How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#1

Post by 8bitben » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 3:52 PM UTC

How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac
applehelpwriter.com

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#2

Post by ejcx » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

Just wanted to give the author a shoutout for being awesome. This article is published with an AMP version[0] too, which is pretty unusual for smaller blogging sites.

AMP articles are so much easier on my eyes (and the author can't include their own javascript on an AMP page, so there is less bloat). I wish all bloggers started to publish AMP pages.

[0] - http://applehelpwriter.com/2016/08/29/discovering-how-dropbo...

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#3

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#4

Post by kmfrk » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

Gonna plug Micro Snitch, which is Little Snitch, but for your microphone and webcam: https://www.obdev.at/products/microsnitch.

(No affiliation.)

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#5

Post by look_waldo » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

ejcx wrote: post #2

Just wanted to give the author a shoutout for being awesome. This article is published with an AMP version[0] too, which is pretty unusual for smaller blogging sites. AMP articles are so much easier on my eyes (and the author can't include their own javascript on an AMP page, so there is less bloat). I wish all bloggers started to publish AMP pages. [0] - http://applehelpwriter.com/2016/08/29/discovering-how-dropbo..…

I agree, it was a great read!

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#6

Post by tomku » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

Non-clickbait title: "How Dropbox uses the root access that you give it during installation to give itself Accessibility authorization without triggering the usual popup".

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#7

Post by blowski » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

ejcx wrote: post #2

Just wanted to give the author a shoutout for being awesome. This article is published with an AMP version[0] too, which is pretty unusual for smaller blogging sites. AMP articles are so much easier on my eyes (and the author can't include their own javascript on an AMP page, so there is less bloat). I wish all bloggers started to publish AMP pages. [0] - http://applehelpwriter.com/2016/08/29/discovering-how-dropbo..…

Kudos to the OP for doing it, and for anyone using WordPress, it's pretty easy for you to do it too:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/amp/

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#8

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

Great article, but poor conclusion. He finds that Dropbox is untrustworthy, a finding that likely surprises no one, and reaches for iCloud as the solution. Why move into another walled garden driven by corporate interests? OwnCloud or a similar self hosted solution would be better. I just use NFS and a dead simple storage server to make ~/shared available on all of my machines.

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#9

Post by ptomato » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

It looks like in 10.12 Apple has added TCC.db to SIP, so this will no longer work — Dropbox will, hopefully, actually be forced to request accessibility access like they're supposed to. I'm sure they'll still demand your admin password via a dialog that tries super hard to look like a system one to use for whatever other more or less nefarious purposes. Would be nice if there was an alternative that actually syncs as reliably and performantly, but in my testing that's very much not the case.

I appreciate the trend of Apple forcing Dropbox to stop doing dumb shit, though. (Previously, of course, the SIMBL-style Finder hacking)

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#10

Post by f_allwein » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

For what it's worth, I posted on the Dropbox support forum asking them to explain. This seems to be the only way to contact them: https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/208945...