Geeks in Paradise | Brian Chee » PocketMac SecureNOTES

December 22, 2006 | Comments: (0)

PocketMac SecureNOTES

TAGS: Host Security, Privacy, Review, Security, Toys and tools

The PocketMac folks sent us a copy of SecureNOTES a while back and I tossed it at one of my mac oriented students. Funny, how most of my old Linux and BSD fanatics have all gone to Mac OSx. This small application addresses the issue of how to protect sensitive information at the file level.

To Create a Card and just add the information or drag and drop the item into the needed window and hit save.

 

Will not encrypt movies due to the size of the movies

Can do Financial (credit cards, bank accounts), General items (pictures, code snippet, auto info, etc), Health & body (cloth sizes, prescriptions), identification Drives license, passport, SSN, etc), Internet (email accounts, FTP webpages, etc), Phone (emergency numbers, calling cards, etc).

In the “add card� window it is not possible to change the items on the left (lower in the heirachy), but nice to have quick links to the ones that will be used more often.

To encrypt you must go to Edit --> Encrypt Card. You will be prompted to enter a password for this Card. Once the password has been entered the encryption will take place. It is easy to determine what cards have been encrypted due to the fact the GUI changes the icon to a lock. They even provide a General Card that will take straight ascii text to use if a card doesn’t exist that is needed.

It is also possible to create a category and title it how you want. It is then possible to rearrange the cards and place them into the correct category. For example, if you wish to have all your pictures in a category, you can create a category called pictures and then place them all in it. (picture below). Not possible to encrypt entire category.

Not possible to encrypt multiple items at once. Which I think is a good idea as you can create separate passwords for each card.

Just wonder if having a new password for each card is a good idea. I mean we have enough passwords already, why not create a single password that will encrypt and decrypt all the cards?

If you click on a card it will prompt you for the password for that card. Once the password has been entered it will display it. Pictures below. In the GUI it will show it as Unlocked too. Once it has been decrypted you must encrypted again… why not automatically have this redone once the item is not being viewed anymore?

Upon launching the application, a small little icon will appear in the menu bar. Picture 8.

If you have many Cards or Categories these can be added to the Favorites windowpane. This will provide a quick link to access the data in an easy and quick fashion.

Deleting an item is as easy as highlighting it and pressing the delete icon or dragging it to the trashcan in SecureNotes.

Just for grins and giggles, we took one of the encrypted files and mounted it under Linux to see if we could bypass the password. So while it didn't ask for a password, the file was unusable anyway since it was truly encrypted. So it really does encrypt the file instead of just encrypting the headers like some other programs.

All in all a worth while utility...one of these days we'll take the time to find more programs of this ilk and do a comparison. Maybe when we visit CES in January we can hunt down some alternatives.

Pete Gross is one of my students and has just finished his masters in Computer Science. He is currently working for Spirent Communications writing Network Testing Methodologies, but is looking for a full time position...

Brian Chee is the Director of the Advanced Network Computing Laboratory (ANCL) where university students are exposed to bleeding edge technology. What a concept, students that have some experience out of the gate and have had the chance to play with emerging technology. Brian is also a Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld.

Posted by Brian Chee on December 22, 2006 11:05 AM

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