Switchers' Blog

1Password touch, encryption, and iPhone

As you may have heard by now, the new iPhone 3GS features hardware encryption for protecting data on the device. Apple is touting this feature as part of a new Enterprise-ready push for the device.

As you may also have heard from this Wired story, an iPhone developer, hacker, and professor named Jonathan Zdziarski called this encryption "useless" for businesses. Zdziarski says that Apple's decision to store the encryption key on the device alongside the very data it is protecting is "like storing all your secret messages right next to the secret decoder ring."

Understandably, we have received a few support requests about what this means to 1Password and the security of our customer's data. Fortunately, it doesn't mean much of anything.

Let me explain.

1Password for iPhone and iPod touch (and Mac, for that matter) encrypts all of your information with your Master Password. We use secure, 128-bit AES encryption (outlined in greater detail in this support document) to protect your 1Password database. While we do use the standard, hardware-accelerated encryption frameworks included in the iPhone OS, your Master Password is never stored on the device alongside your data.

In other words, if a thief were to steal your iPhone and use the tools outlined in Wired's article to copy everything off of it, your 1Password information would still be safe; as long as you don't commit a security faux pas and use a very short and simple Master Password like "b0b". The Master Password is (ideally) stored only in your head, locked away from inquiring thieves—just like your 1Password data.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer, Agile Web Solutions

Video: Why Macworld loves 1Password

We aren't putting the Macworld folks up to this—we swear! But the latest bit from Senior Editor Dan Frakes professes Macworld's love for 1Password in video, with a great teaser intro using good ol' fashioned words:

One of the more popular bits of Mac software—at least around the Macworld office—is Agile Web Solution’s 1Password. The utility stores online passwords and other bits of personal info. But that simple sentence doesn’t explain why 1Password is so much better than the built-in functionality of most Web browsers.

We definitely recommend that you check out this latest edition of Macworld Video featuring 1Password. And we thank Macworld for yet more wonderful praise!

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer, Agile Web Solutions

Welcome to 1Password

New "Welcome to 1Password" video: meet Everyone.
Everyone: Meet the new "Welcome to 1Password" video!

It was time to put a fresh foot forward for 1Password, so we created a new introductory video that shows off some of its most popular features. This is just one of many videos to come, as we have a new "Welcome to 1Password touch" video in the works. Other future videos will complement our help docs for 1Password and 1Password touch by demonstrating "getting started" and "how to" topics with visual instructions.

Let us know what you think about this video, as I want to continually hone the design and visual techniques to make them more informative and (hopefully) even a little entertaining.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer, Agile Web Solutions

Twitter founder recommends 1Password in wake of company's hack

The fine folks at Twitter suffered an unfortunate security breach this week when hundreds of the company's internal documents, spreadsheets, and other files were stolen and leaked to the Internet (note: this was business planning stuff, not usernames or passwords of folks like you and me). Information like employee interview schedules, building alarm codes, credit card numbers, business partner confidentiality agreements, employee dietary restrictions, and even a pitch for a Twitter TV show all fell victim to the attack.

If I may go off-topic for just a moment: Yes, folks are apparently working on some kind of Twitter show.

Twitter, of course, blogged about the incident and stated that employees have been reminded about the importance of following good personal security guidelines like choosing strong passwords. Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, also mused that he was "alarmed how vulnerable most of us on the web are." Naturally, we couldn't agree more on the importance of these topics, because these kinds of security breaches can happen to anyone who isn't serious enough with their passwords. But we were also honored to see Evan recommend our own 1Password as a better way to manage passwords and protect one's online life.

In another tweet today, Evan offered some good password tips to his followers. Among them are good habits—like using strong passwords—and other habits that are good to break—like using the same password everywhere no matter how strong it is. Evan also said that a "practical way to do this: 1Password." And yet again, we find ourselves tongue-tied when it comes to disagreeing with statements from Twitter or its employees.

We thank @ev for his recommendation, and hope 1Password can help Twitter to manage its passwords and identities. It is, of course, great to see 1Password recommended by such a high-profile tech CEO. But at the end of the day, we genuinely hope that we can help prevent anyone from having to go through such an unfortunate breach of security.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer, Agile Web Solutions

A potential solution to keep 1Password's button in Safari 4's toolbar

We've had a few reports that, after updating to Safari 4, our 1Password button may refuse to stay in the toolbar. We aren't quite sure of the scope of the problem yet, but we think we have a potential solution.

Part of the problem may simply be due to changes that Apple made to Safari's toolbar, and we're looking into this. If you use Evernote, there is also a bug in its Safari button that causes 1Password (and others, such as TabExpose) to get knocked out of the toolbar each time Safari is started.

Evernote told us that this is a high priority bug they're looking into. In the interim, we have a solution that might help users to get back their toolbar buttons for 1Password and other apps.

Below is a command that you can copy and paste into Terminal (found in /Applicatons/Utilities) to reset your Safari 4 toolbar. This should reset it back to Apple's default arrangement of back/forward buttons, the address bar, and Google search box. Quit Safari, then paste this into Terminal and hit return:

defaults delete com.apple.safari "NSToolbar Configuration BrowserWindowToolbarIdentifier"

If it works, the only confirmation you will see is a prompt for a new command (this is Terminal's way of saying "Thank you, sir, may I please have s'more?"). Restart Safari, and you should see the default button arrangement (Evernote users will see its button added automatically). To get 1Password and any other buttons back, select View > Customize Toolbar to display a sheet of all available buttons. Drag the ones you want to the toolbar, click "Done," and they should now stick between Safari sessions.

Of course, let us know here if this solution works for you (or if it doesn't), and we'll keep looking into the issue.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer, Agile Web Solutions

Macworld tips its hat twice at 1Password

While speaking on the general topic of how—and why—to create stronger passwords, Macworld's Joe Kissell recommends 1Password as a way to better secure one's online life. More specifically, Kissell writes:

Agile Web Solutions’ outstanding $40 1Password utility includes a flexible password generator among its many features.

In case you haven't seen the particular tool that Kissell is referring to, it is the Strong Password Generator, available from either your browser's 1P toolbar button or the 1Password right-click contextual menu. It's a great, customizable tool that automatically generates extremely secure, customizable passwords for the sites you need to log into. You can opt to save these passwords as Logins in your Agile Keychain, and they are protected and encrypted with the same, single Master Password as the rest of your 1Password data.

In a second post about keeping your online life organized, Kissell again recommends 1Password as a "high-powered password manager." He also touts 1Password's ability to organize not just passwords, but other information like credit card numbers, FTP credentials, membership details, garage door codes, and much, much more. He even mentions our 1Password touch app for iPhone and iPod touch as a way to securely bring all your information on the go.

"Other utilities, whatever their virtues, are far less convenient and versatile."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves! Thanks to Joe Kissell and Macworld for such wonderful compliments!

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer, Agile Web Solutions