing it).

This has been a very productive system log! Several bugs found from it! Thanks very much, and let us know if leaving the folder unlocked for a few hours to let Spotlight finish (you can keep Activity Monitor open and sort processes by CPU usage to keep tabs on Spotlight. 'mdworker' and 'mds' is Spotlight).

Thanks for the log nomolo!

Strangely there's no mention of the com.apple.mail folder in it. Did you make sure to setup folder actions (for the Mail folder) to lock and unlock the com.apple.mail folder?

Also, you are right that very large Mail folders could result in some problems *initially*. The reason for this is that Spotlight has to re-index all of your email after you encrypt it (it stores its index within the disk image, which is good as otherwise it would leak data outside of the encrypted folder).

So I recommend doing the following:

1. Restart.
2. Make sure your folder actions are setup properly for the Mail folder (to open Mail and lock/unlock com.apple.mail).
3. Unlock Mail and let your computer sit there with it unlocked for like an hour (at least until you stop seeing activity from Spotlight/"mdimporter" in the Activity Monitor app). Make sure to not turn your computer off, and make sure the folders aren't set to autolock while you're waiting for Spotlight to re-index the folders.

If that doesn't help please let us know!

Thanks again for the system log!

OK - thanks - I stand corrected, but still feel that the process isn't clear specially as you've always prided yourselves on making software that's easy for non-techies to use. I've removed the fake disk images - they were easy to identify in my case as I've stored my real ones on a completely separate internal drive.

Thanks for your patience and I won't trouble you again... :)

No worries, and let us know if you have any other questions!

Plausible deniability is a very difficult concept for us to explain without throwing too much text at users to read. We've tried our best, but alas our best isn't always enough!

OK - but the creation of fake images isn't optional - as far as I recall if you select zero as a disk space, you can't actually progress the setup - you need to select a number. If I'm wrong about that I apologise, but I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

This is not true. You are welcome to install Espionage afresh on some other computer to see what happens. If you do, this is what you will see: if you select zero space in the first screen (the one with the pie chart), it will let you proceed with the setup. It will then show you a progress bar as it fills the database with fake folder sets, and then you can proceed to using Espionage.

In any case, the instructions weren't clear at that point. I've now created fake disk images, but where are they and can I 'revert' that process?

Thanks again

If you told Espionage to create fake disk images, they will be located in this folder (usually alongside real disk images):

/Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3/Data/

The only way to separate the real from the fake is to open each of your folder sets and make a note of each of the real disk images (in the Folder Details view). Then by process of elimination you can figure out which ones are fake.

[fake folder sets]

sorry to persist, I just like to understand exactly what software suppliers are 'installing' on my computer.

No reason to apologize! These are all excellent questions that you are asking and they highlight that we could have done a better job at explaining what is going on in the setup assistant.

OK - thanks...so if they don't take up significant space why are you asked to allocate disk space during the set up...

This is explained perhaps in more detail on our blog, but the reason is because Espionage can create two different types of fake data: fake folder sets, and fake disk images.

Disk images actually do take up a decent amount of space, and this is why that part of the setup is optional. So when you chose to not create any fake disk images, Espionage didn't create them, but it did still create fake folder sets because again, those take almost zero space.

Also, where exactly do these Folder Sets 'live' - they're not visible in the espionage folder list - and can I be sure that if (when) I unistall espionage, all the components of the app will be removed

They live inside a single file, what we call "Espionage's database". It's right here:

/Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3/database3

There are up to 40 backups of this file located in this folder:

/Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3/Backups/

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to let us know! :)

Hi enkaytee,

Folder Sets are not folders. They are tiny encrypted lists in Espionage's database that do not take up any significant space on your computer. The fake folder sets are mandatory because they are "all gain and no pain" (in other words, there is no downside to having them, only an upside).

I hope that helps clear things up, let us know if you have any other questions!

Thanks... your reply is crystal clear.

Unfortunately the folder contains items I'd like to retain. Have the stuff backed up on an external hard drive but would be easier to keep it in tact if at all possible.

Backups has a bunch clear up to 2014-07-20. All info is original so all backups should be the same, unless there's some kind of automatic incremental added info.

The "Data" folder has 5 items ... 2 with .sparse bundle; another folder marked Temp with 3 folders in that; a database3 file and license file.

So, could you describe in more detail the history of this issue? Are you saying that you were a longtime user of Espionage 3 prior to 3.6, that everything worked fine and unlocked all the time, then you updated and suddenly it's no longer accepting passwords that it used to accept (repeatedly) without problems?

Or is your situation different (if so, how)? BTW, if you need to contact us via email about this, you can do so by emailing support@taoeffect.com and referencing this thread.