Search Results for 'ssl'

[Robyn Miller]

First… If you’re still just one guy doing all this… kudos. For a one man shop, this app is impressive.

Now for my whining… The video definitely helped a lot and I was able to get it synced. If you don’t know where to find this video though, the whole process is in no way self-explanatory. (and therefore a poor user experience, especially when your average user doesn’t look past the app itself)

Now the issue is that even though I changed the file name on the Mac OS version of the db, the name has not changed on iOS. Bug? And I can’t find a way to edit the name on iOS at all. Other changes I have made to the db data itself have synced flawlessly.

Also… there isn’t a way to universally save your Cloudant account info inside Tap Forms? Please please please allow sign in for Cloudant at the app level instead of file level if at all possible. It is fairly annoying to have to enter the password and set up sync again every time I create a new file. And then I have to remember to turn on sync inside the iOS app after it has transferred over, and enter the password again there when I would expect it just to automatically be enabled; but I suppose not being able to store the credentials outside of a file means this can’t happen.

This new UI is lending itself to create multiple databases rather than having lots of categories in the same database like I had before… so I am creating several new files right now and it makes me grumble a little since I am using randomly generated password, which means I have to look the thing up every time I need to enter it. Plus, typing those sorts of passwords in iOS is pretty annoying all by itself with all the flipping between cases and keyboards.

On a whole though, this new version does seem shinier (more polished) and better than the last version. Especially on iOS. The new sync seems promising compared to the old, but only time will tell. I guess I will have to suck it up and upgrade… but getting the discounted upgrade also seems like jumping through hoops without much in-app guidance. I will have to go back to the FAQ and re-read the steps. I am trying to not be your average whiny end user that is unhappy about the current state of an app, especially a new version of an app… I will put on my Agile hat and wait to see what happens as you iterate on this. It is still an amazing app, despite my complaints.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RayfjtzpQ7k (louis ck bit on amazing things that people complain about)

[Brendan]

Tony, no need to shout :)

Tap Forms transmits the data using SSL, which is an encrypted communication channel. The data however, as was observed in a response above from Cloudant appears to not be encrypted on the actual Cloudant server. I don’t honestly know why this is the case since it’s not beyond their technology to encrypt the database.

It’s not a MongoDB database by the way, it’s a CouchDB database. Yes, all the documents are stored in JSON format.

With Nearby sync, the data is encrypted during transit also using an SSL connection and then of course since you can individually encrypt the local database, then your data will be most secured that way.

I’ll contact Cloudant to see if there’s any reason why they’re not encrypting their data at rest. As I mentioned before, I got 2 conflicting responses from them.

Remember you can also have multiple database documents in Tap Forms 5. Some that sync over Nearby and some that sync via Cloudant.

You can also easily move your private data to a new document by using the Export and Import Tap Forms Archive commands.

[Ivan Herman]

What is sent in clear text and what is not (through SSL, but that is only for the transfer)? Ie, if the form names and field names are sent in cleartext, but the record data is sent encrypted (after all, the database is encrypted locally) then that should be fine. The real issue (for me) if the record data was not sent in encrypted format. (I must admit it would be difficult for me to see why that would be the case.)

I tried to have a look at the Cloudant dashboard where one can “look” into the databases but, well…, it is really not clear what one has to look at. It is using, afaik, MongoDB, i.e., the database is a bunch of JSON objects. I looked at some top level records, most of the values were clearly encoded/encrypted data, although I did find the names of my forms within the database in clear text form. But I could not find a way to reveal any real record data.

It would really be important to find information about the exact state of encryption on the Cloudant server. Again, if the records themselves are there in clear text, even if behind the Cloudant firewall, that is way too dangerous. If this is indeed the case, it is reason for me not to use TP at all and get my money back. (I could never get the nearby sync working, although the Cloudant sync works like charm). But if the records themselves are sent to IBM encrypted, then I do not see any danger.

[Kelvin Williams]

I do encrypt locally on all my devices and data is transmitted to Cloudant securely via SSL but Cloudant hold it in a local database that is not encrypted which is where I have a problem. It doesn’t just sync via Cloudant.

[Brendan]

The data is transmitted to Cloudant in an encrypted format of course using standard SSL (https) encrypted data connections. What happens to it after then is up to IBM. Remember, IBM is a huge company. They’ve been around as long as Apple and I’m sure that data security is of utmost importance to them.

I did contact Cloudant and asked them the question and this is what I was told:

Greg H @cloudant.com
Apr 25
Hey Brendan,

Data on the multi tenant service is also encrypted.

But then I got a response from a general support query that said:

Cloudant Support support@cloudant.com
Apr 25
Hi Brendan,
On our Multi-tenant clusters data is not encrypted at rest. Encryption at rest is available on Dedicated clusters.

Regards,
Josh Stonefield – Cloudant Support

So I don’t really know what is true and what is not true.

[Brendan]

Hi Richard,

Ya, I found that one too. It’s happening to some people, but not everyone. I really don’t know the cause yet and I posted on the Couchbase Github issues list about this just the other day:

https://github.com/couchbase/couchbase-lite-ios/issues/1408

But all they said was that it might be due to an older version of iOS causing this. It could be the App Transport Security system interfering with the certificate that’s generated by Tap Forms to support SSL secured data transfer between devices.

Perhaps make a backup of your documents, then re-install Tap Forms. Maybe also delete anything in Keychain Access related to Tap Forms 5. The ones that are affecting this issue may be the ones that start with “tf-peer-sync”. So search for that in Keychain Access and delete them. When you startup Tap Forms and open a document again they’ll get re-created.

[pmtsc]

After my initial annoyance at losing dropbox and iCloud for syncing, I am now very happy with the new Tap Forms!
Cloudant is working brilliantly for me, very fast and so far no issues entering data during my business day via my iPhone 6s and having immediate updates on my Macbook air and iMac is awesome!. Transferring documents wirelessly is also a breeze. I am now able to start to look at the detail and I’m loving it!
Multiple split databases, more personalisation and extra features on my mac is making the whole tapforms 5 experience exciting and fun.

Thanks and keep the updates coming

pmtsc

[Brian Quinn]

So disappointing, Brendan!
Having paid £26 for the OSX & IOS versions I’m shocked to find that they no longer sync over iCloud.
That was the great advantage of the previous product for me – synching across my several devices. Now I’m supposed to open an account (possibly chargeable) for IBM Cloudant, which I’ve never heard of before.
The alternative of wi-fi synching requires all devices to have Tap Forms open at the same time, which is hopelessly impractical and messy.
I feel deceived that the store description refers to Cloud synching without making it clear that it’s not iCloud.

[Brendan]

I think you can seamlessly change between them. Not sure if it’s something a developer can decide upon.

[Philip Schroeder]

The backup from TimeMachine worked seamlessly and am back up without any great loss of work. Thanks for the work around.

[maxasara]

Hi,

I’m just starting with Tap Forms, and it seems really awesome.
I’m building a database using some usual basic structures. Some of them rely on relationships like the one shown in this example:

Person (name, phone, [Roles in Projects]) one
                                                                      to many
                                                                                Role in a project ([Person], Role, notes, [Project])
                                                                      to many
Project (name, value, [Roles]) one

Such architecture is a simple way to link Persons and Projects with a many-to-many relationship, giving a particular quality (the Role) to each single relationship.

In this way, getting into the person Jimmy I can see that his role is Consultant for the project Abbey Grocery, and his role is Client for the project Green Campaign.
Getting into the project Abbey Grocery I can see there’s a role of Consultant played by Jimmy, and a role of Security played by Jack.

As you can see, one person can play many roles (each linked with only one project) and one project is linked to many roles (each linked to only one person).
In such basic db structure, which works flawlessly in mysql and access for example, the key is using one-to-many links on both sides. Using many-to-many on one or both sides would be misleading.

Maybe I’ve found the same issue in the forum, a thread of 2014 talking about mothers, fathers, and children. In 2014 a child had to have one only parent, or a potentially infinite number of parents. This because in Tap Forms a table couldn’t be linked by two tables in a one-to-many relationship: once set the mother, the father disappears and vice-versa.

I’m experimenting the same issue now, so I can’t translate to Tap Forms the architectures working in all the other database systems I work with, which would be really awesome. Please tell me if I’m missing something, or if this limit’s gonna be fixed, or if there’s an equivalent way I can use to set a table of exclusive links (like Roles) between two main tables (like Persons and Projects).

Thanks a lot.

[John Harris]

Cliff – The 3.0 manual is fundamentally wrong – right? I mean, the new process for creating a table is actually showing the old way of doing things. There is no up to date user guide for FT in fact.
This is what I’ve been confused about all along.

I understand now and I guess I’ll work around it – but it’s a hassle because relational databases are not easy to conceptualize – and things need to be clear for dummies like me. I’m probably not the only one who is confused.

John

[Mark Burgess]

I found the problem… in my Keychain, some of the certificates that issued the Dropbox SSL certificate were expired (I think Entrust.net). I downloaded new certificates and installed them in my Keychain, now all is good. Not a Tap Forms problem. Thanks.

[Patrice Hof]

Thanks for the explanations.
What remains mysterious is the invisibility of the devices in TF Mac.
Actually,TF syncs seamlessly between the 2 iOS devices, but the two Mac are still alone :-(

The attached screenshots may bring some clues.

As you can see, the iphone sees all my devices (1), but the iMac isgawen3 doesn’t (2) even if the dropbox SyncDocuments contains the 4 tfs documents (3). The last pic (4) shows the Application Support/SyncDocuments of isgawen3, which contains only its own documents.

Thank for your help.
patrice

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[tonyt]

Hi Brendan
When i can get the latest mac version I want to do so. Please can you tell me where the documentation is to make the switch as painlessly as possible. I am running IOS 8.2. Will the latest ipad version be OK with that as I dont want to go to 8.3 yet!
Cheers
Tony