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

Dropbox S-1

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 404 posts

Re: Dropbox S-1

#381

Post by Spivak »

afterburner wrote: post #328
lsc wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Good for you if you're OK with that extreme imbalance. But, I know too many people that discovered only upon an exit, that the financial reward was never destined for them. so personally? I don't care about the imbalance, I care about what I'm getting and how that compares to what I can get elsewhere. I understand I'm playing in a rich man's sandbox, and I'm okay with that. The fact that the man three levels up make…

> I don't care about the imbalance, I care about what I'm getting Yeah that's how they get you.

Is that really a problem? If you're making double than what you would make elsewhere then who cares what some random exec is making?

Re: Dropbox S-1

#382

Post by hueving »

TheKarateKid wrote: post #355
swampthinker wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: Sorry, I shouldn't have said "you". I don't know your situation or how much you make, this is a very broad rant that is based off of previous discussions I've had. This has to be the most pretentious thing I read in a while. You get paid 6-figures with incredible benefits, while making 2-3x of what the median HOUSEHOLD in this country makes[1], with one of the highest average base salaries, and your individual…

You're failing to look at the situation in terms of perspective relative to the company - not society in general. Sandworm's point is that why should someone 2 levels above you be receiving 100x your salary? Imagine you were at Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone gets a full plate of food, but you only get a quarter of a plate. Is that fair? Should you keep quiet since you're fortunately to have any food at all, rather tha…

And you're failing to realize that what others make is irrelevant. If you're at Thanksgiving and you get food to feed you for 10 years, it doesn't matter if others got food to feed them for 100 years.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#383

Post by candiodari »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #380
candiodari wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of encryption is that you cannot meaningfully compare 2 pieces of plaintext. Homomorphic encryption doesn't change that. The only way to compare plaintext is to decrypt the whole thing. So either you must trust a centralized org (like dropbox today), or you must trust a single centralized key (that could be done with homomorphic encryption). (Also the best homomorphic algorithms still make small progr…

Consider a scheme in which: Each user generates a symmetric "user key", kU. The plaintext of each file (or without loss of generality, block of data, etc.), pFile, is encrypted with a randomly generated symmetric key, kFile, producing the ciphertext cFile. pFile is also hashed with a cryptographically strong hash, producing hpFile. kFile is then encrypted with hFile, producing ckFile. The user encrypts pFile with kU,…

The whole point is to allow for comparison of large plaintext files that are stored by many users. Think of mp3s, or large avi files, or, say, a linux kernel image, or ...

> The server sees if it knows of the existence of records with the same hpFileTrunc value as the client's submission. If so, it returns them to the client.

And by doing this, provides a way for clients to verify if any user on the file storage server has this file. So if I wanted to know if your mozilla thunderbird has a mail I have the source to, I simply try to store this and get these duplicate records.

Most people would consider this extremely unacceptable.

> The client then tries, for each record returned by the server, decrypting ckFile2 with the client's hFile value, potentially producing kFile. If this is successful, the client then decrypts cFile with kFile, producing pFile. Finally, it compares this pFile to the original. If it matches, a match has been found, and the client exits the loop. If not, (or if either of the two decryption steps failed), it continues to the next record the server returned. If there are no more records, the client instead submits the tuple (cFile, ckFile, hpFileTrunc) to the server, which stores it.

Why would the client have the keys to files stored by other users ?

Unless you mean that you can only deduplicate within a single client, in which case that's of much more limited use (and I might add, your encryption scheme is way more complex than it needs to be).

Re: Dropbox S-1

#384

Post by z3t4 »

tzhenghao wrote: post #366
throwaway93192 wrote: post #247

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago. For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them. Good…

My personal opinion on this topic has to do with the skill and requirements of the job, given the time and stage the company is at. Sure, I'm fine with executives that come much later to be paid more than many that come before him/her. Should a number as high as $34m justify the kind of value he/she puts into the company? I dunno if I can agree with that, and in an early employee's perspective, I'd like to be proven…

In an early upstart the employees might actually make more money then the founders. When the ship is in motion the founders might not need those people any longer, and there will be many more knocking on the doors wanting a job. The founders hires the execs to hopefully do a better job then the founders themselves are currently doing. And if the founders are making millions it will also be easy for them to pay the execs millions. And they don't want to hire just anyone to take care of their baby.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#385

Post by XMPPwocky »

candiodari wrote: post #383
XMPPwocky wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider a scheme in which: Each user generates a symmetric "user key", kU. The plaintext of each file (or without loss of generality, block of data, etc.), pFile, is encrypted with a randomly generated symmetric key, kFile, producing the ciphertext cFile. pFile is also hashed with a cryptographically strong hash, producing hpFile. kFile is then encrypted with hFile, producing ckFile. The user encrypts pFile with kU,…

The whole point is to allow for comparison of large plaintext files that are stored by many users. Think of mp3s, or large avi files, or, say, a linux kernel image, or ... > The server sees if it knows of the existence of records with the same hpFileTrunc value as the client's submission. If so, it returns them to the client. And by doing this, provides a way for clients to verify if any user on the file storage serv…

> And by doing this, provides a way for clients to verify if any user on the file storage server has this file. So if I wanted to know if your mozilla thunderbird has a mail I have the source to, I simply try to store this and get these duplicate records.

Yes. This is the reason you don't want this property (being able to deduplicate encrypted files)!

But you can provide it, while still providing meaningful security against other attacks.

The client has the keys to files stored by other users because the keys are the hashes of the plaintext, and the client can hash its own plaintext when it has the file.

(Note a trivial modification to this scheme, solely client-side, allows for certain files to be totally secure, with the cost of them being exempt from deduplication)

Re: Dropbox S-1

#386

Post by candiodari »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #385
candiodari wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point is to allow for comparison of large plaintext files that are stored by many users. Think of mp3s, or large avi files, or, say, a linux kernel image, or ... > The server sees if it knows of the existence of records with the same hpFileTrunc value as the client's submission. If so, it returns them to the client. And by doing this, provides a way for clients to verify if any user on the file storage serv…

> And by doing this, provides a way for clients to verify if any user on the file storage server has this file. So if I wanted to know if your mozilla thunderbird has a mail I have the source to, I simply try to store this and get these duplicate records. Yes. This is the reason you don't want this property (being able to deduplicate encrypted files)! But you can provide it, while still providing meaningful security…

> The client has the keys to files stored by other users because the keys are the hashes of the plaintext

Personally I find only people explicitly authorized have the key to be the whole point of security. And you're suggesting this as a solution to the problem that organizations providing file storage could see what files you're storing.

Under this scheme, it wouldn't just be that organization, but everybody who is a client, that could see what files you're storing (or at least verify if you're storing a particular file or not)

So I find your assessment:

> But you can provide it, while still providing meaningful security against other attacks.

Very dubious indeed, especially given the context of securing centralized file storage, where the whole point would be to deny others access.

I mean it's a true statement, because you don't specify what "other attacks" are.

I posit that given that this system leaks the plaintext of your files I find it strictly worse than just giving Dropbox or Microsoft access to my files.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#387

Post by sb8244 »

Kiro wrote: post #324
throwaway93192 wrote: post #247

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago. For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them. Good…

Where do you see that?

@ https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467623/000119312518...

Re: Dropbox S-1

#388

Post by afterburner »

Spivak wrote: post #381
afterburner wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't care about the imbalance, I care about what I'm getting Yeah that's how they get you.

Is that really a problem? If you're making double than what you would make elsewhere then who cares what some random exec is making?

You could be making triple, or the people below could be making double. Imbalance runs both ways, and encouraging it in either case ends badly for all of us. Why are you surrendering so much power and wealth to the top?

Re: Dropbox S-1

#389

Post by Frondo »

lsc wrote: post #367
Frondo wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, frankly speaking, if you're content with your lot in life, that's great. I'm happy for you. Telling me to focus on the low-paid service workers is a nice distraction, but that's what it is: there are other groups working to improve their working conditions and working lives. I'm not connected to them, because I'm in the same pretty-well-compensated boat as you. Maybe you're paid well, maybe you don't think you…

Ah, the spirit of Glompers. "More" - fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with that, but really, there's no reason for anyone outside of your group to support you any more than there is for you to support my own personal quest for more money. It's just a larger empire of crumbs. The problem is that I don't think this will work, for the same reason that management generally doesn't unionize. Management doesn't unioniz…

OK, fine, so you don't think it'll work. That's a whole different story from "we shouldn't want more, we're already well paid".

If I'm going to be an Adam Smith-style rational economic actor, I'm going to seek to maximize my profit. If I don't, I'm leaving money/time/autonomy/working conditions on the table, and why on earth would I do that?

If the most effective way to do that is to organize and negotiate together with my fellow workers at Megacorp X--which is both ethically permissible (freedom of assembly, etc) and our legal right--why wouldn't I do that??

If your answer comes down to "you have enough" then you're already behaving like an irrational economic actor and I have no idea why I'd listen to you.

If your answer comes down to "it's hard," well, buck up, kid, life is hard.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#390

Post by stanfordkid »

maxaf wrote: post #262
stanfordkid wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy majored in physics and computer science. There's nothing wrong with compensating people who have proven they can scale things (organizations) commensurate to their record.

I find it difficult to believe that any sort of scaling of the org could have occurred in the span of six months thanks to the efforts of a single individual.

Presumably the management at Dropbox has no reason to throw away money. He received this on a vesting agreement and has to hit goals to receive it.

He has run several multi-billion dollar units at Microsoft. Likely he had many other opportunities on the table.

Fact is it takes more than code to build something that lasts. You need to know code, understand people that write code, but there is a lot more to it than code. This guy was hired to multiply the efforts of hundreds of coders -- so all he had to do is improve each of them 5% to justify his salary.

Post reply on HN