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Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

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Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#101

Post by nottorp »

latexr wrote: post #28
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #19

Many times on HN, commenters have mocked those who questioned why someone would use Dropbox instead of a method controlled by the user. I guess becausse someone made lots of money from it or it became popular or something. I always found this perplexing because I look at solutions from the perspective of the user, namely, me, not from the perspective of a third party "tech" startup founder. It's insensitive to the pe…

> I guess becausse someone made lots of money from it or it became popular or something. No, it’s because it was useful and simple in a way that non-techies could and would set up and use. That’s why Dropbox got popular.

Even as a techie, why would you put in the work to set up your own thing?

Though, I moved away from Dropbox long ago when they introduced device limits. One phone, one laptop and one triple booting desktop -> over the device limit already.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#102

Post by evandrofisico »

popey wrote: post #41
Pawka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same. Plus also I'm using on my Android phone. Replaces Dropbox completely unless I want to share something with other people. But for that case I usually use Sharing feature from Synology NAS.

Oh I also have shared folders with other people. We used to use it for sharing audio files between podcast presenters, which worked well enough. I have half a dozen folders in my $HOME, shared with different groups of people. I also have Syncthing installed on my home server which gets backed up. So I have a copy of all my files backed up there, in the event a laptop goes missing or dies. The only use case I haven't…

You can try to use the untrusted device functionality, the data is encrypted on the sending device. Word of caution, it is still beta, an in my experience, it is kinda hit or miss, for some folders it worked beautifully, for another, it simply did not sync after the initial configuration.

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/untrusted.html

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#103

Post by Valodim »

Xeamek wrote: post #85
qwerty456127 wrote: post #74

Fuck all telemetry (sharing any information which is not just "you have no control over" but anything which is not logically necessary for the app to do its primary job). Just don't use any apps you can block from doing this. IMHO this (sending redundant and untransparent information from a user's machine) should be outlawed.

Error reporting is far from being redundant though, it's literally 1 step away from being 'logically necessary'

This. It's hard to take app development that doesn't use any kind of crash reporting seriously, tbqh.

Like, there's a crash reported by a user. That's already rare in itself, and average report quality from non technical users varies from nearly useless to misleading. What are you gonna do, ask them where it happened and what they were doing, to guess where in your related code something went wrong?

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#104

Post by zamnos »

alkonaut wrote: post #73
zamnos wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDPR lists IP addresses as PII, and not to be all "your IP address is leaking" but in order to send the telemetry, your computer's IP (or that of your VPN) is being sent to Dropbox, potentially to be logged.

That’s not a GDPR issue other than if stored. And remember this is an app that already must send requests to the same place in order to function at all.

Yes but because your computer is sending its IP to Dropbox, you can't say, a priori, make the claim that the GDPR isn't an issue.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#105

Post by [deleted] »

popey wrote: post #41
Pawka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same. Plus also I'm using on my Android phone. Replaces Dropbox completely unless I want to share something with other people. But for that case I usually use Sharing feature from Synology NAS.

Oh I also have shared folders with other people. We used to use it for sharing audio files between podcast presenters, which worked well enough. I have half a dozen folders in my $HOME, shared with different groups of people. I also have Syncthing installed on my home server which gets backed up. So I have a copy of all my files backed up there, in the event a laptop goes missing or dies. The only use case I haven't…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#107

Post by hoistbypetard »

dspillett wrote: post #61
mikae1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or use an open source client without telemetry such as https://maestral.app ㋡

“On other platforms, you can install the Python package or a Docker image based on Alpine Linux” isn't going to fly for a lot of users, though maybe there is quite an overlap between people who know the details of why they might want to install it and people with the ability to.

If you're using Windows at this point, you must have decided that this sort of telemetry is acceptable for you. It's about the same level as the stuff you can't disable in current versions of that OS.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#108

Post by alkonaut »

zamnos wrote: post #104
alkonaut wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not a GDPR issue other than if stored. And remember this is an app that already must send requests to the same place in order to function at all.

Yes but because your computer is sending its IP to Dropbox, you can't say, a priori, make the claim that the GDPR isn't an issue.

Of course not. It might send your medical records too.

It will send the IP regardless of whether telemetry is enabled. But they do claim that no PII is stored for telemetry. Whenever the topic of Telemetry comes up I try to keep to the discussion about properly anonymous telemetry, simply because that’s where there is any discussion at all. If anyone transmit or stores anything they aren’t entitled to it’s obviously always wrong so that’s not an interesting discussion.

Dropbox of course already stores PII (your files) but that doesn’t mean they can do so for other info or other purposes.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#109

Post by krono »

alkonaut wrote: post #75
krono wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mixing several things together here. Transparency is one of GDPRs cornerstones and very much not just nice to provide, but a deeply serious and non-negotiable hard requirement regardless of how you legitimise the data collection.

What I’m saying is that the GDPR is irrelevant unless there is data collected that counts as PII. Collecting non PII isn’t covered by the GDPR. So yes there are two things: GDPR which is irrelevant here, and storage of non-PII which should be done transparently because it’s polite to be transparent, but not a regulatory requirement.

False, I will rephrase: it is a regulatory requirement under the GDPR to disclose the fact that you are collecting data, to provide a detailed and easily accessible specification of the information contents, a precise definition of how this data is processed and used, and your legal justification(s) for doing so, and to do so for each separate type or kind of collection involving individuals, regardless of whether this includes any PII or not.

The few exceptions that exist are only applicable in cases where there is no potentially identifiable data collected at all, which is obviously not the case here.

Here is a very accessible (although non-official) GDPR resource that I've come across: https://gdpr-info.eu/

Obligatory "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer :)

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#110

Post by lightedman »

trollied wrote: post #55

Stopped using Dropbox a long time ago. Their constant "marketing" emails were bordering on scammy "Your dropbox is almost full!" etc - I try not to deal with companies that play these games.

That's exactly why I quit using Dropbox. I have TWO pictures in my Dropbox, no way in hell it's almost full. You lie to me in your advertising, you don't get my money, period.
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