Undercover stopt ermee!
30 september 2019 - 18:36   
geplaatst door: MacMiep
Ik kreeg anderhalf uur geleden deze email.   :confused:


Dear Undercover user,
 
After 14 years of Undercover recovery successes, we need to inform you that we’ll no longer be developing or supporting Undercover.

All Undercover support will stop on Jan. 1st 2020.
On the same date, the undercoverhq.com website and the Undercover recovery service will stop operations as well.
Undercover uninstall instructions can be found at the bottom of this email.
 
If you want to continue protecting your Mac, we recommend switching to HiddenApp.
 
Established in 2010, HiddenApp has been recovering thousands of Macs, iPads and iPhones. Hidden not only offers a solution for protecting macOS devices but also has an offering for iOS, which means you can protect your entire suite of Apple devices with one solution. HiddenApp is fully road-tested and ready for the imminent release of macOS Catalina and also has a brand new iOS app that will be released in the coming weeks.
 
We have negotiated a 20% discount on all Hidden orders with the following coupon code: UNDERCOVER20
 
 
Switch To HiddenApp
 
 
If you are wondering why Undercover is ceasing operations, we provide more background below, see 'Why we are halting Undercover development' at the bottom of this email.

We’re proud of the literally thousands of stolen Macs that have been recovered thanks to Undercover. We’re also proud of the fact that Undercover helped bringing a little bit of justice in a world that’s often unfair. Undercover even provided critical evidence to arrest a drug gang.

We would like to thank you, as a user, for your continued support over the past 14 years. It has been a great journey!

Best wishes,
Peter
--
Peter Schols, PhD
CEO
Orbicule

Why are we halting Undercover development 

The main reason is that over the past 6 years, Apple has significantly increased security on macOS. While that’s a good thing in general, it makes it increasingly more difficult to reliably run hidden software like Undercover.
 
Another key point is that FileVault has become mainstream. This means that a thief won’t be able to access your files without your password - again a good thing. However, this also means that Undercover won’t be able to function properly, as third party developers don’t have access to the recovery partition that is being used when a thief boots your Mac without knowing your password. Only Apple has access to this recovery partition, where it can run FindMyMac.
Undercover (or any other third party application) can’t run on this recovery partition and will be useless if FileVault has been enabled.
 
A third reason is that with macOS Catalina, Apple is refreshing its FindMyMac app (now called FindMy) and will leverage its large installed base of Macs and iPhones to track stolen devices, even if they never connect to the internet. They do so by using Bluetooth connections of nearby devices that are connected to the internet. Again a great idea from Apple, but Undercover or any other third party application, do not have access to this functionality.
 
When launched in January 2006, Undercover was groundbreaking software. The fact that Apple has replicated Undercover-like functionality and embedded it deep into iOS and macOS shows the value of the theft-recovery genre that Undercover has pioneered. At this point, however, we feel that we can no longer deliver reliable software due to security restrictions, while having a hard time carving out a successful business model competing with free Apple software that is installed by default on every Mac and has access to system features that we can only dream of.
Al meer dan 20 jaar beheert Miep de MacMiepMacCursus op macmiep.nl & op macostutorial.com in het Engels èn Duits!
antw: Undercover stopt ermee!
30 september 2019 - 18:47    reactie #1
geplaatst door: puk1980
Een wijs besluit. Ze geven zelf duidelijk aan waarom deze tool niet (meer) nodig is.