Comments on: Espionage Review: Easily Secure Your Files

By: idrive

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By: Karl

Karl — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 05:51:36 +0000

I agree with milke.

By: Karl

Karl — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 05:49:09 +0000

The Espionage removal tool didn’t work for me and now I’m having trouble removing remaining files from the application. I ran the removal option from the Espionage menu and it failed each time I tried it. I restarted and it still didn’t work. I now have iSpy and EspionageHelper running (invisible) on my Ma and the Espionage app stuck in my trash!

By: macZOT! » Espionage

macZOT! » Espionage — Sat, 15 May 2010 05:00:50 +0000

[...] Fuel Your Apps Review (v2.0.8) “ Espionage does exactly what it claims to, and makes managing secure data remarkably easy. [...]

By: GregorySmith

GregorySmith — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:43:34 +0000

Thanks for sharing great insights to us,your reader.

By: JXL24

JXL24 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:52:58 +0000

Subsequently a filter preselects small text fragments that contain strings of the same type as the expected answer. ,

By: macZOT! » Espionage

macZOT! » Espionage — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:52:31 +0000

[...] MacApper Review of 2.0.2 “ Espionage does exactly what it claims to, and makes managing secure data remarkably easy. [...]

By: Diana

Diana — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:05:55 +0000

HI Mike and all,
you wrote that there is no elegant solution to folder encryption, unless it is supported natively by the file system… but i have to say
that the most easy way to save your files and secure any kind of data is by using secure USB drive! You can take SanDisk secure drive
and control it from anywhere.

Diana. N
Fort lLauderdale

By: itistoday

itistoday — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:06:10 +0000

Perhaps we’ll just have to agree to disagree then, because for me this application does exactly what it says — it encrypted my Mail folder. I don’t know of any other app that lets me encrypt my email. It certainly would be cool if Apple brought ZFS to OS X though, but for now you can’t use it for your boot volume.

By: milke

milke — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:55:52 +0000

No, I don’t have a better idea of how it should be done, as a matter of fact I think there isn’t one. I wrote in my first comment: “there is no elegant solution to folder encryption, unless it is supported natively by the file system”. Unfortunately, I made a typo, so it turned out being “there is on elegant solution…”.

I really have got nothing against these guys and this app, I just think it’s misleading. It is NOT folder encryption as it claims to be. Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t want an application moving my data around while misleading me they are still somewhere else. And I certainly don’t want to hunt for invisible sparse disk images to delete them once I deleted link to them (for which the app tried to misled me again as being the original folder). I’d rather prefer app offering me a possibility to make modifiable encrypted sparse disk image, so I clearly see where my secured and where my original data is.

The reason I mentioned ZFS is because it supports file/folder encryption on the file system level. And that’s, in my opinion, the only way to implement real folder encryption when a folder really stays being that particular folder, not being replaced with link to some dislocated content.

By: itistoday

itistoday — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:43:07 +0000

@milke Maybe that’s true for a few users, but most Mac users that I know personally understand what an “alias” is, and so when they see that arrow icon they know it’s not the folder. And even if they do get confused, I think it’ll be pretty clear to them what happened if they do anything with the folder from the app itself.

Do you have a better idea of how this should be done? I see that you mentioned ZFS, I don’t know much about that, but that would require users to reformat their drive, and as far as I’m aware ZFS doesn’t have these sorts of capabilities built-in.

By: milke

milke — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:28:35 +0000

@ itistoday

Please, read the first two steps of my previous post. Ordinary user would think that the (used to be locked) folder is PERMANENTLY DELETED.

By: itistoday

itistoday — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:58:47 +0000

@milke Of course they are, how else would you be able to view them?? You unlocked the folder, so now it’s unlocked, and as the owner of the folder, you can view its contents.

By: milke

milke — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:48:04 +0000

Okay, “lock” a folder manually and then:

1. “Unlock” it with correct password (notice how its icon gets symlink/alias arrow badge in the left-bottom corner.

2. Move to trash that unlocked folder.

3. Empty the trash (at this point one would assume all content “that used to be protected hence is very important” is permanently deleted, so nobody can see it any more).

4. Open Terminal.app and type “cd /Volumes” (no quotes) and press ENTER.

5. Type “ls -la” in the terminal and press ENTER. You’ll see in a list a directories, some of them contain “mounted” or “espionage” or something like that (I can’t check it now since my trial period expired and I didn’t purchase) in their name.

6. Type “cd that_espionage_mounted_name_I_explained_above” and press ENTER.

7 Type “ls -la”, press ENTER and there you go; all your secured and secret files you thought you’ve permanently deleted are right there in front of you, waiting to be opened.

By: itistoday

itistoday — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:46:33 +0000

@milke, actually that’s not true since it uses UNIX permissions to protect the mounted folders, another user can’t access them in /Volumes.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:10:12 +0000

If you use an “Application Template” the folders get unlocked as soon as you quit the application and if you want to lock a folder manually you just righ-click it and choose “Lock”.

I don’t really understand where the problem with this approach is.

By: milke

milke — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:40:39 +0000

When,oh when will people understand there is on elegant solution to folder encryption, unless it is supported natively by the file system?! So, we have to wait for Apple to either implement file encryption in the HFS+, or to completely switch to ZFS.

I really dislike applications moving my (supposed to be secret) data all over the place, without me knowing that. And that is exactly what this application does. It makes hidden sparse disk image out of your encrypted folder and move original to trash. Worse, once you “unlock” your “locked” folder, the disk image mentioned is mounted, the original folder is deleted and replaced with symlink to mount point.

And now cream on top of the cake: move your “unlocked protected folder” (symbolic link actually) to the trash. Empty the trash. You’ll continue your life believing your secured data are deleted forever, nobody can see them. The sad reality is that encrypted sparse (encrypted though) image is still eating your disk space and will continue doing so (‘cos you can’t see it easily). Even worse, the disk image WILL REMAIN MOUNTED as long as you don’t logout or reboot. It just take someone to browse into /Volumes directory and have full insight into your secret and “protected” data.

Off course, one could say “off course you’ll logout and when another person login with different name, the disk image will be unmounted”. Correct, but why do I need to “lock” a folder in such a case anyway?

A-? I don’t think so.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:25:52 +0000

I really like the idea of having easily accessible encrypted folders on my harddrive and therefore bought this handy little application.

The developers are also very quick in replying to any support question you might have.

Greetings