[Captain Curt]

This is the one thing in tiger that I will be concerned about. If there IS a successful virus such damage could be done in such a short time. Its not a pretty picture. Encryption wouldn't help if any original test remains anywhere right? So the bottom line is.... Does encryption reference an original anywhere? Could spotlight find the encryption keys/codes?

[RayK]

I know some had a concern about this and having secret folders found easily. I was told that you can select to turn off spotlight searching on a folder to folder basis. I have not played with Tiger yet though so YMMV.

[Millennium]

I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about, but I'll take a stab at this.

If a file is encrypted, Spotlight will not be able to index that file's contents (it would still try to index them, but it would see only junk). If those contents had been indexed before the file was encrypted, then Spotlight will maintain that index until the next time the index is updated. Depending on how Apple implements Spotlight, it's possible that it might index the file automatically every time it is saved; if that's the case then this issue becomes moot (since encrypting the file will cause Spotlight to update its index immediately).

If you are in the habit of writing down your encryption keys and passwords in an unencrypted file, then Spotlight gives you yet another reason to stop doing this, because it could index that file. However, it would have know way of knowing exactly what it had found; it would think the file was ordinary text. Malware would have to sift through all of the files on your system and hope it found password data.

[Socially Awkward Solo]

Originally posted by RayK:
I know some had a concern about this and having secret folders found easily. I was told that you can select to turn off spotlight searching on a folder to folder basis. I have not played with Tiger yet though so YMMV.

That was me, most people don't want their porn indexed.

[Don Pickett]

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
That was me, most people don't want their porn indexed.

Most people already have their porn indexed. I was just watching some of the Quicktime moves on Apple's sight showing Tiger's ability to show slideshows of pictures found in Spotlight or contained in an email message. The possibilities are endless. . .

(And talk aboucher leveraging Core Video!)

[Mac The Fork]

I believe it's HardCore Video.

[Don Pickett]

Originally posted by Mac The Fork:
I believe it's HardCore Video.

Bravo!

[OptimusG4]

Spotlight is account specific, meaning that if you have another account on the machine, they will not be able to pull up searches on your home directory.

[frankiec]

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
Spotlight is account specific, meaning that if you have another account on the machine, they will not be able to pull up searches on your home directory.

It's sad when people have been comfortable and familiar with a multi-user OS for so long and the above still needs to be stated.

[lookmark]

Originally posted by Mac The Fork:
I believe it's HardCore Video.

The ridiculous thing about the option to exclude folders from Spotlight is that the Spotlight-verbotten folders are all there in plain sight in the "Privacy" tab in the Spotlight pref pane.

It's, like, the first place to head if you're curious what the user doesn't want you to know about.

[frankiec]

Originally posted by lookmark:


The ridiculous thing about the option to exclude folders from Spotlight is that the Spotlight-verbotten folders are all there in plain sight in the "Privacy" tab in the Spotlight pref pane.

It's, like, the first place to head if you're curious what the user doesn't want you to know about.

That's why there's passwords on user accounts, and if you leave your machine you should log-out, switch to the login window, or initiate the screen saver with password protection on.

If one is so concerned about their "private" folders than surely one would be concerned about leaving their account to be used when they're not around?

[lookmark]

Originally posted by frankiec:
That's why there's passwords on user accounts, and if you leave your machine you should log-out, switch to the login window, or initiate the screen saver with password protection on.

If one is so concerned about their "private" folders than surely one would be concerned about leaving their account to be used when they're not around?

Relax there, buddy, you'll break something. I just think it's kind of funny -- a tab called "Privacy" that isn't very private. Seems like a good place for the ability to lock (which would hide contents of said tab until unlocked).

[CatOne]

Originally posted by lookmark:


The ridiculous thing about the option to exclude folders from Spotlight is that the Spotlight-verbotten folders are all there in plain sight in the "Privacy" tab in the Spotlight pref pane.

It's, like, the first place to head if you're curious what the user doesn't want you to know about.

Well, quit naming your folders like this then:

/Users/lookmark/videos/pr0n/DP
/Users/lookmark/videos/pr0n/necklaces
/Users/lookmark/videos/pr0n/a__l
...

[OptimusG4]

Originally posted by frankiec:
It's sad when people have been comfortable and familiar with a multi-user OS for so long and the above still needs to be stated.

Exactly.

[RayK]

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
That was me, most people don't want their porn indexed.

Yeah I remember. Just don't like naming names about porn.

Originally posted by Mac The Fork:
I believe it's HardCore Video

That's awesome.

[FireWire]

It's sad when people have been comfortable and familiar with a multi-user OS for so long and the above still needs to be stated

Maybe they are familiar but they don't want to say to the person sitting next to them "Excuse me, I don't trust you while i'm going to get a coffee for only 2 minutes, so i'm gonna log out. See you!" I know some people that would get personal about this.

Yet I don't want to type my password every time my screensaver activates. It would be great if Apple would bring back the "Encrypt..." function in the file menu. We could then keep some files private while maintaining a good trust relationship with our friends/coworkers.

Ah, I remember when all we had to do was to create a strange-looking folder in an obscure place in the System folder and nobody would mess with it

[RayK]

Originally posted by FireWire:
Maybe they are familiar but they don't want to say to the person sitting next to them "Excuse me, I don't trust you while i'm going to get a coffee for only 2 minutes, so i'm gonna log out. See you!" I know some people that would get personal about this.

Yet I don't want to type my password every time my screensaver activates. It would be great if Apple would bring back the "Encrypt..." function in the file menu. We could then keep some files private while maintaining a good trust relationship with our friends/coworkers.

Ah, I remember when all we had to do was to create a strange-looking folder in an obscure place in the System folder and nobody would mess with it

I want a fingerprint reader like they have out for PC's I don't know if they work with the mac but have seen then for as low as $60.

[MacMan4000]

maybe you should keep all your pr0n on a thumb-drive, on an iPod... then take it with you... safe and sound.

[JHromadka]

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
That was me, most people don't want their porn indexed.

OTOH, the new Finder feature that lets you create a slideshow quickly for a folder is a welcome addition.

[Superchicken]

Originally posted by MacMan4000:
maybe you should keep all your pr0n on a thumb-drive, on an iPod... then take it with you... safe and sound.

I'm pretty sure some of MacNN's users bought the MDD just for the fact it could have four HDs if you get my drift...

[Socially Awkward Solo]

Originally posted by MacMan4000:
maybe you should keep all your pr0n on a thumb-drive, on an iPod... then take it with you... safe and sound.

Let me know when you come out with a 200 gig iPod

[vcutag]

Originally posted by JHromadka:
OTOH, the new Finder feature that lets you create a slideshow quickly for a folder is a welcome addition.

Is this like the Windows filmstrip feature, to where it shows the slideshow in the open window (as opposed to opening a new window)?

That's been one of my main beefs with OS X.

[lookmark]

Originally posted by vcutag:
Is this like the Windows filmstrip feature, to where it shows the slideshow in the open window (as opposed to opening a new window)?

It's more like a special slideshow/Exposé mode for pictures.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/theater/spotlight.html .

Pretty neat.

[siMac]

Originally posted by MacMan4000:
maybe you should keep all your pr0n on a thumb-drive, on an iPod... then take it with you... safe and sound.

...or make an encrypted disk image with Disk Utility, then mount/unmount as necessary.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
Spotlight is account specific, meaning that if you have another account on the machine, they will not be able to pull up searches on your home directory.

This is what Apple has to say about it:

The Spotlight Store is a file system-level database that holds all of the meta-data attributes about the files, as well as an index of their contents, on a file system. As each file is created, copied, updated, or deleted, Spotlight will ensure that both the content index and the meta-data store entries for that file are updated.

I'm aware that Spotlight will only show results that you are supposed to have read access to, but how is the store itself managed? Could someone just go through it with a hex editor and read the raw information from it, bypassing the Spotlight APIs altogether?

[mitchell_pgh]

I just name all my porn with the "From Justin to Kelly.avi"

[OreoCookie]

According to the Spotlight pdf, you can exclude directories from being indexed by Spotlight. Hence, I don't think you have to rename anything to hide your porn collection

http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/M...otlight_TB.pdf

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

This is what Apple has to say about it:


I'm aware that Spotlight will only show results that you are supposed to have read access to, but how is the store itself managed? Could someone just go through it with a hex editor and read the raw information from it, bypassing the Spotlight APIs altogether?

It's my understanding that Spotlight uses a plain SQLite database for its storage format; there are plenty of readers available for that. However, I'd imagine that the user-specific database will have its permissions set to 700 or something similar, so that only the owner can read it.

It's also, of course, possible that Apple uses its own format and merely imports it into SQLite. This would let them encrypt it, but it would also dramatically increase the overhead of starting a search, because the database would have to be imported rather than just opened directly.

[Stradlater]

If you have files that you need to protect, keep them in a password-protected disk image (.dmg) file.

[Stradlater]

Originally Posted by siMac

...or make an encrypted disk image with Disk Utility, then mount/unmount as necessary.

(Exactly.)