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Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

blog.dropbox.com

141–150 of 151 posts

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#141
post #81

I wish OS vendors weren't asleep at the wheel. This sort of service needs to be integrated into the OS. I'm sick of having an OS that doesn't include next-generation features like seamless p2p filesharing. I guess its time to make one ..

You mean like Windows 8 and OneDrive? Or OS X and iCloud? Or Ubuntu and Ubuntu One(now discontinued)?

These are just backup services between Microsft/Apple/Ubuntu, Inc., and the users.

What I want is true p2p. Like, nobody in between necessary, because the OS has everything onboard to make it happen. That sort of 'asleep at the wheel'..

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox isn't ideal for backup at all. Look into Crashplan. Client-side encryption, unlimited versioning, never deletes files, and only $6/month for truly unlimited backup.

Does it have an OSS Linux client, even headless? All I want is to encryptedly back up some directories on my home server, but nothing* really does that. I use SpiderOak at the moment, but it's not OSS. * Except attic, but I'd rather pay for a service as important as this (I don't trust the remote server to not lose files): http://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/

No OSS linux client, but we do have a closed source one. CrashPlan Does work headless[1], but note that that setup out of the scope for our support team.

1: https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/Latest/Configuring/Conf...

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised at all that a company doesn't want to refund you because of a political disagreement you have with them. What's important here is how they handled this. A company can issue a refund anytime it likes, the ToS notwithstanding. Those are rules they made up. Telling me that it is impossible to issue a refund is just lying. It's not impossible; it's very doable. If they (or any company) deliberately choo…

>What's important here is how they handled this. A company can issue a refund anytime it likes, the ToS notwithstanding. Those are rules they made up. The customer service representative you spoke to did not make those rules up. Unless you were speaking to the CEO of Dropbox personally, then yes, there is nothing that person could do. There may not even be a function of their support system that allows refunds. How d…

How do you know how simple it is for a CSR to offer you a refund?

I don't. So I asked the CSR to please pass my request on to someone higher up.

The response?

Nothing.

Zilch.

Not even the decency to tell me, "No."

I gather then that once Dropbox decides you're not a potential revenue source they can't be bother with even basic consideration.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#144
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It is not sufficient but it might be enough to fulfill compliance requirements. Yep, that is only cover your ass security but it is still better than no encryption at all … the glass is half full vs. the glass is half empty although we should of course aim for the full glass.

There's an opinion that it's actually harmful, as it creates a false sense of security when there's none (when a powerful malicious party can possibly force vendor to make the software silently auto-update and disclose your encryption keys — that really means "none").

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#145

I switched to Copy since the Condoleeza Rice situation and I have had no problems whatsoever. I have the app running on a macbook pro, an imac and two android mobile devices. It's also about half the price that Dropbox charges. I recommend it.

I switched to hubiC.

I think right now any american company is in bed with NSA until proved otherwise.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#146
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…

Wuala is user friendly enough. I don't know what magic Dropbox has that makes it more user friendly than Wuala.

But Wuala doesn't work without a network connection, which makes it pointless to me.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#147
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that sounds even better. What's with the lack of delta syncs in all these systems? As far as I know, neither Google Drive nor OneDrive do it. Now you're saying ownCloud doesn't do it either. I didn't even think to look at it for oneCloud because obviously they'd support it. I consider it to be an essential feature, to the point that I won't bother with something that doesn't support it. I guess I'm unusual in…

I suspected I would get downvoted for not loving Dropbox. And I was right. Interesting. FYI rdiff is the reference implementation or first example of a utility written with librsync, which is the library that Dropbox used to build their "business". Usage: rdiff [OPTIONS] signature [BASIS [SIGNATURE]] [OPTIONS] delta SIGNATURE [NEWFILE [DELTA]] [OPTIONS] patch BASIS [DELTA [NEWFILE]] Options: -v, --verbose Trace inter…

What's the relevance of this reply to the preceding comment thread?

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#148

I wish OS vendors weren't asleep at the wheel. This sort of service needs to be integrated into the OS. I'm sick of having an OS that doesn't include next-generation features like seamless p2p filesharing. I guess its time to make one ..

Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu all do. Half the reason to use dropbox is that it works on all of them.

The point is that seamless peer-to-peer hasn't happened, at the OS level. If Dropbox' NS servers go splooey, there goes your backup.

However if me and every family member want to share our own private files, internally across the vast Internet, without any 3rd-party interaction - i.e. really peer-to-peer, only the open-source/3rd-party-app route works, feasibly, at the moment.

Which is what I mean when I say that I think that OS designers are asleep at the wheel; or, perhaps, brain-dead. An OS which does point to point encryption across untrusted networks, successfully, and which wraps up the whole thing in a workable GUI provided by the OS vendor .. its just not there yet. I suppose soon, though.

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#149

Dropbox is morally corrupt and support for them by HN users is disappointing. I wrote to Dropbox and said I wanted to cancel my account and get a pro-rated refund because of their hiring of Condoleezza Rice. Her involvement in the Iraq war and the mass surveillance of Americans is deplorable. A few days after my request my account was converted to the free version, with the limitations of the free version. I could no…

So you don't approve of Condoleezza Rice backing the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Okay, I agree with you that the invasion of Iraq was the wrong thing to do. I don't approve of you attacking Dropbox, and Ms. Rice in her capacity as a Dropbox employee, for actions that have nothing to do with the company. Would you like it if I wrote to your employer demanding you be fired because of your actions here? No? You would say,…

How well do you know "Ms. Rice"? Personally? Professionally? Politically? Psychologically?

Ms. Rice, and her associates, were responsible for committing acts of open war on another country and in so doing violated - criminally - much international as well as national law. Charges at the ICC mean something. Such individuals, no matter what, should not be allowed more access to the masses until they have answered for their crimes.

The fact that this is of no consequence to someone who 'publically defends Ms. Rice' may not surprise me. She must answer to crimes against humanity, sir! This is why she should not be associated with the Western worlds growing fascination for documenting itself ..

Re: Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro

#150
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We currently allow 1.1 PB in a single "namespace" (zpool). There are non-obvious ways to make a petabyte-sized zpool non-scary ... but even with those employed we still utilize raidz3 and have contingencies for rollbacks. edit: for obvious reasons, that 1.1 PB number will grow by 50% in the very near future...

It's easy enough to jam enough disks into a rack with these 90disk 4u super micro jbods. The thing that always scared me (ESP with rsync) is how do you get performant metadata for a few billion files? Or even tens of millions. And raidz3 resilver must be horrible at those densities! Again. Just curious. Email at jmancuso@expandrive if you feel like chatting. I know we offer a similar product, but we are about to leav…

Any hints at what filesystem you are moving Strongspace over to? Assuming that you will be moving off SmartOS as well?
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