Live data from Hacker News

Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

blog.dropbox.com

51–60 of 151 posts

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#51
post #48

I've got something I like better than Dropbox. It's called rdiff. It does one thing only: deduplication. All the other stuff needed for remote, incremental backups, e.g., moving files back and forth over a network, can be done with other open source tools. I think I have a pretty good command of moving files around with open source software... I do not need a third party to help me via an obfuscated blob of Python an…

Don't think of Dropbox as backup. Think of Dropbox as a convenient way of syncing files across multiple platforms, both traditional and mobile.

I'm a big fan of open source when it works but there is nothing as seamless as Dropbox when it comes to syncing.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#52
post #48

I've got something I like better than Dropbox. It's called rdiff. It does one thing only: deduplication. All the other stuff needed for remote, incremental backups, e.g., moving files back and forth over a network, can be done with other open source tools. I think I have a pretty good command of moving files around with open source software... I do not need a third party to help me via an obfuscated blob of Python an…

What do you mean by better? My grandparents manage to use Dropbox. I think that's pretty amazing.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#53

All that matters: Does Dropbox encrypt my data on the client side, before storing it on the server? Or does Dropbox have the power to pilfer through my data, along with official snoopers and hackers?

Even if they did encrypt the data client side, it would be pretty easy for them to also take a copy of the encryption key. If you want to have security against the cloud storage provider, it is better to use some other encryption solution.

I don't think you understand how encryption works.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#54

So I have the $20/month a plan, and my reward appears to be that I pay twice as much and still have 200GB...? Do I have to cancel and re-subscribe? Anyone from Dropbox out there..???

> Already a Pro user? Dropbox will update automatically in the next couple days. You don’t have to do a thing.

Looks like you just have to wait a few days.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#55
post #34
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible explanation: Dropbox is a YC company, HN is a YC website, and the previous discussion seemed to take a turn for the negative

As it should. We are a community voicing our opinions about a company. If we find they are doing wrong, shouldn't we say something about it?

Absolutely. The support for Dropbox here is disheartening.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#56
post #3

Whoever downvoted my previous comment, can you explain to me why you care about Dropbox Pro?

I don't really care about it, but your comment was worthless and deserved to be downvoted. If you don't care about a story, ignore it. If you think it's wildly inappropriate, flag it. If you feel compelled to share your disdain with others, I recommend Twitter for that.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#57
post #48

I've got something I like better than Dropbox. It's called rdiff. It does one thing only: deduplication. All the other stuff needed for remote, incremental backups, e.g., moving files back and forth over a network, can be done with other open source tools. I think I have a pretty good command of moving files around with open source software... I do not need a third party to help me via an obfuscated blob of Python an…

How do I set up these tools to automatically sync a set of files between multiple computers and make them accessible from my smartphone and tablet?

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#58
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they did encrypt the data client side, it would be pretty easy for them to also take a copy of the encryption key. If you want to have security against the cloud storage provider, it is better to use some other encryption solution.

I don't think you understand how encryption works.

Perhaps you could explain then. Wouldn't software that has the ability to encrypt and decrypt files on the client side also have access to the keys?

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#59
post #54

So I have the $20/month a plan, and my reward appears to be that I pay twice as much and still have 200GB...? Do I have to cancel and re-subscribe? Anyone from Dropbox out there..???

> Already a Pro user? Dropbox will update automatically in the next couple days. You don’t have to do a thing. Looks like you just have to wait a few days.

Plus, if you're on a larger plan the upgrade is to 10x your current space. So 2TB.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#60
post #29

It is disappointing that Dropbox still does not offer any options for secure storage. Personally, you might be fine with unencrypted stories but at least for companies in Europe, having (all) your data with an American cloud provider without local encryption on your side is simply not a legal option … Dropbox is a great service, however, it would be even greater if I could use Dropbox for all my data and not only sel…

> Dropbox competitors with encryption like Spideroak and Wuala

Unless one doesn't really cares about security and wants encryption for the sake of having encryption, there's no way their implementations could be considered sufficient.

Without audit you're just taking their word for it — which is exactly as when you take Dropbox's word that they won't peek at your data (unencrypted or possibly encrypted but one can't verify that). And to audit those one needs to spend a lot of time reverse engineering their applications, and then auto-update mechanism could render those efforts void at any moment. I've spent about a weekend debugging and looking at decompiled SpiderOak code and while I hadn't found anything suspicious (although I'm not a crypto or security expert) the only judgement I was certain with was "this behemoth's too complex to study in detail, not worth the time to continue the research"

The point is, the data could be encrypted, but it's pointless to just have the encryption — to assume some security one must be certain about many aspects of how it's done — when, how and where encryption keys are generated, when, where and how data's processed, what are exact crypto algorithms used and how they are composed together and so on. And, obviously, a possibility to verify the description completely matches the actual implementation.

So, I think, security should be really done by a separate software module that could be completely reviewed by anyone (from tech-savvy end-users to security researchers) and can't be remotely auto-updated without explicit user consent.

Post reply on HN