Espionage3.7.1

Espionage 3 is a BIG step back from version 2: they removed all cool features present in older version, application control, folder password protection and they step in AppStore, this means waiting for crucual updates (like the 3.0.1 that should fix encryption in system folders). It is more a downgrade, in my opinion...

Before I rely on a company to encrypt my data, the one problem I have is will that company be there 10 years from now? Will their software still be compatible with Mac OS 10.22? Or is this a fly by night company that will leave your data suddenly unusable years from now? I don't know yet. So I'm standing pat and watching this company. Does Espionage allow you to manage Sparse Encrypted Disk Images like Knox does? I would be very interested and probably buy it if it did. If the company croaks, at least Mac OS can decrypt the disk images.

A rather innocent and stupid question: I am using espionage 3 to encrypt my sensible data. When i am backing up my data with time machine, the encrypted espionage folders are not backed up like the rest of my non-encrypted-folders... Right? How can i include my espionage folders in the time-machine-backup on my mac? Thanks

Looks like nice software, but... no support for encrypted folders on network volumes. Most of my data resides on a centralised shared network, so cannot use Espionage for it... If it would have supported any volume, I might purchase a license.

Beware that if you want to open the encrypted files anywhere else other than the the mac you installed it on, you need to copy some hidden essential database files over as well. There are no warnings or reminder that you need to backup this database file if you ever lose the mac or want to recover the encrypted files. If you go to the forums of this app you'll see that there are tons of people who have lost their important files because of this very reason. The design of this part of the app is poor in my opinion. Hopefully you have a backup somewhere that isn't encrypted but that pretty much defeats the purpose of having this app..

What's really holding me back from using Espionage regularly is the lack of an iOS client. I would love to use this to protect my DropBox folder, but until I can access those files in iOS, it is less useful to me. I appreciate the advantages to using this on my computer, and I own a copy, but I find I don't use it as I might because of this lack.

I'm uninstalling Espionage 3 and reverting to Espionage 2 as I really dislike the way version 3 operates. From being asked to enter the unlock password at login, to the way it unlocks the folders, etc. I think version 2 is so much more transparent.

Not a comment but a question; might this offer an option to set up a secondary, "under duress" password that will, when entered, prompt Espionage destroy a key or small bit of data to render said data instantly useless?

Truecrypt is more rigorously audited.

I have been using Espionage over the last 3 years and it has been a good reliable app. As most of other users, I am always worrying when using a third party software to take care of such critical data as, for instance, emails. No doubt, Espionage does the job efficiently. Sadly, Lion and more recent OSX releases don't help to make it as easy to use as it was previously. But most importantly, the app is one thing, the service is another and on that side, Espionage deserves 5 stars. I recently had an issue and the support answered my need extremely fast, kindly (on a Saturday) and efficiently. And support is key to me for a security application: congratulation guys, and thanks for the work done!

For my purposes, Espionage has been a good reliable app. All I really want to do is keep sensitive documents well out of reach of anyone who gains access to my computer. My only complaint is that it doesn't hide the folder mountpoint. Rather than attempting to come up with innocuous folder names, I just hide the folder with another program. Of course, when I do that, Espionage tells me that the mountpoint is missing until I unhide the folder. Kind of irritating, but I can live with it.

notifications NOT WORKING with ML notification system!! only built in option works as it should, also initial login is slow as balls and spins endlessly and takes forever to unlock only 4 encrypted folders i have set to auto unlock. Also sometimes,once out of every 3 restarts of my computer then after entering the initial master password, 2 menubar icons appear in the menu bar as if 2 separate espionage apps were running at the same time. this used to happen before until i forced an uninstall of the older ispy.kext file,now its happening again. disgusting!Same bugs as before even with the latest update. how did the developers manage to screw up this awesome program so much ever since the 3.0 update? the older versions of espionage were faster,worked flawlessly and never caused any errors or problems. [comment edited for obscene language... please be civil]

Has conflicts with DrivePulse/Drive Genius. Have been trialling Espionage 3 and just couldn't get it to work i.e. almost every folder I dropped to be encrypted a got an error message saying 'resource in use', or something like that. I've sent an email to support but in the mean time have discovered that it has issues with Drive Pulse. The only work around is to turn Drive Pulse off, encrypt the folder then turn Drive Pulse on. Not very satisfactory if you're a Drive Pulse user. They have known about this issue for sometime now, 2011 at least, but no fix. This is just a heads up for everyone and not a critical review hence the stars. If it wasn't for this problem I would have trialled it a bit longer. Link to Drive Pulse issue on Espionage forum: http://www.taoeffect.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=370&p=1243#p1243

Hi, Purchased the app from App Store. It is still version 3.0.0. How come it is not updated? And where can I get the new one?

Espionage 3 is a BIG step back from version 2: they removed all cool features present in older version, application control, folder password protection and they step in AppStore, this means waiting for crucual updates (like the 3.0.1 that should fix encryption in system folders). It is more a downgrade, in my opinion...

Great piece of software. I bought it this morning after i watched a video on YouTube that went through all the various features. What sold me was the plausible deniability option! http://youtu.be/FHStJaeOH1w

I was a big fan of the original version of Espionage, and then again so with version 2. But I'm having trouble understanding what real (with the elimination of the "application association" feature) value this application now has over just creating encrypted disk images within Apple's Disk Utility. You still end up opening the encrypted data image, and then launching the application. Anybody?

As a registered user of Espionage 2 I'm really anxious to try Espionage 3.0 but the upgrade price policy of Tao Effect makers me hesitate. Tao offers a 50% discount on the full price until June 4th, but I need more time to try Espionage and I want a discounted upgrade price for registered users that lasts at least a year after commercial release of Espionage 3.0. IMO that's how to treat existing users right.

IMPORTANT to users who already had the earlier version of espionage installed and want to update correctly!!! Do NOT just mount the new version and replace the original,it will not automatically work perfectly in unison with the old versions settings,if you do that you will have two instances of espionage running (menu items) at the same time,the new one with no folders added to it and the old with the existing folders and passwords as before but no way to remove or restore the old folders to use with the newest version!! MORONS THEY ARE!! you must FIRST open your existing older version of espionage and manually restore/remove each folder you had previously encrypted with the older version taking note of which ones were locked and unlocked based on your auto unlock settings. I would suggest making a screenshot while the menu is displaying the locked and unlocked folders for future reference with the next step! Next after removing and restoring ALL of the encrypted folders you had previously working properly with the older version of espionage. Now uninstall the older application completely! Next mount and install the latest version of espionage(3.0) Then proceed to manually add/encrypt folders you had from before with the older version(this is where the screenshot will help you remember which folders you had encrypted before and also which ones were set to auto unlock and so forth. Finally if you were a lifetime customer,they should have emailed you with the license registration file,make a backup somewhere on your drive or external drive and follow their instructions to activate your license. Why didn't they simply have a way to update the existing app as before rather than doing it this way with an entirely new application process??? and if that was the only safe way to do it,why the hell didn't they tell existing users how to update properly to retain/maintain all of the existing folders they and already had configured properly???? Unbelievable how developers never test their products first in popular scenarios or are smart enough to include crucial information to help the customers who don't know jack about computers??? ps- You're welcome.

Bouht it as part of a bundle. Kept getting login errors when it 'failed to connect to iSpy server'. Got tired of same, decided Espionage was more trouble than it was worth ... uninstalled it. No more login errors. Joy is mine. If I'd actually used it, I suppose my mileage would have been different.

It would be nice if someone would come up with an app that allows MacOS X encrypted diskimages to be exchanged with WIndows users.

I bought an earlier version as part of a bundle and found that after setting up espionage I was getting lots of file errors from my Drive Genius DrivePulse monitor. I repaired the directory using DiskWarrior and things would be ok for a while and then I'd get the errors again. I finally de-activated Espionage and my errors have gone away. I'm using a Seagate Momentus Hybrid XT 500 GB HD in my MacBook Pro 17" (now 2.53 i5) 8 GB RAM, 10.6.7 I updated Espionage to the most recent version and will give it another try.

MacUpdate has their bundle on sale through today which includes 1Password. MacZot has Espionage on sale for 1/2 price today but says that 1Password and Knox (like Espionage) will go on sale for %40 off tomorrow (Dec 24) through Dec 26th. It seems odd that MacZot would sell two apps (Espionage & Knox) back to back. I haven’t ever used Espionage or Knox and I wonder if someone/anyone (Bueller?) can tell me the pros and cons of each and which is better and why. If so I’d appreciate it very much. I could update 1Password from version 2 to version 3 for $25. Or I could buy the $50 MacUpdate bundle w/ 1Password and then buy Espionage today at MacZot for $17.48 (50% off). Or I could wait until tomorrow and get a new 1Password version 3 plus Knox for $45. 1PW is $40 and Knox is $35 so 40% off of $75 would mean I could get them both for $45. So that’d be like paying the $25 upgrade fee to go from 1PW 2 to 1PW 3 and then paying $20 for Knox. But getting Espionage today is only $17.48 so only $2.50 cheaper than Knox–basically the same price. So it boils down to which one is better. Argh! Too many choices. Any ideas/thoughts on Espionage vs Knox as an encryption tool? Thanks.

This application may work just fine but where is the difference to encrypted dmg? There is no need to use filefault to encrypt the whole home folder. You can add as many encrypted dmg files as you like. Just open Apple's disk utility and create a new 500mb dmg file for whatever you like. This dmg than even work from an USB device on any Mac as this is a BUILD IN OS X FEATURE...

How does Espionage work with backups, like Time Machine and CrashPlan? My understanding is that Time Machine backs up RAM images which are unencrypted. Thanks!

I've been using this software for about 5 months. It has solved my security worries in an easy way. As I carry a MBP with sensitive data, I had no other choice, but to use FileVault (FV). The problem with that is that FV encrypts your entire home folder, with the big speed compromise. In case you use app with intensive harddisk use, you will get into troubles (for example GarageBand or FinalCut). You could move those files outside your home directory, but that means reorganize the way I use my computer, and I did not want that. Espionage lets you encrypt only the folders you want in the same way FV does (encrypted Apple disk images) in a way you usually wont even notice there are encrypted. It also comes with some application templates to help you encrypt, for example, all your Mail in a single step (it knows the folders needed to be encrypted and selects them automatically). The other VERY important thing is with backups. Espionage comes with some integration with TimeMachine , to block the backup of the protected folders and provide a more efficient way to backup them (More info about this on their web page). For now, it has been good enough for me. It also works with Dropbox. Support it's also very good and fast. Recommended in case you need to encrypt some folders and can't compromise the loose of harddrive speed of your entire home volume. Is this is not your case, FV could be just fine. Regards.

Encrypted disk images created by MacOS X may not be secure.

This app is quite useful for LOSING DATA. I only unlock my few Espionage folders when i need them. I'm a heavy "Default Folder" user and i have attempted to save data to an encrypted folder from an Open/Save dialog when unsure if i've formally unlocked it. I don't know if it's related to Default Folder (or maybe it's just using open/save dialog in general) but saving data to an encrypted folder while it is locked doesn't necessarily cause Espionage to demand the unlocking password or the dialog to complain. The saved file(s) go off to la-la land (meaning, god only know where). If one isn't extremely careful in all dealings with an espionage folder, it's very easy to get it detached from it's reference in the app/unlocking mechanism, and have nasty things happen to it leading to complete loss of the data. I reviewed the documentation and tried various things to no avail. Either the process doesn't quite work as advertised, or it needs to be made more straight forward and reliable. All I really know is the loss was related to one or more of the following: renaming the folder, moving the folder, saving from a standard OS X dialog (possibly while it was locked). I was fortunate in that while i wanted to keep the data from prying eyes, it wasn't national secrets or anything of serious importance.

I used espionage to lock a folder inside my picture folder. but every time i open up new finder window using command+N it asks for password for encrypted folder and tries to open it which i did not want to do any idea?

This is OK for protection against casual snooping, but it has the same drawback as FileVault: data can "leak" out of the encrypted disk image to unencrypted parts of the storage device. For example, whenever you print a document, and that includes converting it to PDF, a temporary file is created outside your home directory with the contents of that document. Data that you think are encrypted can also be found in cache files and temporary files in various places. At a minimum, be sure to enable virtual memory encryption in the Security preference pane (that's part of the OS, not this application.) For serious security, there's no alternative to whole-disk encryption.

I have been a very satisfied user of Espionage for quite some time now, and basically think it is an excellent application. But lately it has been behaving rather oddly. Today I sought to launch one of my many image-editing applications, (Canon Digital Photo Professional), and Espionage launched itself and told me that it needed my password. The image-editing application is in no way locked, and is certainly not in any way encrypted by Espionage - so why is this happening ? Since then, I have noticed the same strange behaviour by Espionage when I try to launch other applications too. Not all applications, but lots of other ones that are also totally ulnocked and not in any way encrypted. Has anyone experienced this ? To what may it be due ? How do I stop Espionage from launching itself and interfering in relation to my opening and launching non-encrypted files and applications ? It is a real nuisance. I am using a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac 7.1, running MacOSX 10.5.8.

Will espionage run on snow leopard?

How do you use this to encrypt your email?

I have just downloaded this latest version of Espionage, but it refuses to install correctly. (i have a paid-for licensed version of Espionage 2.0.1 at present). When I drag the icon of the downloaded version 2.0.2 into my "Applications" folder I get the following pop-up "error" message:- "The operation cannot be completed because the item "Growl" is in use". In fact, I do NOT have "Growl" installed on my computer at all, so I have no idea whatsoever what this error message is trying to tell me. My Mac is an iMac 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, running Mac OSX Version 10.5.6. Mr Developer ? Any suggestions ?

I can't get it to install. It keeps giving me an error message. I restarted my computer, as it suggested, and I get the same result. I tried installing it from the folder that opened with the dmg file; and I tried dragging that dmg file to my Applications folder to install. Same result (or lack thereof). I have my drive partioned into two drives; that's the only thing I can think of that would be weird. But I don't think that should be a problem with this. I can't buy it if I can't try it.

I want to be able to encrypt my entire Library folder as it contains many pieces of information I'd like to be secret. Does Espionage handle this well?

I would like to uninstall Espionage, but the option in its Menu is grayed out. Anyone knows how to activate it?

To the Dev: Haven't tried it but I think you might consider changing the name a privacy app that is essentially named "Spy" is kinda creepy at worst and non-descriptive at best. Cheers,