They might or might not steal your files, but the mere fact that to use their service you have to install proprietary software is a reason not to trust them.
Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
81–90 of 158 posts
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#82Independently of whether DB reads/uploads all the files or not, I've arrived at a difficult position about Dropbox: I'm looking for alternatives. No, it's unrelated with politics or pricing; it's just that in many cases Dropbox sucks . Why? Well, I mostly don't care about all the new features (mobile, Carousel, etc.). What I care the most is that i) it syncs files and ii) acts as a quasi-backup. However, I see the sa…
I'm using ownCloud[0] in version 7 and 8. In the early version ownCloud was a bit hard to configure and run on your own. But the new versions are really good (in my opinion). For me it's very reliable.
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#83I just had a quick look at dropbox with ProcMon, and I learned that 1) when I created a new text file on my desktop, it was not read by Dropbox 2) when I created a new text file in my dropbox folder, it was immideately read by Dropbox 3) I have to find some sync tool that doesn't feel the need to enumerate my network interfaces 3 times every second, when nothing is actually changing.
Have you heard/tried Bittorrent sync? It's P2P, doesn't put your files on their server. Very fast for transferring locally between your phone and computer for example. You have to keep your computer running if you want your files accesible anytime though.
Unfortunately btsync is very much not open-source. There are alternatives, though. I am very satisfied with syncthing[1], although it didn't have usable mobile app last time I checked.
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#84The article covers the dropbox app on windows. How about others platforms, like OS X?
I've just run a quick strace on Linux but I don't see it accessing anything outside by ~/Dropbox folder.
It calls inotify on the Dropbox folder only https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9136831
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you heard/tried Bittorrent sync? It's P2P, doesn't put your files on their server. Very fast for transferring locally between your phone and computer for example. You have to keep your computer running if you want your files accesible anytime though.
Unfortunately btsync is very much not open-source. There are alternatives, though. I am very satisfied with syncthing[1], although it didn't have usable mobile app last time I checked. [1] http://syncthing.net/
And requires port forwarding, which may not be an option for people who are not on IPv4 at home (e.g. my ISP uses DS-Lite, so I cannot use IPv4 port forwarding).
Bittorrent Sync works pretty good. Somebody should reverse engineer the protocol and make an open source client.
Edit: why the heck is the grandparent downvoted? He/she offers a good suggestion.
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or maybe not. Your speculation is as good as mine. Or the op. Or everyone else. The point was Dropbox is accessing files outside the folder, something I would not want or expect. "It is incredibly hard for me to believe that Dropbox has sneakily transferred >1TB" Did they transfer hashes? name+type+size for fingerprinting? Searching for credit numbers or SSNs? Who knows. I don't. And don't do evil is no longer the ba…
They could look for bitcoin wallet files, thats what typical malware does nowadays. Could theorethically only takes the infection of one computer to strike it rich.
That would be a solid line of thought if this would be some shady adware from some unknown company. But Dropbox is valued more than $10B, that's more than twice the market cap of all Bitcoin. Even if everyone at Dropbox went criminally insane, there would be no way for them to recover even a reasonable fraction of it in BTC markets. Not to mention it would completely kill their reputation and thus the highly-valued business.
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#87Independently of whether DB reads/uploads all the files or not, I've arrived at a difficult position about Dropbox: I'm looking for alternatives. No, it's unrelated with politics or pricing; it's just that in many cases Dropbox sucks . Why? Well, I mostly don't care about all the new features (mobile, Carousel, etc.). What I care the most is that i) it syncs files and ii) acts as a quasi-backup. However, I see the sa…
I'm using ownCloud[0] in version 7 and 8. In the early version ownCloud was a bit hard to configure and run on your own. But the new versions are really good (in my opinion). For me it's very reliable. [0] https://owncloud.org/
I once wrote a plugin for OwnCloud for work. But before running OwnCloud on a server I would first like to see an audit and/or analysis of the code. I read some code of IIRC version 5 or 6, which made me skeptical.
Maybe it's better now.
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could look for bitcoin wallet files, thats what typical malware does nowadays. Could theorethically only takes the infection of one computer to strike it rich.
That would be a solid line of thought if this would be some shady adware from some unknown company. But Dropbox is valued more than $10B, that's more than twice the market cap of all Bitcoin. Even if everyone at Dropbox went criminally insane, there would be no way for them to recover even a reasonable fraction of it in BTC markets. Not to mention it would completely kill their reputation and thus the highly-valued b…
Wait some years when bitcoin is $10K and Dropbox is $0 and we'll talk again.
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#89I know that HN is not a help desk, but I have noticed DropboxOriginal eating a lot of my CPU (on OS X), when I am writing files to folders which are NOT under (official) control of Dropbox (or at least: out Dropbox folder, not synchronized). Any ways to block this behavior on OS X?
Security aside, it is really annoying for scripts which modify a lot of files.
Re: Dropbox accesses all the files in your PC?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you heard/tried Bittorrent sync? It's P2P, doesn't put your files on their server. Very fast for transferring locally between your phone and computer for example. You have to keep your computer running if you want your files accesible anytime though.
thanks, but no. http://www.cso.com.au/article/560026/bittorrent-dismisses-se...
Did you even read through the whole article?