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The Dropbox Foundation

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Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#51

Post by idrios »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #16
pentae wrote: post #13

I suppose when you're not able to give an unwavering commitment to protecting your customers data, coming up with a completely unrelated corporate social responsibility plan like this makes sense.

This. It's amazing how many big companies use Dropbox with how limited their commitment to protecting customer data has been.

Clarification needed. When you say their commitment has been limited, do you mean they have done things that go contrary to protecting data (like selling user data to ad companies, or handing user data to government agencies when requested) or that they haven't actively taken a stance for protecting customer data (such as duckduckgo's promise not to track you, or Wikipedia's promise to stay donation-based).

Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#52

Post by rocqua »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #19
shaki-dora wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having trouble finding a single position of her that I agree with. I'm actually listening to Brahms now, to see if maybe her choice of favourite composer is at least sensible. But I do get the impression that she's the kind of person that one can have a deep discussion with even while disagreeing; that her positions, while wrong, are within the realm of possibilities, especially given her rather impressive biogra…

> In other words: she's frequently wrong, but she's not batshit crazy and filled with hate like the current administration. Is it really better if an intelligent person willingly helps start the Iraq war than if an hateful person does so on a whim? I find it hard to decide what's scarier. I've stopped using Dropbox when they hired her, but not because I think there are practical implications for users. Rather, I wish…

Yes, it is a lot better if an intelligent person willingly helps start that war. Intelligent people tend to be rational; they can be reasoned with. This means you might be able to convince them to change their mind. You can talk with them and figure out what is going on. You can explain to them why you disagree with their actions.

The real distinction that matters is how stubborn someone is, or how convinced they are that they are right. One might be stubborn out of hate, one might be stubborn out of pride (I loudly claimed X, so I must to all I can to show X is right, no matter what happens), or one might be stubborn out of 'true belief'. Such stubbornness is scary.

Notably, it is scary no matter whether you agree with them or not. Such stubbornness might help accelerate change if they are exactly right, but there is no room for error.

Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#53

Post by acdha »

SyneRyder wrote: post #38
daniel_iversen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Dropbox encrypts your data. It even says so on the Dropbox page you linked to :-)

But encrypted in a way where Dropbox employees still have unencrypted access to your files, at least according to Christopher Soghoian back in 2011: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/16/dropbox_ftc_not_goo...

That’s a different claim and one with severe tradeoffs for the other option: you can regain access to your Dropbox after losing your password.

Since you’re running their software, you’re ultimately trusting their policies anyway. Even if they had encryption at rest it wouldn’t tell you that it’s correctly implemented and doesn’t e.g. leak keys.

Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#54

Post by mful »

> A big part of our mission has always been helping our users achieve their missions.

Do these types of PR lines from companies that make productivity tools actually resonate with folks? At Dropbox’s scale, they probably materially increase economic productivity, which is great. Why push some narrative about helping aid workers achieve their mission?

This sort of language seems especially strange to me when announcing something that actually can make significant social impact. The juxtaposition between the Dropbox product and the work of this foundation jumps off the page.

Maybe it’s just me as I get older, but it seems so patronizing.

Anywho, this seems like a great project — great work DB, PR quibbles aside :)

Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#55

Post by rocqua »

matt4077 wrote: post #5

So I guess they'll be sued any second now? Because people on the internet keep telling me companies can't just give away shareholders' money? /s

They aren't a public company. If they were, this might indeed cause some activist investors to take measures that might include lawsuits.

Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#56

Post by josh2600 »

dsacco wrote: post #50
progval wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decryption keys are stored on Dropbox's servers, which makes this encryption pointless if the company turns evil.

Not all decryption needs to be end to end encryption. I’m not sure when this idea developed, but it’s silly. If your threat model mandates that you use end to end encryption, go for it, and choose something other than Dropbox. But saying the encryption is pointless just because the organization that manages the keys could become “evil” is hyperbole.

Dropbox deduplicates files across user accounts to minimize storage. Effectively, this means all accounts share one private key for encryption...

Edit: to be clear, I believe it is an option on enterprise accounts to use your own key.

Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#58

Post by montrose »

It is huge that they give unrestricted grants. I've been involved in the nonprofit world a lot in the last few years, and the most surprising thing I've learned is how depressingly common restricted grants are.

Restricted grants are when you give money to a nonprofit to do what you want, rather than what they want. Usually this is some highly visible thing that the donor can then claim credit for. These projects are almost never what the nonprofit would have chosen to do themselves. Often they damage the nonprofit significantly. I was talking to a nonprofit a few months ago that had branches in two different cities quite far apart. I asked them why they'd chosen to expand to another city rather than expand in the city they were in. Wasn't it a distraction? They said it was, but that they'd gotten a restricted grant to open a branch in the new city.

The less powerful nonprofits have no choice but to take such money. And they don't dare complain about it, which is why you've never heard about this issue. Exactly the opposite, in fact: they have to issue press releases lauding the generosity of the donors. Which then perpetuates the problem, by making it seem to future donors that restricted grants are how you're supposed to do charity.

I don't know how Dropbox figured out that they should do unrestricted grants. It's a remarkably sophisticated insight for beginners.

Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#59

Post by koolba »

ktpsns wrote: post #31

A foundation with 20M$ and these ambitious goals is a gift for the society. However, it is also the typical American way of company-society interaction. The actually intended way is called "paxing taxes". Dropbox, like a good part of the US tech companies, has it's European site in Ireland, a country known for its low tax rates [1]. [1] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator...

> A foundation with 20M$ and these ambitious goals is a gift for the society. However, it is also the typical American way of company-society interaction. The actually intended way is called "paxing taxes".

Not really. It depends on what you think taxes should be paying for. If you think they should cover essential services that can't be taken care of by the private sector (ex: roads, police, national defense) then lower taxes and private sector philanthropic spending is a better choice.

It removes the particularly heinous problem of government officials spending the public's money on things the public doesn't actually want them to spend it on. The private sector has no such issues as by definition they're spending their own money.

Re: The Dropbox Foundation

#60

Post by montrose »

ktpsns wrote: post #31

A foundation with 20M$ and these ambitious goals is a gift for the society. However, it is also the typical American way of company-society interaction. The actually intended way is called "paxing taxes". Dropbox, like a good part of the US tech companies, has it's European site in Ireland, a country known for its low tax rates [1]. [1] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator...

It is a big mistake to think that merely paying taxes is a sufficient substitute for donations. Governments are like the biggest of big companies: they tend to be very conservative about what they'll fund. Individual donors and small foundations play a crucial role in funding the sort of risky outliers that new ideas come from.
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