[attrition] PGP.Com Sucks (OSX support)

[security curmudgeon]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Forno <rforno at infowarrior.org>


Snow Leopard comes out for OSX users today. OSX 10.6.  Hurray!

While watching the Redskins-Patriots on the big screen, I go about trying 
to upgrade my test laptop only to discover the Apple DVD is not 
recognizing the hard drive as something that can support OSX.  WTFO? 
Resourceful as ever, I begin to Google for answers.

As I Google, an email[1] arrives from PGP.COM saying that their current 
product is incompatible with 10.6 and if users want to use PGP they should 
not upgrade but that if we "intend to upgrade to Snow Leopard, you must 
decrypt all PGP encrypted drives and uninstall PGP Desktop before 
upgrading the system to Mac OS X 10.6."  They go on to say that 10.6 
support is forthcoming in their next major release but offer no details on 
when it will be, except to say they're accepting beta applications now.

*blink*

Taking beta applications now? There are freeware and shareware developers 
whose products are fully compatible with 10.6 and PGP only now is 
soliciting beta testers?  Did the company just realize that OSX 10.6 was 
coming out today?  Didn't they get the memo?  Are there no OSX users at 
PGP Headquarters?

So back to my stalled Snow Leopard upgrade on my laptop:  Thanks to 
Google's timely archiving of the Apple support boards[2] I found out that 
not only did I have to uninstall PGP, repair disk permissions, and reboot 
(which still didn't fix the problem), but since PGP apparently does 
something to the OSX partition table, I had to enter Disk Utility and 
dynamically resize my laptop's hard drive a few megabytes in size just so 
a new partition table could be written --- at which point I was able to 
install OSX 10.6 just fine. (Note that I had installed, but did not use, 
PGP on this computer, and certainly did not use their Whole Disk 
Encryption.)  What kind of stuff did PGP have to write to my partition 
table to make it unreadable by Apple's own installation disk?

Unfortunately, after many years of dealing with their quirky product 
registration system and hiccups with routine OS upgrades, tonight's news 
has forced to say that PGP has lost me as a customer --- their annoying 
corporate quirks aside, I cannot trust any security product that tweaks 
(nay, borks) my system in such a troublesome manner and certainly one that 
seems to treat Mac users as third-class citizens. [3] I'm not the only one 
who feels this way, either -- indeed they are correct in titling their 
concerns the Audacity of Hopelessness. [4] Accordingly, I will follow the 
lead of my coworkers and other securitygeek friends and embrace GPG for my 
encryption needs.

Alas, PGP, I bid thee a sad adieu.

-rick

[1] http://blog.pgp.com/index.php/2009/08/sneak-peek-pgp-whole-disk-encryption-for-snow-leopard/

[2] http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10063151

[3] How about their officially-unsupported but unofficially-supported 
Mail.App plug-in?  After nearly a decade of OSX in the marketplace they 
still don't officially support Apple's Mail program?

[4] http://pgpsucks.wordpress.com/