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Encrypt Mail, Address Book, and iCal data
Authored by: Dr. T on Sep 22, '08 10:22:51AM

This seemed logical until the discussion of passwords. It makes no sense to assign a long password to the encrypted sparseimage and then put it into Keychain Access that is protected by a weak password. Your keychain password must be strong. Otherwise, the malefactor who takes your laptop will crack the keychain password and gain immediate access to the encrypted sparseimage.

A second point is that you need to securely erase the files that were moved to the sparseimage. Some of that sensitive data may still be readable weeks after completing this process.

A third point is the issue of securing your Address Book. This makes little sense to me. Most names and addresses are in the public domain, so I don't see how it helps to hide them (unless you're rich and don't want criminals to know about your nephews and nieces). You probably wrote letters to many of the people in your Address Book, and their names and addresses will be in your correspondence files. So, if you don't put those files into the secure sparseimage, then the names and addresses be available to whoever snatches your laptop.

My fourth point is don't bother securing your laptop's Address Book and iCal data if you synced them with your totally unsecured iPod or iPhone. It would be rather frustrating to spend hours securing your laptop and then lose the same data when your iPhone is stolen.



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Encrypt Mail, Address Book, and iCal data
Authored by: osxpounder on Sep 22, '08 11:17:56AM

Those are good points. Thanks for taking the time to point these out for us.

I thought about securing my iCal data and my TextExpander data, but since it's being transmitted over various networks, unencrypted, I wondered if it was worth my time. I think not. Better for me to assume that the calendar can be read by strangers, and so never put something too private in it. So, if I have a an appointment to see Dr. Muckenfuss, I just type "Dr. M", for example.



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Encrypt Mail, Address Book, and iCal data
Authored by: UberFu on Sep 24, '08 09:18:45AM

In response to your third point: Not necessarily! Although Names and phone numbers and addresses are in the "public domain" - make an attempt to track down the cell phone number of someone you know using public domain records_ Not gonna happen_ Most people I know myself use a cell phone as their primary phone line_ There is no public domain for cell phone listings_ There are a few upstart websites trying to catalog cell phone numbers with subscribers - but people can roll thru phone numbers like a cop eating doughnuts_

Myself and a couple of people I know have had the same cell phone numbers for years now - but most everyone I know has rolled thru about 4 or 5 cell phone numbers in the past 8-10 years_ that's an average of 1 number every 2 years_

Regardless - the big 4 or 5 carriers in the US [aside from that whole wire-tapping non-sense] don't typically pass out cell phone numbers to the genreral public when asked as this is usually coverd in their Corporate Privacy Policies_

the point is that if someone does get ahold of your Address Book or Mail.app content - then Yes it could cause big problems for any given person with information contained in your files_

I'm all for encrypting this type of content - but I am also in favor of transparent encryption - wehere it does it on the fly after I set it up and I don't have to worry about it every single time I send an eMail or add a Contact to my Address Book_



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