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Messages - sjf_control

#1
I am getting the following errors in the console app every 10 seconds...

5/13/16 10:38:11.518 com.apple.kextd[51]: Untrusted kexts are not allowed
5/13/16 10:38:11.518 com.apple.kextd[51]: ERROR: invalid signature for com.taoeffect.ispy.kext, will not load
5/13/16 10:38:11.000 kernel[0]: Kext com.taoeffect.ispy.kext not found for unload request.
5/13/16 10:38:11.530 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.taoeffect.ispyd) Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

Running Espionage 3.6.5, OS X 10.11.4

Is ispy still in use in Verson 3, or is this something left over from a previous version.

Thanks
#2
Espionage 3 / Re: Restoring encrypted folders from
October 04, 2015, 08:42:56 AM
Worked like a champ!

One strange thing was occurring with one of my folders (although I worked around it). Seems when told to unlock the folder (toggle the switch UP), the folder would be unlock, but the switch would immediately return to the locked lower position -- even though the folder was still mounted. Toggling the switch up again would issue a "folder unlocked" notice, but then again return the switch to the lower position.  There was no way to actually get the folder to lock except to manually unmount it.

I fixed this by copying the contents to a new unencrypted folder, deleting the encrypted folder, then adding the new folder back in. Works fine now.

Thanks for the help.
#3
Espionage 3 / Restoring encrypted folders from
October 03, 2015, 01:22:40 PM
My primary mac has crashed. Fortunately I have a SuperDuper backup of the drive. I need to copy the encrypted folders/sparcebundles from the backup to my laptop until the iMac is repaired (or replaced).

I can see the sparcebundles in ~/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3.Data, and a bunch of database3... files in ~/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3.Backup

What is the best way to get these encrypted folders installed on the laptop and accessible. I have made a trial encrypted folder with the same password (from the iMac) if that is of any help.

Thanks for any help.
#4
By the way, am I properly understanding that version 2 will cease to work under Mountain Lion?
#5
Quote from: "greg"
Quote from: "sjf_control"And once the owner has given up the 'throw-away' password, the attacker has access to the information regarding which disk images are made available, right? So if there are still encrypted images of interest, he again requires the owner to give up yet another password until all disk images are revealed. Easy-peazy.

Well, in that case you'd be right, but the attacker would have to be very clever in this case. It's certainly possible they wouldn't know at all about the other existing disk images, and unlike the previous version, Espionage 3 allows you to change the location of the disk image to be wherever you like. If you're especially concerned about such a scenario occurring, you can tell Espionage to move the disk image to an external disk that you keep hidden somewhere (such as a USB stick).
You might be right if the only person you're worried about cracking your encryption is your 14-year old nephew.  :D
On the other hand, if its a professional forensic analysis, you'd be screwed.
#6
Quote from: "greg"
Quote from: "sjf_control"So what is to prevent an attacker from performing a simple search for all disk images, then requiring the owner (through force, or force of law) to provide passwords for any encrypted images found?

Namely that the user genuinely does not know what the password is to those disk images. This is information that only Espionage knows, and it's guarded by the user's master password. The magic is that, unlike the previous version, Espionage 3 doesn't divulge much information about what is encrypted. So a user can give up their master password to a "throwaway folder set", and that will give others access to those folders, while making it very easy to overlook the existence of another folder set (that protects the real important data). In other words, the question of *what* is encrypted is hard to answer with the new version whereas with the previous version the answer was in plain sight.

And once the owner has given up the 'throw-away' password, the attacker has access to the information regarding which disk images are made available, right? So if there are still encrypted images of interest, he again requires the owner to give up yet another password until all disk images are revealed. Easy-peazy.
#7
Quote from: "zsolt"Dear Acuraice,

I do not want to enter into a flaming here, just post my opinion.
I'm providing support for TaoEffect. I did not contribute to the design and decision related to V3, so it took me by surprise like you, the users.
At first I was kind of shocked like many of you. But as I moved on using it, I liked it more and more.

The click to unlock I do not miss at all, in fact I think it is good that it is removed because if you want to keep something secret then you do not write "this is secret" all over it, and a password prompt would do exactly that. Now the folder simply looks empty, or even better, you can put some dummy files into it, once the folder is unlocked they will be replaced by the real content, when you lock it again the dummy files will be back, perfect disguise.

The application protection that is a bit tougher to justify, but with 3.0.1 you will get it back, just it will not be as automated as in V2. You will have to add the relevant folders on your own (I will be happy to assist you, and I'm sure other users on the forum will submit their hints too, and you can enable the auto unlock for those folders. So once you log on the folders will unlock and once you log off the folders will lock. The only thing you will miss is: if you do not start the app, the folder will be nevertheless unlocked during your login session, yes, this is indeed a drawback, especially if you protect a folder of the app which you use only occasionally. Maybe Taoeffect comes up with some idea later on....

The password only protection was removed, simply because it was not safe enough, so we did not want to give the user the false feeling or being protected.

Regarding the crashes...you compare 2.8 with 3.0. The .8 iteration surely means something. The sad fact of life is that .0 versions of the software are for early adopters, it is tested, but testing it with a group of beta users agains having it running by all of you is surely a big difference.

So all we want is some patience.

It is also correct that the V2 can run in parallel with V3 so you can still keep your important data in V2 and test the V3 at the same time, and once you are confident you can move to V3....

Just my 2 cents...

Zsolt
Zsolt:
Much is made of the "plausible deniability" of an empty folder. However, when things are encrypted, the mount point is not the point of attack. If I were analyzing a computer looking for hidden/encrypted items, the mount points would not be where I'd look first - I'd be looking for disk images. Specifically encrypted images.

So what is to prevent an attacker from performing a simple search for all disk images, then requiring the owner (through force, or force of law) to provide passwords for any encrypted images found?

Unless I'm missing something, "plausible deniability" is more of a marketing gimmick than an actual feature.
#8
Espionage 3 / Re: NOT LAUNCHING AT STARTUP !!!
June 11, 2012, 03:03:49 PM
Welcome to Tao Effect's "New Coke"!  :D
#9
Espionage 3 / Re: Dropbox issue
June 02, 2012, 09:27:17 AM
Quote from: "Jason"I'm hung up on this step:

"On computer B, unlock Espionage and then drag the disk image onto the Espionage icon in the menubar to import the disk image. Enter the password that you copied in step 2 and choose create or choose an existing folder as the mountpoint (where you will eventually access the data):"

How do I enter the password that I copied in step 2?
It should prompt you for it when you drop the image onto the icon
#10
Espionage 3 / Re: Application Associations
May 29, 2012, 10:59:55 AM
Quote from: "greg"
Quote from: "sjf_control"Well, I am another customer who is (again) losing functionality.

Back in Version 1 (I think) I could set up shortcuts to data files in encrypted folders, then in order to bring up the application (Quickbooks), I'd click on the shortcut, Espionage would prompt for the password, and the app would open with the appropriate dataset open.  I lost that functionality with Version 2, and now have to click on the application shortcut directly, enter the password, and then select the appropriate dataset (if it wasn't the last one I used).  That added an additional step.

Now I lose that functionality too, and have to manually unlock the directory before starting Quickbooks?  And I'm guessing that I'll have to remember to lock the directory after quitting Quickbooks, too, or the files remain unencrypted.  The timed re-locking is not very useful to me. What happens if I leave Quickbooks running, and the time expires?  I can't image that would be a good thing in Quickbooks to suddenly lose access to it's data files.

I'm not sure about Quickbooks because I haven't ever used it. Is it a document-based application? By that I mean, an application that has document files that you can save wherever you want. Some applications store all of their data in a single folder and don't let you save individual documents. If it's a document-based app, you would encrypt a folder that contains your Quickbooks documents, and unlock it to access them. If the folder locks because of auto-lock while the document is open, then when you try to save the document you'll get an error (most likely saying that the application couldn't figure out where to save it). You just unlock the folder and save again.

No, it continuously reads/writes to it's database every time a change is made. There is no discrete "save" step.

It's too much effort to manually unlock and relock, and too error prone (forgetting to relock the files).  I think I'll stick to Espionage 2 until you guys come to your senses and restore the application functionality.   :)
#11
Espionage 3 / Re: v3 with dropbox
May 29, 2012, 06:27:07 AM
Quote from: "gregturnbull"Sorry. The protocol (not "you") suggests never updating the Dropbox folder from another non-esp3 device.
I'll run a test folder to check results.

I'm still not sure what your issue is. That statement, I'm sure, means that once a folder has been encrypted via esp3, and then located in the non-encrypted dropbox folder, any other machines with access to that Dropbox account should only use esp3 to access that encrypted folder. Other folders or files within the dropbox, that have not been encrypted, have nothing to do with Espionage and are still available like they've always been. So in other words, the "Dropbox folder" in your statement refers to the encrypted folder in the Dropbox, not the Dropbox itself -- make sense?
#12
Espionage 3 / Re: v3 with dropbox
May 28, 2012, 06:54:20 PM
Quote from: "gregturnbull"But you said not to touch them from devices not running esp3
Umm, I didn't tell you anything prior to my last post. I am a user, not support. I'm now totally confused about what you're doing, so I will back out of this thread and wish you good luck getting your problems fixed by the people paid to do so.  :mrgreen:
#13
Espionage 3 / Re: v3 with dropbox
May 28, 2012, 06:24:25 PM
I think you misunderstand. You don't want to encrypt the whole Dropbox acct. you just want to store specific encrypted folders in the Dropbox. Then they can be accessed from all machines that have access to that Dropbox.
#14
Espionage 3 / Delete empty folder set?
May 28, 2012, 10:46:52 AM
How do you delete an empty folder set?
#15
Espionage 3 / Re: Application Associations
May 28, 2012, 10:03:15 AM
Well, I am another customer who is (again) losing functionality.

Back in Version 1 (I think) I could set up shortcuts to data files in encrypted folders, then in order to bring up the application (Quickbooks), I'd click on the shortcut, Espionage would prompt for the password, and the app would open with the appropriate dataset open.  I lost that functionality with Version 2, and now have to click on the application shortcut directly, enter the password, and then select the appropriate dataset (if it wasn't the last one I used).  That added an additional step.

Now I lose that functionality too, and have to manually unlock the directory before starting Quickbooks?  And I'm guessing that I'll have to remember to lock the directory after quitting Quickbooks, too, or the files remain unencrypted.  The timed re-locking is not very useful to me. What happens if I leave Quickbooks running, and the time expires?  I can't image that would be a good thing in Quickbooks to suddenly lose access to it's data files.