It’s not just that i want to be a spy—though I do, badly—but I just love encryption. I wrote a paper on it in college. I took an online course about it when I was working in IT. I read Neal Stephenson’s epic Cryptonomicon. I kind of even want to name a band “Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange.”
So you can see why the promise of TaoEffect’s new folder-encryption program Espionage might appeal to me on many levels. The $15 application is designed as a lightweight replacement for those who don’t need the extensive powers of FileVault. Espionage integrates with the Finder and allows you to encrypt folders with AES 128-bit or 256-bit encryption (you can also choose to password protect some folders rather than encrypt them). There’s even full support for Spotlight and Growl integration. And because you’re not encrypting your full home directory, as with FileVault, you won’t fall prey to the constant performance hit upon logging in or shutting down.
Of course, the basic tenets of encryption apply: for example, be careful not to lose your password, or else you’re screwed—but don’t put it on a sticky note next to your computer. Unless you want to get laughed at by all the other spies. Those guys can be merciless.
There's no question that I'm going to get this app. This seems like the perfect solution for protecting sensitive documents.
I've never liked the idea of encrypting an entire drive. I'd much rather just encrypt a folder instead and Espionage is the perfect app for this.
this is huge for people who need encrypted files on a mac. there are other freeware options out there but none that are this easy.
I have yet to use anything that tops True Crypt, for 2 reasons: 1. it's free, and 2. the encrypted file is platform independent - I like having a file that I can use between my Windows and Mac computers.
Is the folder truly "encrypted" or encrypted only while the espionage program is loaded? If the latter, since Espionage seems to be a kernel extension, isn't there a good risk that a system update will break it?
@Anon: it's "truly" encrypted, see the site.