File Share Encryption

We are hanging here not knowing if and when we will have a working WDE solution on our Mac again. And furthermore, we paid for our licence we cannot use. High time to inform your community to find other solutions or wait, and if so until when.

Regards

10.1.1 was released a while ago (though PGP neglected to email most customers) which fixes the issue with 10.6.5 and 10.6.6.

Unfortunately Symantec has disabled the downloads and LEMS systems, so there's no way to get the code without calling customer support (see the other thread).  I don't relish doing that for every release, but apparently that's their new policy as they've been unable or are unwilling to reactivate online downloads.

Mallard, your information is incorrect.

Customers do not need to contact customer support for every release. That is not the policy. We are neither unable nor unwilling to reactivate online downloads, as they are available now and functioning for the vast majority of customers.

To access the FileConnect portal, customers need their Support ID number (or serial number). This is effectively the account login. If you have not received this in email, Customer Care can provide it. Feedback has been that Customer Care is friendly, efficient, knowledgeable, and provides the necessary information in under 5 minutes.

Once you enter the SID, you will see your entitled versions available online in FileConnect. The same ID number is used to download future versions as well -- another call to Customer Care will not be required.

Another mailing was scheduled to go out on Friday (US) and continue on Monday (Europe). This will provide additional information about downloads.

Also, regarding notification on the 10.1.1 update. Beyond the email notification, the update of the KB article, and a blog posting, I asked forum users to let me know if they did not receive the earlier notifications. I then personally emailed the 10.1.1 notification to you and the others. I recognize your frustration, but am not sure that the ongoing flaming is warranted in this case.

Bryan

mjevring, can you be specific?

What are the issues that cause you to not have a working solution on the Mac?

If you're referring to the Software Update problem from December, this was resolved first with a set of workaround steps, then via a hotfix, and the permanent fix was released as 10.1.1 in January.

I'm not aware of a current issue which could leave you with a license you are unable to use.

Bryan Gillson
Sr. Director, Product Management
Symantec encryption products
 

Hi Bryan,

The last email I received from PGP (including in my spam filter) was on January 3rd.  I have never received any other emails regarding the entitlement, nor on 10.1.1.  I seem to get all the bad news (like symantec breaking the support contract), but none of the useful information (like 10.1.1 or the new download procedure).  FWIW, I did not receive the Friday email either.  I did know about 10.1.1 because of the posting in the old forum (thank you), and managed to get it before LEMS was shut down.

The last information posted to the forum was 'we're working on it, and in the meantime call support', so I (and I'm sure others) assumed that Symantec was going to correct the problem and enable downloads without customers having to take any action, so we've been waiting for that to happen.  Thank you for making it clear that we have to do that, and that it's only a one-time thing.

And I should have been more clear - I was talking about the online download within the application itself - the 'check for updates' option that's been there for years.  That's been disabled, and Symantec is either unwilling or unable to re-activate it.  I understand from a forum post that it's due to export restriction concerns, but it's unclear if that's temporary or permanent (and I note that PGP solved that problem a long time ago).

To summarize what I understand about the situation:

1) We call support once, then we're able to download entitled software.

2) Email notifications continue to be (at best) unreliable, so we should continue to monitor the forum for version updates.

3) Check for updates is offline with no ETA as to when, or if, they will be re-enabled.

Anything I've missed?

Thanks for clarifying. Let me answer your points directly:

We call support once, then we're able to download entitled software

To be clear, call Customer Care. Do not call Support for license information. They not only can't help you, but it will be a longer hold time (that ironically increases the hold time for others too).

Email notifications continue to be (at best) unreliable, so we should continue to monitor the forum for version updates.

Email notifications will continue to be difficult for a large number of reasons which I won't go into here. To improve our effectiveness at customer communication of patches and issues, we plan to leverage the Encryption Blog (https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/symantec-blogs/encryption-blog). This isn't fully locked down, but it looks like the best approach. I recommend monitoring the blog for official updates, though the forum is a good place to find unofficial comments (like this one).

Check for updates is offline with no ETA as to when, or if, they will be re-enabled

This is unfortunately correct. Note that "No ETA" in this case means, "we recognize that this is an important feature, and really want to leverage the Symantec update infrastructure to get it back in, but we don't have an estimated date as to when it will happen (but it won't be soon)."

I'm surprised you didn't get the email I sent you. That could be why you haven't received some of the other notifications. To confirm, can you send me an email at myfirstname_mylastname at symantec.com? (I assume you went under a different name in the PGP forums - beginning with an "L"?)

Bryan Gillson
Symantec
 

Thanks Bryan - and sorry for the misunderstanding on my end.  That's a good blog link - it's on my 'visit weekly' list now.

And thanks for the info on the update process.  I presume you mean LiveUpdate?  That makes a lot of architecture sense, and I can see how adding export compliance to it would be tough.

I'll shoot you an email and see if we can troubleshoot the process. 

Dear Mr Gillson,

I did actualy download 10.1.1 and installed in on a fresh MacBookPro (OSx 10.6.6). No problem to install 10.1.1 but it made the machine unbootable. I had not decrypted the harddrive, only installed 10.1.1 . After installation I just tried to restart the computer.

In end of January I recall reading something about that 10.1.1 was not recommended to install, but could not find that message now in March. Therefore, in beginning of March I even consulted your support department who confirmed 10.1.1 was OK to install. 

I am eager to see what your next step will be.

Regards

Mjevring