Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 124 posts

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#21

Post by staz »

film42 wrote: post #5

I won't be getting rid of Dropbox, Google services, or Facebook anytime soon. I disagree with government spying, and would like to see major reform, but (disagreeing with Snowden) I actually have nothing to hide. I'm not excusing the companies that provide data to governments, but I like the services they provide. They solve problems I want solved, so I will continue to use them. Edit: Why all the down votes? If you…

The downvotes are probably because "The nothing to hide" line is such a tired argument.

Do you have blinds on your windows? Do you mind if we place a camera in your bathroom? Why? You have nothing to hide.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#22

Post by yuubi »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #8
xnull wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox was revealed as a participant of the PRISM program: anything you store there is searchable. The same is true of Facebook and Google and Yahoo, Apple, all cell phone carriers, all internet carriers and other cloud storage companies including Skydrive/Onedrive.

You left out half a sentence. "Anything you store there is searchable" if the US government has a court order for your data. This has always been the case. Other governments have similar systems for processing data obtained via legal requests, under different names.

Don't we have some examples of such court orders, basically "Acme Telecom is ORDERED to reveal ALL THE THINGS"?

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#23

Post by [deleted] »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #11

I use DropBox and Google Drive a lot, but I have scripts to encrypt data into ZIP files for anything that needs to be protected. It really is not much of a hassle. I have a SpiderOak account, but don't use it as often. Speaking of protecting data: I am surprised at how many companies seem to keep their software in private repositories on github and bitbucket. That seems like a security hole, if software if the core o…

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#25

Post by film42 »

adventured wrote: post #18
film42 wrote: post #5

I won't be getting rid of Dropbox, Google services, or Facebook anytime soon. I disagree with government spying, and would like to see major reform, but (disagreeing with Snowden) I actually have nothing to hide. I'm not excusing the companies that provide data to governments, but I like the services they provide. They solve problems I want solved, so I will continue to use them. Edit: Why all the down votes? If you…

You don't get to determine whether you have something to hide or not. That's not up to you. It's up to whomever is targeting you to decide whether they want to turn something you consider irrelevant, into something that puts you in prison. For example, something not considered a crime today, such as having this conversation, can be a 'thought crime' tomorrow. Oh, I see here film42, that back in 2014, you partook in a…

I agree with your principle, but I'm confident that I don't need to worry about a hard labor sentencing regime.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#27

Post by csandreasen »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #13

"Even with that encryption, he said law enforcement officials can still ask for warrants that will give them complete access to a suspect’s phone, which will include the key to the encrypted data." What, pray tell, is the mechanism by which the key will be obtained? Snowden is bloviating here.

... and he advocates ditching Dropbox in favor of a closed source, proprietary encrypted file storage service...

... and he tells you not to use Google, but gives every one of his remote appearances through Google Hangouts...

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#28

Post by lern_too_spel »

yuubi wrote: post #22
lern_too_spel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out half a sentence. "Anything you store there is searchable" if the US government has a court order for your data. This has always been the case. Other governments have similar systems for processing data obtained via legal requests, under different names.

Don't we have some examples of such court orders, basically "Acme Telecom is ORDERED to reveal ALL THE THINGS"?

PRISM specifically isn't about revealing ALL THE THINGS. The documents reveal it is for ingesting specific users' data.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#29

Post by jayd16 »

vikramsrao wrote: post #26

If i do all of these how do i share documents or search for information on the web? What ever the alternative is going to have the same issues as Dropbox, Facebook or Google. I cannot build my own versions of these!

You could build your own dropbox. It's not that complex. A social network and a search engine would be a bit harder.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#30

Post by jmgrosen »

[deleted] wrote: post #23
mark_l_watson wrote: post #11

I use DropBox and Google Drive a lot, but I have scripts to encrypt data into ZIP files for anything that needs to be protected. It really is not much of a hassle. I have a SpiderOak account, but don't use it as often. Speaking of protecting data: I am surprised at how many companies seem to keep their software in private repositories on github and bitbucket. That seems like a security hole, if software if the core o…

[deleted]

Neither of those are PDF encryption, only restrictions. PDF encryption is bad, yes, but it's not that bad.
Post reply on HN