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Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

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Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#71

Post by devsda »

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…

A word of caution for anyone planning to use syncthing for backups.

Syncthing is designed as a sync solution but not explicitly for backups. You need some extra setup on top of the defaults for building a reliable backup solution.

If not setup correctly, any "mistakes" from one of the devices will automatically be synced to other devices and cannot be retrieved back.

In the case of a lost/stolen device, make sure you remove the device as soon as possible. If not a bad actor now possessing the device can delete and sync that back to your "back-up" devices too.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#72

Post by rmm »

vvillena wrote: post #62
ketzu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh they increased to 2TB? (Seems it was around 2019... wow I am not up to date! https://venturebeat.com/business/dropbox-increases-plus-plan... ) Back when I decided which cloud storage to use, all the big ones were at 1TB and dorpbox was the most expensive with the least features, while microsofts offer included office 365 for nearly half the price. Right now it seems: MS 6$/mo for 1TB + Office ( https://www.microso…

The main advantage for Dropbox is that file sync works flawlessly. I've had issues with Onedrive and Google Drive in the past. Maybe they fixed those, but I can't trust them anymore.

I know right. I tried to move to OneDrive and within a few hours had multiple “conflicted versions” or whatever.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#73

Post by alkonaut »

zamnos wrote: post #58
alkonaut wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obvious from the discussion that the GDPR isn't an issue here as there is no PII involved (as should be the case with all telemetry)

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.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#74

Post by qwerty456127 »

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.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#75

Post by alkonaut »

krono wrote: post #64
alkonaut wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's polite to be transparent about telemetry, but it's not like there is a requirement in any regulation anywhere to ask for explicit consent (e.g. similar to how GDPR works when PII is involved)

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.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#76

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

zorked wrote: post #18
CJefferson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But dropbox already has huge amounts of information about you, in particular the names, contents, and history of all of your files.

They have consent for that. It's not hard. Also consent to store does not imply consent to read, process, make use of.

I keep searching xkcd, but all my efforts are frustrated, and this is as close as I get:

https://xkcd.com/908/

I distinctly recall a webcomic in the past few years lampooning cloud storage. There was a guy who said "hey, there's this guy down the street who lets me keep stuff on shelves in his garage." "What does he charge you?" "Nothing, he says it's just cool if I keep it there." and then the stuff is sold off or tampered with, the guy is irate, and the moral of the story is essentially "why did you trust a random guy with a garage to keep your stuff?"

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#77

Post by peterbraden »

Hamuko wrote: post #8

Do people still use Dropbox? I feel like I almost never hear recommendations for it. I personally abandoned Dropbox when they introduced a limit on the amount of devices you could use for free plans, and the cheapest plan was like 120€/year for 2 TB.

I'd love to be able to get rid of it completely, but I don't know of a good solution for syncing files to an iOS device from a linux machine.

Recommendations very welcome!

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#79

Post by zamnos »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #76
zorked wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have consent for that. It's not hard. Also consent to store does not imply consent to read, process, make use of.

I keep searching xkcd, but all my efforts are frustrated, and this is as close as I get: https://xkcd.com/908/ I distinctly recall a webcomic in the past few years lampooning cloud storage. There was a guy who said "hey, there's this guy down the street who lets me keep stuff on shelves in his garage." "What does he charge you?" "Nothing, he says it's just cool if I keep it there." and then the stuff is sold off or t…

https://xkcd.com/1150/ ?

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#80

Post by zimpenfish »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #24
zimpenfish wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do people still use Dropbox? Yep but it's mostly because I have many things which integrate with it -- loads of IFTTT recipes, apps, and sites that automatically sync things for you. If iCloud had a public API that people could integrate with the same way, I'd probably drop Dropbox at some point.

iCloud does have a public API: https://developer.apple.com/icloud/icloud-drive/ .

I don't think iOS / macOS SDKs count as a "public API". I mean, obviously, a HTTP API that anyone can auth against and perform file operations against - like the Dropbox API.
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