Passcode protection on a pc

[w00t w00t 0]

Not to belabor the point (I will though lol) but a passcode lock for the Windows & Mac Evernote app should have been implemented long ago and god knows why it hasn't been. Locking down Windows instead is:

1) Not even possible in many corporate environments where Windows policies are controlled by Group Policy.

2) Not the point, of course, since security is all about layers, typically referred to as Defense in Depth. Good security is always about throwing as many impediments as possible in the way of bad actors. 

The reason, by the way, that this is such a demanded feature is that people have gotten used to this biometric locks on all sorts of apps, not just note-taking ones. But even notetaking apps have long done this; OneNote has password-unlock available via TouchID on Mac and Windows Hello on PC. iOS Notes has TouchID/FaceID unlock. Etc. etc. Evernote has done this on iOS & Android, and I have seen no evidence that Windows Hello or TouchID are more difficult to implement for x86-64 platforms. I'm not much of a programmer so it's possible I'm underestimating the difficulty, but the publicly available evidence says otherwise. 

[gazumped 11,666]

On 1/30/2021 at 9:45 PM, w00t w00t said:

a passcode lock for the Windows & Mac Evernote app should have been implemented long ago

A ton of other apps including Outlook, MS Word - and many many others - don't have any other protection than a login,  because they're sitting on a PC with two levels of security.  Lock the screen or sign out of the -2FA protected- app.  Mobile apps historically have more security because the device actually provides it...

Pre v10 Evernote would have had to code any additional protections into various versions of Windows and Mac OS's - meaning doing the job at least twice.  Now they're operating on the shiny new base,  and when v10 reaches feature parity with the pre-10 apps then - maybe - they will consider beefing up security if that's possible. 

I don't see that it will bring them too many more sales to compensate though - I've worked on Government sites where walking away from your desk without locking your screen was a disciplinary issue;  as was keeping data on a server outside the building,  or personal information on the company kit.  And having been in the IT departments of those happy people I know that passwording an app would have been zero impediment to someone having a look at the content if they felt a need to do so.

The company I worked for wouldn't consider adopting Evernote because of the central feature of syncing to a server,  and I think that's true of many others in an increasingly security conscious world.

[DTLow 5,736]

On 1/30/2021 at 1:45 PM, w00t w00t said:

a passcode lock for the Windows & Mac Evernote app

I moved your post to the Version 10 Requests forum from the Legacy forum

It's a valid request and I added my vote

[agsteele 2,950]

I truly don't understand this request but I've been known to misunderstand many things.  What is the difference between the request and simply signing out?

Just asking...

[PinkElephant 8,114]

The idea may be that if you simply lock your computer, you need one unlocking action to proceed - if you lock every app, you need a lot of them. Probably enhances the feeling of security to type in 20 passwords until you are operational again 😂

No, seriously: This request has come up several times before. Usually it was related to a computer that was used by several people, under one user account. When now one of the users wanted to install EN and use it privately, he thought that locking up the app would be a good idea.

This does not take into account that when the user account is unlocked, the data on the disk is decrypted. So anybody can access and even copy the raw EN data base without unlocking the account.

The simple solution is to never use private data on a shared computer. Or use the web client, in a privat browser window set to delete all data when closing. Or set up separate user accounts, with PW protection for each of them.

[dcon 166]

I will say, during the 6 years I worked on the Windows platform, a lock feature was never even discussed internally.

All I'll say to that is "Thank $deity!" I really wouldn't have wanted to implement an entire security system within that code. (Do you know how easy it is to get security completely wrong? **shudder**!)

[DTLow 5,736]

12 minutes ago, dcon said:

Do you know how easy it is to get security completely wrong? **shudder**!

I  have no ideas on how this is implemented    
I do know Evernote implemented a passcode on the IOS/Android platforms, which I'm sure differs from the Mac/Window platforms