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How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

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Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#201

Post by hughw »

xenadu02 wrote: post #136
newhouseb wrote: post #121

Hi HN — Ben from Dropbox here on the desktop client team. Wanted to clarify a few things — - Clearly we need to do a better job communicating about Dropbox’s OS integration. We ask for permissions once but don’t describe what we’re doing or why. We’ll fix that. - We only ask for privileges we actively use -- but unfortunately some of the permissions aren’t as granular as we would like. - We use accessibility APIs for…

Can you also tell us why Dropbox eats lots of CPU cycles anytime there is any filesystem activity? If I unzip a large archive in /tmp, Dropbox is eating 60% of my CPU. If I open the new Xcode for the first time (and the system verifies all the signatures) Dropbox is eating 100% of one CPU. It really seems like the Dropbox client is monitoring the entire filesystem (all FSEvents) instead of just the dropbox syncing fo…

As important as this question is for usability, it seems off the original post's topic of Dropbox circumventing accessibility prompts.

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#202

Post by jwr »

xenadu02 wrote: post #136
newhouseb wrote: post #121

Hi HN — Ben from Dropbox here on the desktop client team. Wanted to clarify a few things — - Clearly we need to do a better job communicating about Dropbox’s OS integration. We ask for permissions once but don’t describe what we’re doing or why. We’ll fix that. - We only ask for privileges we actively use -- but unfortunately some of the permissions aren’t as granular as we would like. - We use accessibility APIs for…

Can you also tell us why Dropbox eats lots of CPU cycles anytime there is any filesystem activity? If I unzip a large archive in /tmp, Dropbox is eating 60% of my CPU. If I open the new Xcode for the first time (and the system verifies all the signatures) Dropbox is eating 100% of one CPU. It really seems like the Dropbox client is monitoring the entire filesystem (all FSEvents) instead of just the dropbox syncing fo…

I feel bad for contributing to the hijacking of this thread, but I simply have to pitch in: please do something about the abysmal performance of Dropbox. We have what are practically supercomputers on our desks, and Dropbox has problems dealing with hundreds or low thousands of files. It is something you need to work on.

As to the original article, I think you have a lot of explaining to do and a lot to clean up. Too much has been swept under the rug.

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#203

Post by apaprocki »

xenadu02 wrote: post #136
newhouseb wrote: post #121

Hi HN — Ben from Dropbox here on the desktop client team. Wanted to clarify a few things — - Clearly we need to do a better job communicating about Dropbox’s OS integration. We ask for permissions once but don’t describe what we’re doing or why. We’ll fix that. - We only ask for privileges we actively use -- but unfortunately some of the permissions aren’t as granular as we would like. - We use accessibility APIs for…

Can you also tell us why Dropbox eats lots of CPU cycles anytime there is any filesystem activity? If I unzip a large archive in /tmp, Dropbox is eating 60% of my CPU. If I open the new Xcode for the first time (and the system verifies all the signatures) Dropbox is eating 100% of one CPU. It really seems like the Dropbox client is monitoring the entire filesystem (all FSEvents) instead of just the dropbox syncing fo…

I started to see this really happen when backing up. When Arq is doing some work, Dropbox is slamming the CPU. I checked with the Arq team and they said during the time I was monitoring it, there's no way they would be touching the Dropbox folder, so it really did seem like some kind of global intercept was going on and was killing the box. I guess this is as good a way as any to raise this -- Dropbox team, test with Arq!

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#204

Post by dawnerd »

gnicholas wrote: post #160
xenadu02 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you also tell us why Dropbox eats lots of CPU cycles anytime there is any filesystem activity? If I unzip a large archive in /tmp, Dropbox is eating 60% of my CPU. If I open the new Xcode for the first time (and the system verifies all the signatures) Dropbox is eating 100% of one CPU. It really seems like the Dropbox client is monitoring the entire filesystem (all FSEvents) instead of just the dropbox syncing fo…

I uninstalled the desktop client because of this exact issue. I just drag/drop via the web interface now. Might not work for some people, but it suits me fine.

Just uninstalled too. I was only using it for syncing 1password data and this pushed me to just switch to a 1pass account

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#205

Post by guitarbill »

jimmaswell wrote: post #200
seanhunter wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very strange that after I remove Dropbox from the accessibility list you think it's ok to add it back in again. That's the reason I'll be closing my account.

Why would you even do that? What nefarious and yet undiscovered things did you think DropBox was likely to do specifically with the accessibility permission? Permission systems in general seem like a solution without a problem to me. Nobody but a minority of people very concerned about theoretical security problems wanted them on platforms that didn't have them, almost nobody cares what permissions programs use on pl…

Right, they have all your files already, so there's clearly some level of trust.

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#206

Post by alberth »

newhouseb wrote: post #121

Hi HN — Ben from Dropbox here on the desktop client team. Wanted to clarify a few things — - Clearly we need to do a better job communicating about Dropbox’s OS integration. We ask for permissions once but don’t describe what we’re doing or why. We’ll fix that. - We only ask for privileges we actively use -- but unfortunately some of the permissions aren’t as granular as we would like. - We use accessibility APIs for…

@newhouseb

Off topic: can you help me understand why when a file is locked (e.g. Outlook accessing .PST file) this causes Dropbox to peg the CPU to 100%.

I've opened multiple bug reports over the years and support dismisses my finding.

This makes Dropbox un-usable for me. I literally have to run Dropbox as "paused" 90% of the time and only "unpause" Dropbox when I close Outlook.

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#207

Post by Cheezmeister »

pyre wrote: post #43
pvdebbe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can read all mentioned pages with NoScript enabled. But fully agreed that static pages such as blogs shouldn't require JS to show the primary content.

That depends. What about blog posts that have inline JS demos?

Echoing others, as blog posts go, that's the exception and not the rule. Inline demos are furthermore not "primary content" but supplementary material.

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#208

Post by hutattedonmyarm »

gruez wrote: post #21

The fact that any application can spoof the os password prompt makes me wonder why they don't have a prominent feature to show the prompt is from the OS. On windows there is the secure desktop with the dimming effect.

It's not spoofing the prompt. The prompt is OS X native, DB is basically telling the OS "Hey I need root", the OS displays the prompt, and grants root access to DB. So it is a system prompt

Re: How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

#210

Post by bitserf »

newhouseb wrote: post #121

Hi HN — Ben from Dropbox here on the desktop client team. Wanted to clarify a few things — - Clearly we need to do a better job communicating about Dropbox’s OS integration. We ask for permissions once but don’t describe what we’re doing or why. We’ll fix that. - We only ask for privileges we actively use -- but unfortunately some of the permissions aren’t as granular as we would like. - We use accessibility APIs for…

Uh, nope. You've just ensured Dropbox will never be installed again on any of my machines or devices. Ever. You fuck up like this, you never earn that trust back.
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