Packetizer Forums

We have Mac version 10.4.11

Having unzipped "AES Crypt executable (Mac GUI - PowerPC)" and placed AESCrypt.app into /Applications, we drop a file into the lock and.... enter a password... and: it simply makes a duplicate file. No encryption in sight.

Are we doing something wrong, or does AES Crypt simply not work on our Mac?

We even tried the console and x86 version.

I simply do not understand how what you are describing can be true. I did the Mac version, such as it is. It is really nothing more than a tiny Applescript that calls Paul's binary that I fought with the Mac compiler enough to get it to compile. There are no changes at all in the source between the MAC and Linux versions other than a compile.

In the end, running this in a console is exactly the same as running it on any other platform.

It will indeed create a new file, as this is how it works. It will create a file named with the same name but with '.aes' appended to the end of the file name. This file is encrypted. Extracting this file will re-create the original file. In the GUI, you just drop a file on the lock on your dock and will be prompted for a password. It otherwise works normally. In Finder, you should find a file with the same name, but with the lock Icon attached. Double clicking on this file will prompt for a password. Entering the correct password will recreate the original file.

I do not have a PowerPC MAC, so the PowerPC version was not compiled by me. There is some way to make dual-mode binaries, but I don't know how to do it, and could not test it if it on a PowerPC anyway. I DID test the dual-mode binary that someone else made, and it worked on my Intel based Macbook Pro.

Are you <SURE> the 'duplicate file' is not encrypted? There is nothing in my Applescript App, and obviously nothing at all in the console version to create a file other than the encryption process. The file creation is most definitely being done by the aescrypt binary, so it would be most odd for it to create a second file that is not encrypted since it is writing the output of the encryption algorithm to this file. It would seem to me (Paul can correct me if I am wrong) that if it were not working, the second file would be empty, not a copy of the original file.

Doug, see the screencap here:
In this example, efforts to decrypt a file encrypted on a Windows PC proved futile.

Efforts to encrypt a file presented no error message: there was simply no .aes file created.

And as you can see, we cannot find aescrypt.app on the computer.

Your last message is still a bit fuzzy to me. At first it seems to have an inconsistency. You say that there was no '.aes' file found and then show a screencap with evidence that you have created five of them. Then re-reading your text, I <THINK> what you are saying is that those five files were created on a Windows PC, and now you are trying to decrypt them, and you are showing me five files you have copied from the PC, and telling me that you have dropped them on the icon, and that there is no unencrypted version around for any of them.
Correct me if this is not the case.

Now on to the second screencap ... and the really interesting part of this puzzle.
This is a bit strange. It appears that the program has successfully associated itself with the '.aes' extension, (otherwise the '.aes' files would not show a lock icon for them') but has failed to install, or I should say, be recognized. Right up front, I think your Mac is confused. I am not sure how to tell you to fix it, but the things you tell me point to the Mac being stuck in the twilight zone. Here is why I say this. You show a screenshot of a finder search showing that AESCrypt.app is not found ... and yet in your first message, you say that you dropped a file onto the lock and got a password prompt... So how can an application that isn't installed have a lock icon that triggers a password prompt??? I think your Mac has Alzheimer's. I have seen something similar to this before in my Mac a long time ago with some program I was trying to install. I ended up in Mac hell where I could not copy an application into the Applications directory because it was owned by root, and I am not root, and I could not install a new version because the old version was there and owned by root, and I couldn't overwrite it. Some secret magic inside the Mac is supposed to handle this for me. In much the same way it works on Windows 7, when a user tries to install something, it asks if you want to let the app make changes on your computer and then it secretly runs the install as Administrator. Mac does something similar and really performs the copy as root, except for some odd reason this was not happening on my Mac for this app. In the end, I dragged and dropped the old version of the app from 'Applications' in finder into the trash can. Which <DID> work, and magically cleaned up whatever was confusing Finder. Then I 'installed'.. (one of those 'Installs' which shows you an Icon of the App.. and arrow and and the 'Applications' Icon and tells you to drop the App icon on the Applications icon .. a silly install really because that is EXACTLY what it is doing!)
Anyway .. it worked this time. I wonder if we are into some similar exception to the 'it just works' rule.

Some questions for you:
* If you go into Finder and just click on 'Applications' under 'Places' is AESCrypt there? It should be.
* If you are dropping things on the lock, then it must be on the Dock somewhere. If you right click and select 'Show in Finder' where does it take you?
* You said you were able to run aescrypt from the command line, which means that you are familiar with using Terminal. Can you open terminal and cd into /Applications and do an 'ls' or 'ls -l' ... is there a folder named 'AESCrypt.app' there? (You can also use Finder and right click and select 'Show Package contents') If so and a search in Finder does not show it to you, then there is something broken in the Mac's view of its own world. I am no expert on the subject, but I don't think Mac really searches your whole drive when you do a search... it somehow keeps track of stuff you do and stores META information somewhere in some secret cache somewhere. If somehow something does not get written down, then finder gets confused.
* Anyway... if there is no AESCrypt.app in /Applications, then your install is messed up somehow. (I was going to make an install for this thing, and never got around to it.. sorry.. A Mac install does not do anything anyway but copy the '.app' directory into '/Applications'.) If there <IS> an AESCrypt.app then 'cd' into '/Applications/AESCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS' and run './aescrypt -h' .. this allows you to test the binary and see if it works. You can also test the encryption and decryption and see if the whole thing works.
* If it does not work. Then there is something incompatible between your system and the universal binary. If you have a compiler installed on your system, you can try downloading the source and read the instructions for compiling ... I think I just added '-l iconv' to the compile line to make the linking work. This should give you a functional binary. You could then replace the one in the Applications 'MacOS' directory (you may need to use 'sudo to do the copy.. not sure)
* if it <DOES> work, then AESCrypt is fine, and your Mac is confused. I would say to delete the installation, and start over. You should just be able to take the whole '.app' that you download and drag and drop it into 'Places->Applications' in finder.
* I think it is best to do this moving and copying in Finder. I think doing installs in terminal leaves the running system out of sync. It did not know you put something there, and does not update some secret cache somewhere. .. But this may just be voodoo superstition on my part. Generally my rule of thumb is ... do it in terminal if I <DON''T> want Mac to know I did it... and do it in Finder if I <DO> want Mac to know I did it.

Oh one last thing, which I have seen work on my Mac before when stuff like this happens ...(but don't tell Windows users because we make fun of them all the time for this) ... but ... did you try just rebooting your Mac? I have seen cases before where something <DID> get written down properly .. where ever such things are kept .. but the running system did not notice... I did a reboot and suddenly a search for 'Aescrypt.app' in finder shows it right where we know it is ... in '/Applications' .. and everything works.

Thanks for all that Doug.

I'll go and check it all out.


Madam Geeky

Here we go....

First of all, answers to your questions.

"those five files were created on a Windows PC, and now you are trying to decrypt them"

No. Those 5 files are the five attempts to decrypt mysterypic.aes. It creates a new aes each time.

Trying to encrypt a file simply makes a duplicate of the file. Trying to decrypt a file makes a duplicate of the file.

" If you go into Finder and just click on 'Applications' under 'Places' is AESCrypt there? It should be."

Yes.

"If you are dropping things on the lock, then it must be on the Dock somewhere. If you right click and select 'Show in Finder' where does it take you?"

I get this: "You said you were able to run aescrypt from the command line."

No I didn't... I have no idea.

"Anyway... if there is no AESCrypt.app in /Applications"

There is no AESCrypt.app in /Applications. The rest of this I don't understand.

"Oh one last thing, which I have seen work on my Mac before when stuff like this happens ...(but don't tell Windows users because we make fun of them all the time for this) ... but ... did you try just rebooting your Mac?"

Yes, I rebooted.

I have a Mac Quad, not a Mac with an Intel chip. I did find this, however, by clicking on the AEScrypt icon:
So it looks like it doesn't work on a system like mine.

Ah, it appears the version of the OS you are using is older than what was used to build the aescrypt binary. What OS version are you using?

We have Mac version 10.4.11

It's a pretty recent version in fact:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24901?viewlocale=en_US

Assuming that AES Crypt is not going to happen for me, any suggestions on what else I can use?

We need a very strong algorithm for guaranteed security, and just want to send files between Windows and my Mac.

I'm not sure if you got an email from Apta Good, the person who compiled the Mac PPC build. I tried replying, but my email to you got rejected due to SPF failures. (We advertised SPF records for packetizer.com to help reduce spam, it appears 641.biz forwarded the message to u9.org and u9.org is enforcing SPF. Mail forwarding like that does not work if SPF is enforced.

What Apta suggested was trying "jFileCrypt" until we can get a 10.4 PPC build of AES Crypt. Unfortunately, we don't have a way to build it, so we have to look for developers in the Mac community to build that binary for us.