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Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

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Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#21

Post by Travis »

kijin wrote: post #19
Travis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all threat assessments I like to know (appox. to an order of magnitude) the likelihood of any downside. With the M.U. -> dropbox/s3 analogy, I have no guess for an estimate. I'm honestly curious -- what is the likelihood that you estimate your files being deleted from dropbox? It was always very clear to me that M.U. was shady, and I feel probably deserving of shutdown. Given a 5 year timelines, what is the prob…

I don't think Dropbox will suffer anything as drastic as the MegaUpload shutdown. Unlike Dropbox, MegaUpload was shady to begin with, and with a lot more emphasis on public file sharing. But the possibility of individual files being taken down is pretty real. Dropbox probably does it all the time already, otherwise they'd be in trouble with DMCA. Now, whether they will only delete your online copy, or whether they wi…

What are the odds the you think any of your files could have a DMCA takedown while on dropbox?

I am concerned about the abuses of power under these recent events. However, i still don't see a likely problem for legitimate use (with dropbox), outside of an outlier.

The rhetoric on both sides of the argument has me a bit concerned.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#22

Post by kijin »

Travis wrote: post #21
kijin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Dropbox will suffer anything as drastic as the MegaUpload shutdown. Unlike Dropbox, MegaUpload was shady to begin with, and with a lot more emphasis on public file sharing. But the possibility of individual files being taken down is pretty real. Dropbox probably does it all the time already, otherwise they'd be in trouble with DMCA. Now, whether they will only delete your online copy, or whether they wi…

What are the odds the you think any of your files could have a DMCA takedown while on dropbox? I am concerned about the abuses of power under these recent events. However, i still don't see a likely problem for legitimate use (with dropbox), outside of an outlier. The rhetoric on both sides of the argument has me a bit concerned.

I don't store any files on my Dropbox account that even remotely resemble anything owned by media companies, so I suppose the risks are negligible for myself. Using something like EncFS on top of Dropbox wouldn't hurt, either.

Other people might not be as lucky. People in some countries could store and share files that are completely legal to distribute where they live, but still protected in the U.S. For example, copyright expires 50 years after death in Canada, compared to 70 years in the U.S. If an American company issues a blanket takedown notice and Dropbox obliges, Canucks may be adversely affected. Besides, humans make mistakes. What if somebody pastes the wrong hash into their takedown notice and Dropbox staff forgets to check it?

So even people who never violate any copyright might have philosophical objections to unilateral takedowns like this. It is important to avoid alarmism and hyperbole, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing to worry about.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#23

Post by nikcub »

this assumes that Megaupload will lose in the courts, and it might not. all that we have so far are the claims of a handful of federal agents and their interpretation of the law plus some very weak search warrants with little PC. I agree that interpretation is scary, but I hope it turns out that it isn't right.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#24

Post by Travis »

kijin wrote: post #22
Travis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the odds the you think any of your files could have a DMCA takedown while on dropbox? I am concerned about the abuses of power under these recent events. However, i still don't see a likely problem for legitimate use (with dropbox), outside of an outlier. The rhetoric on both sides of the argument has me a bit concerned.

I don't store any files on my Dropbox account that even remotely resemble anything owned by media companies, so I suppose the risks are negligible for myself. Using something like EncFS on top of Dropbox wouldn't hurt, either. Other people might not be as lucky. People in some countries could store and share files that are completely legal to distribute where they live, but still protected in the U.S. For example, co…

Am I off base to draw a parallel between this and a right to privacy situation? The folks who say, "the only people who worry are the people who have something to hide"? (FTR, totally against that argument...)

Off topic, the spirit of the internet never ceases to amaze me. We're on ostensibly a business focused board, and you make a compelling argument defending the protection of potential competitors. (I.e., your customers/clients will receive a tangible benefit due to your awareness of these issues, and non-reliance on less capable competition.) Yet, you seem interested in the overall good, rather than looking to exploit your advantage commercially.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#25

Post by wmf »

nikcub wrote: post #23

this assumes that Megaupload will lose in the courts, and it might not. all that we have so far are the claims of a handful of federal agents and their interpretation of the law plus some very weak search warrants with little PC. I agree that interpretation is scary, but I hope it turns out that it isn't right.

Like the Netscape antitrust case, if they win in the courts they'll still have been out of business for years.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#26

Post by bigiain »

nitrogen wrote: post #17
hemancuso wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary difference with your 1984 example is in that case the content originated at Amazon. In the Dropbox model you provided it to start. If mozy was taken down do you think that it's possible they would wipe the drives of all users? I don't. Amazon also quite clearly keeps hashes of all keys in S3, which Dropbox rides on. Would you expect the government to be able to issue hash based takedowns to amazon across…

Amazon also quite clearly keeps hashes of all keys in S3, which Dropbox rides on. Would you expect the government to be able to issue hash based takedowns to amazon across all buckets? I was under the impression that Dropbox, while having the ability to decrypt your files, encrypts them before they hit S3. If so, a hash-based takedown sent to Amazon would at best be able to take down a single encrypted instance of a…

Except that Dropbox dedupe _everything_.

So I suspect what happens is that everybodies bittorrented dvd rip of Avatar on dropbox is deduped and stored once on S3, admittedly encrypted, but all with Dropboxes encryption key and all with the same hash pointing at the same single encrypted instance of the file.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#27

Post by burgerbrain »

kijin wrote: post #19
Travis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all threat assessments I like to know (appox. to an order of magnitude) the likelihood of any downside. With the M.U. -> dropbox/s3 analogy, I have no guess for an estimate. I'm honestly curious -- what is the likelihood that you estimate your files being deleted from dropbox? It was always very clear to me that M.U. was shady, and I feel probably deserving of shutdown. Given a 5 year timelines, what is the prob…

I don't think Dropbox will suffer anything as drastic as the MegaUpload shutdown. Unlike Dropbox, MegaUpload was shady to begin with, and with a lot more emphasis on public file sharing. But the possibility of individual files being taken down is pretty real. Dropbox probably does it all the time already, otherwise they'd be in trouble with DMCA. Now, whether they will only delete your online copy, or whether they wi…

I'm not totally sure on how to square "a lot more emphasis on public file sharing" with the fact that I could never find even a search box on their website.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#28

Post by nknight »

ceejayoz wrote: post #11
tomp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about being innocent unless proved guilty? Megaupload went down without any trial, and even though the site was obviously used for piracy (was it really?), that should still be proven in court and then only the illegal section of the website should be removed from web.

There's really nothing unique about that. If you were accused of selling drugs via a restaurant front, it'd be shutdown while you're standing trial too.

There is no general authority for the police to abruptly shut down a business. Once a warrant has been executed, the police leave and the business can reopen at its leisure, even if it might need to replace some equipment and staff.

The authority given to courts and federal authorities to behave as they are for suspected copyright infringement is extremely abnormal and cause for great consternation as to the direction of our legal system.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#29

Post by davidbanham »

kijin wrote: post #19
Travis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all threat assessments I like to know (appox. to an order of magnitude) the likelihood of any downside. With the M.U. -> dropbox/s3 analogy, I have no guess for an estimate. I'm honestly curious -- what is the likelihood that you estimate your files being deleted from dropbox? It was always very clear to me that M.U. was shady, and I feel probably deserving of shutdown. Given a 5 year timelines, what is the prob…

I don't think Dropbox will suffer anything as drastic as the MegaUpload shutdown. Unlike Dropbox, MegaUpload was shady to begin with, and with a lot more emphasis on public file sharing. But the possibility of individual files being taken down is pretty real. Dropbox probably does it all the time already, otherwise they'd be in trouble with DMCA. Now, whether they will only delete your online copy, or whether they wi…

That's our criteria for takedowns? Whether it feels shady? I understand the law can't always be black and white, but that's a heck of a lot greyer than I'm comfortable with.

Re: Megaupload Implications are plain scary for Cloud Storage

#30

Post by davidbanham »

kijin wrote: post #14
hemancuso wrote: post #5

The author, like many other commenters in the past week or so, is wasting words by saying "this is scary - what if it happened to Dropbox and I lost access to all those files!" Let's not forget Dropbox is just a replica of local storage. That's the whole model. It's more meaningful to discuss whether or not this could happen to S3. I don't see anyone legitimately worried about that, because it's quite obviously a ver…

Dropbox is just a replica of local storage. It gets scary when the operators of the "replica" has the ability to delete files from your local storage as well. Amazon did this with Kindle & 1984, which caused a sizable controversy at the time. Next thing you know, somebody sends a DMCA notice to Dropbox, they delete your remote copy, and your local Dropbox folder is automatically updated to reflect the change. Whoa, n…

When one of my coworkers deletes something in a shared folder, it dissapears from my local machine. This is fine because Dropbox lets you undelete it and revert to their latest copy, but they're sure as hell not going to do that if it was a takedown, whether that takedown was legitimate or not.

This would be vastly more damaging in the context of Dropbox, not less.

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