Will Evernote Ever Implement Encryption like turtlapp.com?

[Machine_Learning 6]

Just wondering....... https://turtlapp.com/ seems to encrypt your entire note, and even better, they can't even see the contents......

[DTLow 5,736]

11 minutes ago, Machine_Learning said:

Just wondering.....

Evernote implemented text encryption on the desktop platforms, but doesn't seem to want to take it further.

For myself, I make use of encrypted PDF files.
I'd also be concerned about being locked into a product because of encryption

Im not familiar with your turtlapp example
- does it offer search of encrypted data?
- does the encryption/decryption work across all platforms?

[Machine_Learning 6]

2 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Evernote implemented text encryption on the desktop platforms, but doesn't seem to want to take it further.

For myself, I make use of encrypted PDF files.

Im not familiar with your turtlapp example

- does it offer search of encrypted data?

- does the encryption/decryption work across all platforms?

I'm not sure, I just found them and it looks like they are just starting out. They have an Android, Web and MacOS App and looks like iOs on the way, and here are there encryption methodologies:

 

https://turtlapp.com/docs/security/encryption-specifics/

[gazumped 11,652]

Turtl does look like an attractive app,  and has started out with some killer features like encryption.  However they still seem to be in a beta stage - there's no published price table yet,  and the website says - while the free service "should be fine for most users" there will be a premium service with more storage and more features.  We don't know yet what features those are,  or how much the extension will cost - and there's no information on how big or well funded the company is - will it exist in 5 years?

Still,  they do have an 'import from Evernote' option,  and the existence of services like this will put some pressure on Evernote to look again at encryption.  However Evernote don't discuss what they may have in their pipeline or what they plan for the future.  They might have plans to release something next year.  They won't (usually) comment.

I'll use Turtl out of curiosity, but I won't be keeping anything important there until a few more details become clear.

[aisu825 28]

I am happy to hear about Turtl.  I sincerely hope that Evernote now realizes how important privacy is to their customers and offers much stronger encryption features in the future.  We really should never have to worry about Evernote employees (or anyone else) snooping around our notes.  Notebook level encryption should have been a top priority years ago!

[DTLow 5,736]

12 minutes ago, aisu825 said:

I am happy to hear about Turtl.  I sincerely hope that Evernote now realizes how important privacy is to their customers and offers much stronger encryption features in the future.  We really should never have to worry about Evernote employees (or anyone else) snooping around our notes.  Notebook level encryption should have been a top priority years ago!

Not sure why you're happy about Turtl or think this will make Evernote realize ....
The answer is there is no indication that "Will Evernote Ever Implement Encryption like turtlapp.com"

If you're interested in adding your support for the Notebook Encryption feature request, please visit the discussion below and use the voting buttons in the upper left corner of the discussion

 

[aisu825 28]

3 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Not sure why you're happy about Turtl or think this will make Evernote realize ....

I'm happy because Turle sounds very promising.  I haven't tried it yet, but I intend to check it out.  I like more options in the marketplace.  If Turle meets my needs, offers more privacy/security and is affordable, I may switch to it.  To remain competitive, Evernote needs to add features that people want - like better encryption and security.  I believe that Evernote has lost touch with its customers.  Their attitude has become somewhat antagonistic and I don't really understand it from a business point of view.  IMHO the past year has been a disaster for them.  Frankly, they better realize these things, or they won't be around much longer.  

[mz123 42]

I'm trying to see if Evernote will commit to really address this need, or if recent statements are just damage control:

 

[Machine_Learning 6]

2 hours ago, mz123 said:

I'm trying to see if Evernote will commit to really address this need, or if recent statements are just damage control:

The problem is that Evernote cannot encrypt their product in the way that we would like to and do Machine Learning. Down the road, if they aren't already, I'd imagine they also want access to their users notes and data in order to mine it and find ways of using it that they could monetize, much like how Google scans the content of your drive, docs and e-mail on top of your youtube and google history in order to build a marketing profile for you. I'd imagine that Evernote is likely putting the Machine Learning to use to figure out novel ways of parsing users notes data and meta-data to glean information that is usable for these and similar purposes. 

We want total encryption, that won't even allow Evernote to see our content. Evernote could easily implement a system that provides that. They won't, because of the above. 

 

[gazumped 11,652]

Just now, Machine_Learning said:

I'd imagine they also want access to their users notes and data in order to mine it and find ways of using it that they could monetize

They've said several times that no,  they won't.

1 minute ago, Machine_Learning said:

We want total encryption, that won't even allow Evernote to see our content.

Get ready to work in a different way since search won't find your notes,  and opening and editing encrypted information will be less easy than you'd like...

Like @DTLow says - if you want ecryption,  then vote for it.  Pointless speculation is just noise.

[mz123 42]

Just now, gazumped said:

They've said several times that no,  they won't.

Get ready to work in a different way since search won't find your notes,  and opening and editing encrypted information will be less easy than you'd like...

Like @DTLow says - if you want ecryption,  then vote for it.  Pointless speculation is just noise.

@gazumped,

This is misinformation. Search can be implemented with encryption. There are technical trade offs, but those are tradeoffs I and many users would gladly accept.

There is no technical reason encryption can't be done and (almost?) all features maintained. The only reasons for encryption to not be done are: lack of interest, cost / effort, and a desire to maintain access to user data.

 

[Machine_Learning 6]

1 minute ago, gazumped said:

They've said several times that no,  they won't.

Get ready to work in a different way since search won't find your notes,  and opening and editing encrypted information will be less easy than you'd like...

Like @DTLow says - if you want ecryption,  then vote for it.  Pointless speculation is just noise.

Why not? www.mega.co.nz works this way and offers a search feature, and still integrates with my operating systems search feature. I can search from my operating system, from the web app, from the android and ios app, search works fine and snappy and I have many GB's of information stored on MEGA. 
 

It would take quite a bit of retooling in order to do this, and there isn't a ton of money to be made in it. I honestly think to many people, there is a lot of value in the services and advertising they receive by opening up access of their information to third parties. I think that Evernote would be able to make a ton more money doing that, rather than re-writing the application so that one could keep their notes encrypted locally, through transport and in the cloud, but un-encrypting en-masse with their secure key. That would be the end game for an app, you would no longer be able to parse the information and do stuff with your users data. Just provide the transport and storage mechanisms for their encrypted data. 

Unfortunately, for people that are here ranting angry and people like me, we want total encrpytion, we want no one looking at our notes for any reason unless they are compelled by law. We want to know A.S.A.P. the 5 W's when it comes to accessing our data: Who, What, Where, When Why. 

But many will tell you that you can't expect all of that in the cloud and beware of anyone claiming to offer that because it's probably not true. 

I understand where that is coming from, but a promise is a promise and breaking promises gives you legal footing. I trust a company like Evernote less who can't be straight forward and has to go through Terms of Service/Privacy Policy gymnastics in order to relate the nuances of their morally ambiguous behavior.
 

[gazumped 11,652]

It's not misinformation to say that Evernote have repeatedly reassured users that they will never mine personal data for profit.

As to the rest,  that's up to Evernote to implement.  While I have no problem with anyone venting their frustrations,  a ton of conflicting 'don't touch my data' demands (read the terms and conditions lately?) won't help anything.

 

[Machine_Learning 6]

12 minutes ago, gazumped said:

It's not misinformation to say that Evernote have repeatedly reassured users that they will never mine personal data for profit.

As to the rest,  that's up to Evernote to implement.  While I have no problem with anyone venting their frustrations,  a ton of conflicting 'don't touch my data' demands (read the terms and conditions lately?) won't help anything.

 

What's conflicting? In the 3 Laws of Data the Evernote claims to abide by, they say my data is >mine<. If it's mine, why am I not allowed to have the final say in decisions about it and what affects it. If they have additional terms that affect the statement: "Your data is yours.", why aren't they included in the 3 laws, and why are they hidden somewhere else? Why do I have to opt-out of machine learning. It's my data. If you want to use my data that I own, you gotta ask if I want to opt-in. Gymnastics.

The only caveat they apply to the act that the data is mine is when it comes to transporting my data. They say "For example, you give us permission to back it up, send it over a network, index it for searching, display it on your various devices, etc. Some of these operations may require us to send your data to our normal business partners–such as a network operator–that we have contracted with to provide parts of the Evernote Service. Before we do this, we’ll always make sure that our contracts with such partners protect your ownership rights." 

Generally, they are talking about how they move your data, which you can still do with Encrypted data. They talk about indexing it for searching, which can be done on the client side after encryption. Displaying it on the devices is ambiguous, but can still be done on the client side after encryption. 

So, being that all of this can be done without need to actually parse or review the data in context, then why would they need to look at my data otherwise? Why am I not allowed to demand that my data remains secure and unreadable? 

It's just a fluff piece. I'm sure somewhere else in their terms and conditions and privacy policy there's a statement that says that anyone at anytime or any reason "to improve something their product or something" can read and have unfettered, unlogged, unknown access to your data. You won't be informed that a database engineer named Melanie and a Front End developer named Steve were having beers on their MacBooks at a local bar after hours pulling up your records and laughing at your Furry Fetish Convent album and notes. 

The only way you know that someone isn't enjoying the content of your notes is total encryption, and having data totally encrypted in the cloud in this day and age is not a demand that is unreasonable. It's a necessity. 

https://evernote.com/legal/data-protection.php

 

[mz123 42]

10 minutes ago, gazumped said:

It's not misinformation to say that Evernote have repeatedly reassured users that they will never mine personal data for profit.

As to the rest,  that's up to Evernote to implement.  While I have no problem with anyone venting their frustrations,  a ton of conflicting 'don't touch my data' demands (read the terms and conditions lately?) won't help anything.

 

The misinformation was in telling people that with an encryption implementation we must give up search. That's not true.

As for Evernote's reassurances, I think they were proposing to break one via policy change in January. "Opt out or else" is a violation of that trust. While that may not have been for profit, breaking one commitment indicates a willingness to break commitments. This is really simple: Evernote should indicate its commitment through technology implementation, rather than vague policies that can be easily changed.

 

[Machine_Learning 6]

1 minute ago, mz123 said:

The misinformation was in telling people that with an encryption implementation we must give up search. That's not true.

As for Evernote's reassurances, I think they were proposing to break one via policy change in January. "Opt out or else" is a violation of that trust. While that may not have been for profit, breaking one commitment indicates a willingness to break commitments. This is really simple: Evernote should indicate its commitment through technology implementation, rather than vague policies that can be easily changed.

 

Opt-out or else, exactly. It's my data, I own it. Why do I have to Opt-out??

Like I said in a post before:

In the 3 Laws of Data the Evernote claims to abide by, they say my data is >mine<. If it's mine, why am I not allowed to have the final say in decisions about it and what affects it. If they have additional terms that affect the statement: "Your data is yours.", why aren't they included in the 3 laws, and why are they hidden somewhere else? Why do I have to opt-out of machine learning. It's my data. If you want to use my data that I own, you gotta ask if I want to opt-in. Gymnastics.

[gazumped 11,652]

The policy you already accepted as a user is here > https://evernote.com/legal/privacy.php

Check under "Does Evernote Share My Personal Information or Content?"

It doesn't dilute the statement "your data is yours",  which is at the top of the page...

[Machine_Learning 6]

3 minutes ago, gazumped said:

The policy you already accepted as a user is here > https://evernote.com/legal/privacy.php

Check under "Does Evernote Share My Personal Information or Content?"

It doesn't dilute the statement "your data is yours",  which is at the top of the page...

Apparently the CEO admitted their mistake:

https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2016/12/15/evernote-revisits-privacy-policy/

And you are right Gazumped, they keep saying:
 

• Evernote employees do not and will not read your notes without your express permission.
• Evernote complies with the law in ways that keep the privacy of customer data paramount.
• Our “Three Laws of Data Protection” remain intact: your data is yours, it is protected, and it is portable.

Talk is cheap. Implement action that proves it. 

[jefito 5,589]

Hmm, I was wondering why all the going-on about the opt-out stuff was. The post about this happened yesterday...

[mz123 42]

 

2 hours ago, jefito said:

Hmm, I was wondering why all the going-on about the opt-out stuff was. The post about this happened yesterday...

When the sheriff catches you cheating, and you admit you made a mistake, you don't get to point to your commitments as evidence that you are trustworthy. The fact remains that the users and the news media did the policing here. Saying "oops, we shouldn't have done that" doesn't mean you're suddenly reformed.

 

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, mz123 said:

When the sheriff catches you cheating, and you admit you made a mistake, you don't get to point to your commitments as evidence that you are trustworthy. The fact remains that the users and the news media did the policing here. Saying "oops, we shouldn't have done that" doesn't mean you're suddenly reformed.

You misunderstand me. This was nothing to do with trustworthiness (which is up to the individual user) or being reformed (whatever relevance that has); it's about making sure of your facts before you complain. The correct answer to " Opt-out or else, exactly. It's my data, I own it. Why do I have to Opt-out?? " is: "You don't have to. The policy is now opt-in. See: https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/102423-evernote-revisits-privacy-policy-change-in-response-to-feedback/".