I have read the forum posts and want to see if I understand the securness or lack thereof for the vaults. If I use an “auto login” for my vault(s) when I start up, the password is in the keychain. Ergo, if my computer is stolen and the drive removed, the thief can get into my “secure vault” or backup simply by double clicking the vault or using Disk Utility. My keychain will allow this. If this is correct, then it would be a major mistake to use the Knox vault auto login. Can someone confirm or correct me on this issue? Thanks!! P.S. I use a secure token to login to my computer so my computer itself is secure.

The password is indeed stored in your keychain. By default, the password that unlocks your keychain for programs to insert and retrieve passwords from is the same as your user account login password. On successful login the keychain is unlocked and Knox, among other programs, is let in to retrieve whatever passwords their operation requires.

In the case you describe where a thief steals your laptop, if the computer is completely shut down and you have prior to this changed the security settings as described in the FAQ (http://forum.karppinen.fi/forums/1/topics/1) topic “Which settings should I set in the System Preferences to make my Mac secure?”, they will not be able to dig in and retrieve the vault passwords stored in your keychain.

Also, may I ask which vendor’s secure token do you use?

I am using Knox For Mac @ www.knoxformac. It’s been easy to use and I at least feel my hardware would be usless to a thief – some consolation. Along with your program, it gives me a feeling of some security as I have a lot of personal information stored. I am also using 1Password which seems to be a great program. I suspect that there is an interaction between Keychain and 1Password. If I can get all of this straight in my head and laptop all should be quite secure. I will read you FAQ. If you have any more comments, they will be welcomed. Thank you.

I went to “Turn off Safe Sleep now” and followed the instructions. I sure hope they were relevant to OS 10.5. Please advise as I typed the code into Terminal and am greatly concerned. I also followed the instructions you outlined in the FAQ.

Yes indeed, turning off Safe Sleep using that method is still valid on Leopard.