I wonder if there are any plans to rewrite the desktop client in C++ (with some Objective-C++ on Mac), presumably using the libdropbox C++ libraries that Dropbox has been developing for the mobile apps, to get the installer size down and leverage more common code across platforms.
The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
11–20 of 37 posts
Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#12I'm surprised you can sign an executable, then modify it while preserving the validity of the signature, as I always though this is exactly what code signing is meant to prevent. Can anyone who knows more about this than me (a low bar!) explain whether this is a flaw in the signing mechanism or is actually okay?
Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#13"...while letting us safely modify content for each binary. Our custom tool allows us to create an unverified section of the binary in a way that is compliant with the Authenticode spec."
sounds like Condi didn't need much time for Dropbox to build a nice new home for NSA implants.
quite an intriguing attack surface for mobile malware...arbitrary code of Dropbox's choosing when combined with another 0day or two? no thanks.
this makes me glad i dropped dropbox like a bad habit.
Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#14Fascinating stuff, but was this a problem in need of a solution? Was Dropbox seeing that many issues with people running the install on their local machine? Were they able to differentiate between those who felt the install was a hassle versus those who simply opted to not install it?
There are a lot of places that we were seeing users drop off the radar when trying to install. Through a combination of logging analytics and user studies we figured out what the main problems were and designed this flow to solve them. (See my post from last week for more context on why we built this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8168792 )
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Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#15What's the use case for drop box on mobile devices (other than tablets)?
Photos and quick viewing of shared documents are common use cases.
Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#16Fascinating stuff, but was this a problem in need of a solution? Was Dropbox seeing that many issues with people running the install on their local machine? Were they able to differentiate between those who felt the install was a hassle versus those who simply opted to not install it?
There are a lot of places that we were seeing users drop off the radar when trying to install. Through a combination of logging analytics and user studies we figured out what the main problems were and designed this flow to solve them. (See my post from last week for more context on why we built this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8168792 )
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Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#17The UX of this blog post on mobile (HTC One M8, kit Kat) forces a horizontal scroll to read all of the page's content.
update: the non-responsive display was due to rendering of the page in the HN mobile app (by Creative Pragmatics) that I use. Visiting the page in a proper browser proved a better experience.
Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#18I wonder if there are any plans to rewrite the desktop client in C++ (with some Objective-C++ on Mac), presumably using the libdropbox C++ libraries that Dropbox has been developing for the mobile apps, to get the installer size down and leverage more common code across platforms.
Not currently, unfortunately. The complexity of how the Dropbox client works is enough to not pollute libdropbox with at this time. The idea here is correct though - were we to rebuild it at this time, we would look at potentially abstracting a lot things into a libdropbox-like library
Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#19[deleted]
I've been monitoring HN reactions to Dropbox news with interest and I can conclude that mentioning Rice in comments has fallen out of vogue and is punished with downvotes of power users.
HN was outraged at first, now it's meh about the whole deal. A regrettable development that shows companies that one can easily alienate a part of its early adopters, but bad rep won't stick if you continue to ship shiny things.
Re: The Tech Behind Dropbox’s New User Experience on Mobile, Part 2
#20I'm surprised you can sign an executable, then modify it while preserving the validity of the signature, as I always though this is exactly what code signing is meant to prevent. Can anyone who knows more about this than me (a low bar!) explain whether this is a flaw in the signing mechanism or is actually okay?
From the article:
"Our custom tool allows us to create an unverified section of the binary in a way that is compliant with the Authenticode spec. We make the tag buffer an unverified section so that the tag buffer can change without having to re-sign the binary."
So they sign 90% of the executable, but 10% of it is unsigned.