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Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

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Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#81

Post by 0x12 »

pg wrote: post #78

Drew's case shows how hard it is to generalize. We're generally reluctant to fund single founders. And yet the most successful startup we've funded had a single founder at the time he applied: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html We strongly encouraged Drew to get a cofounder, and he found Arash before the summer 2007 cycle began. Arash turned out to be the perfect cofounder. So Dropbox is pretty much the best c…

That application is a joy to read.

One answer stands out for me, it probably was instrumental in the eventual success for dropbox:

  # Do any founders have other commitments between June and August 2007 inclusive?  
  > No; I've given notice at Bit9 to work on this full time regardless of YC funding.
That's really great. Drew had already decided to push ahead, with or without YC, he basically positioned himself to negotiate from strength, in turn increasing his chances of getting funded by YC.

That's showing a lot of business savvy there. Instead of coming 'cap in hand' he's telling YC: "If you want on board you may, but the train will run regardless."

Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#82

Post by wmf »

scott_s wrote: post #56
simplekoala wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are injecting code into running Finder process? Hmmm, so they figured one of the jump instructions target address in Finder process ( for a function invocation, most likely the code to show the pop-up), and changed that location to jump to a different address where they injected their code? Don't you need root privileges to muck with Finder's process space? I see dropbox process running with non-privileged uid.…

A process can't change the address space of another process, period. Even if one is a root process. Separation of address spaces is a basic security service provided by the operating system. So I'm also puzzled how they are able to modify memory in Finder's address space. The closest thing I can think of is that Finder executes arbitrary processes on behalf of the user. That is, when I double click on something, Find…

A process can't change the address space of another process, period.

Don't forget ptrace.

Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#83

Post by pg »

0x12 wrote: post #81
pg wrote: post #78

Drew's case shows how hard it is to generalize. We're generally reluctant to fund single founders. And yet the most successful startup we've funded had a single founder at the time he applied: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html We strongly encouraged Drew to get a cofounder, and he found Arash before the summer 2007 cycle began. Arash turned out to be the perfect cofounder. So Dropbox is pretty much the best c…

That application is a joy to read. One answer stands out for me, it probably was instrumental in the eventual success for dropbox: # Do any founders have other commitments between June and August 2007 inclusive? > No; I've given notice at Bit9 to work on this full time regardless of YC funding. That's really great. Drew had already decided to push ahead, with or without YC, he basically positioned himself to negotiat…

That does count for a lot with us. It's surprising how many of the groups who apply have a cofounder who's not willing to quit his or her job. It's a worrying sign when someone who knows the company a lot better than we do isn't willing to bet on it. But again, there are always exceptions.

Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#85

Post by lawnchair_larry »

0x12 wrote: post #81
pg wrote: post #78

Drew's case shows how hard it is to generalize. We're generally reluctant to fund single founders. And yet the most successful startup we've funded had a single founder at the time he applied: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html We strongly encouraged Drew to get a cofounder, and he found Arash before the summer 2007 cycle began. Arash turned out to be the perfect cofounder. So Dropbox is pretty much the best c…

That application is a joy to read. One answer stands out for me, it probably was instrumental in the eventual success for dropbox: # Do any founders have other commitments between June and August 2007 inclusive? > No; I've given notice at Bit9 to work on this full time regardless of YC funding. That's really great. Drew had already decided to push ahead, with or without YC, he basically positioned himself to negotiat…

That's just common sense. I am not encouraging dishonesty, but I think you would be a fool to expect funding and not answer that question in this way. I actually assumed that question is in there just to weed out applicants.

Edit: More specifically, the "If we don't fund you, will you do it anyway" question.

Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#86

Post by lawnchair_larry »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #70
samstave wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love dropbox - and I just recently switched to a paid account. I have gotten my whole team on it - we have a virtual team of 10 consultants all working from our homes. Dropbox is key to keeping everything between us shared. We haven't yet gone for the Team account - but we will be doing so shortly. It is expensive - but the simplicity and value it offers it (so far) unmatched.

Have they improved on their lack of security yet? I'd recommend using wuala for work documents as they offer client side encryption, if you don't mind having java around.

This actually scares me a lot about dropbox. I've had clients share very sensitive documents and code via an emailed dropbox link. If you are in charge of security, dropbox is a data-loss prevention nightmare. It's too easy to share things. I can only imagine what kind of IP dropbox has access to.

Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#87

Post by lawnchair_larry »

scott_s wrote: post #56
simplekoala wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are injecting code into running Finder process? Hmmm, so they figured one of the jump instructions target address in Finder process ( for a function invocation, most likely the code to show the pop-up), and changed that location to jump to a different address where they injected their code? Don't you need root privileges to muck with Finder's process space? I see dropbox process running with non-privileged uid.…

A process can't change the address space of another process, period. Even if one is a root process. Separation of address spaces is a basic security service provided by the operating system. So I'm also puzzled how they are able to modify memory in Finder's address space. The closest thing I can think of is that Finder executes arbitrary processes on behalf of the user. That is, when I double click on something, Find…

> A process can't change the address space of another process, period. Even if one is a root process. Separation of address spaces is a basic security service provided by the operating system.

That is not even close to true, on any operating system.

Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#88

Post by [deleted] »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #87
scott_s wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A process can't change the address space of another process, period. Even if one is a root process. Separation of address spaces is a basic security service provided by the operating system. So I'm also puzzled how they are able to modify memory in Finder's address space. The closest thing I can think of is that Finder executes arbitrary processes on behalf of the user. That is, when I double click on something, Find…

> A process can't change the address space of another process, period. Even if one is a root process. Separation of address spaces is a basic security service provided by the operating system. That is not even close to true, on any operating system.

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#89

Post by scott_s »

wmf wrote: post #82
scott_s wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A process can't change the address space of another process, period. Even if one is a root process. Separation of address spaces is a basic security service provided by the operating system. So I'm also puzzled how they are able to modify memory in Finder's address space. The closest thing I can think of is that Finder executes arbitrary processes on behalf of the user. That is, when I double click on something, Find…

A process can't change the address space of another process, period. Don't forget ptrace.

I had, but that's not the situation I had in mind. You can only use ptrace on a child process. You can't use ptrace to attach to, say, another user's process.

Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

#90

Post by wmf »

scott_s wrote: post #89
wmf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A process can't change the address space of another process, period. Don't forget ptrace.

I had, but that's not the situation I had in mind. You can only use ptrace on a child process. You can't use ptrace to attach to, say, another user's process.

See PT_ATTACH, and wouldn't both Finder and Dropbox be running as the user?
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