Are there any security issues with DROPBOX?

I thought I'd join the With-it generation so I signed up for Dropbox.

Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?


I have the vague feeling that there are risks here.

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 14:52:37 -0400, Micky
wrote:

I thought I'd join the With-it generation so I signed up for Dropbox.

Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?


I have the vague feeling that there are risks here.

For example, why is there offline installer 72 megs big, when it
doesn't do more than a couple things afaict?

In article ,
says...

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 14:52:37 -0400, Micky
wrote:

I thought I'd join the With-it generation so I signed up for Dropbox.

Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?


I have the vague feeling that there are risks here.

For example, why is there offline installer 72 megs big, when it
doesn't do more than a couple things afaict?

At the lowest level, their service I believe is in the US which means
the their government believes it can demand a look see anytime they feel
like it and you mioght not ever even be aware of it.

My wife uses it all the time for drawing files need to be used by
others. It all seems to work ok but demands aren't great.

| Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
| with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?
|

Yes. You're allowing an open connection to a remote
location and allowing the software to upload files. There
are both security and privacy risks. The tradeoff? If you
don't know how to do backup, Dropbox will do a somewhat
reliable version for you. If you want to access files from
elsewhere it may be easier. If you want to give copies of
large files to other people it might make that easier.

I wouldn't use it and wouldn't depend on "cloud" for
backup. There are too many legal and practical issues.
(Remember Megaupload? People who had files stored
there never got them back. Once you put them online
your rights to your own files are questionable.
http://streetfightmag.com/2012/06/04...ntent-at-risk/
)

The question is, do you mind the risks and the lack
of privacy? Like Remote Desktop or other holes connecting
you to online, there's no way to make it safe. On the
other hand, most people think the convenience is worth the
disadvantages.

I just posted that last and went to Slashdot to check
tech news. I found this:

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/07...th-it#comments

A man with a blog hosted by Google had it suddenly
deleted, with no explanation, and lost all of his work,
including graphic art, that he had posted. That's a
great example of the growing problem with cloud. People
want it because it's easy, but they're handing over their
possessions, rights and responsibilities to for-profit
companies out of sheer laziness. Gmail, Microsoft's
cloud storage.... all of those things have paved the way
for Windows 10 to eliminate any control or ownership
of anything you do on a computer.

Among the comments to the above story there was
one that I thought was especially humorous:

"It's almost like he used a free service with no
expectation of availability or warranty, to do
all of his work.
He sounds Millenial."

Unfortunately, though, being passively addicted to
online services is not only a millennial problem.

Micky wrote:
I thought I'd join the With-it generation so I signed up for Dropbox.

Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?
I have the vague feeling that there are risks here.

My opinion:
The project managers in my dept use it for sharing of files with outsiders,
and vice-versa. It works great for that purpose. That's the only thing
we use it for. No secure or secret files sent, ever.
There are two parts to Dropbox.
One part allows sending and receiving files. It is ~250 megs installed.
The other part keeps you online all the time. I do not allow that and
have permanently removed that process. It will also install in the win registry
run section so that it starts on boot. I have also removed that.
It's a good system for data sharing but will take over your machine if you let it.
There are security issues with everything but DB is reasonably secure.
We would never use it for backups or storage of sensitive files.

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 18:13:39 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:

I just posted that last and went to Slashdot to check
tech news. I found this:

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/07...th-it#comments

A man with a blog hosted by Google had it suddenly
deleted, with no explanation, and lost all of his work,
including graphic art, that he had posted. That's a

Wow. That's terrible.

That means to me that that that will not be my only copy, which was
already true.

great example of the growing problem with cloud. People
want it because it's easy, but they're handing over their
possessions, rights and responsibilities to for-profit
companies out of sheer laziness. Gmail, Microsoft's
cloud storage.... all of those things have paved the way
for Windows 10 to eliminate any control or ownership
of anything you do on a computer.

Among the comments to the above story there was
one that I thought was especially humorous:

"It's almost like he used a free service with no
expectation of availability or warranty, to do
all of his work.
He sounds Millenial."

Unfortunately, though, being passively addicted to
online services is not only a millennial problem.

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 17:36:09 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:

| Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
| with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?
|

Yes. You're allowing an open connection to a remote
location and allowing the software to upload files. There
are both security and privacy risks. The tradeoff? If you
don't know how to do backup, Dropbox will do a somewhat
reliable version for you. If you want to access files from
elsewhere it may be easier. If you want to give copies of
large files to other people it might make that easier.

I wouldn't use it and wouldn't depend on "cloud" for
backup. There are too many legal and practical issues.
(Remember Megaupload? People who had files stored
there never got them back. Once you put them online
your rights to your own files are questionable.

That's not good. I guess I should go read the T&C again. That's t
he sort of thing I was worried about.

FTR, the only reason I'm interested is that the camera is supposed to
be set up to backup to either Facebook, Picasa, Youtube, or Dropbox
and this might be good to have if my own laptop is not nearby.

Facebook and Youtube are out of the question and Picasa has changed
its name, so that leaves Dropbox. Though I tried it today and it
both didn't work and didn't save my userid or password. No way will I
enter it every time.
or
http://streetfightmag.com/2012/06/04...ntent-at-risk/
)

The question is, do you mind the risks and the lack
of privacy?

It's just going to be tourist photos. I don't even take pictures of
people, though maybe I should.

In 1971, they told me I shouldn't mail my photos home from Central
America because people in the post office would take the especially
good ones for postcards. I don't know if that was true, but I
carried all my slides for 4 months and 100's of miles until I got
home.

Indeed, my picture of the pyramid at Huehuetenango was better imo than
the postcard of the same thing. It must have been beginner's luck.

Like Remote Desktop or other holes connecting
you to online, there's no way to make it safe. On the\

Does that include Team Viewer?

other hand, most people think the convenience is worth the
disadvantages.

That sounds like me.

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 19:55:33 -0500, Paul in Houston TX
wrote:

Micky wrote:
I thought I'd join the With-it generation so I signed up for Dropbox.

Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?
I have the vague feeling that there are risks here.

My opinion:
The project managers in my dept use it for sharing of files with outsiders,
and vice-versa. It works great for that purpose. That's the only thing
we use it for. No secure or secret files sent, ever.
There are two parts to Dropbox.
One part allows sending and receiving files. It is ~250 megs installed.
The other part keeps you online all the time. I do not allow that and

Wow.

have permanently removed that process. It will also install in the win registry
run section so that it starts on boot. I have also removed that.

Wow 2.

It's a good system for data sharing but will take over your machine if you let it.

I will remove that stuff too.

There are security issues with everything but DB is reasonably secure.
We would never use it for backups or storage of sensitive files.

I don't really have sensitive files. In fact my friends say I"m
insensitive too.

Thanks and thanks all.

On 14/07/2016 19:52, Micky wrote:
I thought I'd join the With-it generation so I signed up for Dropbox.

Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?


I have the vague feeling that there are risks here.

Have a look at Box.com instead. It provides similar features but doesn't
try to take over your life in the way that Dropbox does. You can decide
what you want to upload to it without it insisting on synching with your
other devices.

I've got several free Box accounts for things I want to share easily
with certain groups of people. You can share as much or as little as you
like by creating links to folders or individual files, etc.

Whilst it is reasonably secure, and your files cannot easily be accessed
by anyone whom you haven't authorised, I wouldn't put anything of a
sensitive nature in cloud storage. Nor would I put anything for which I
didn't have at least two copies on my own media.
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

| Once you put them online
| your rights to your own files are questionable.
|
| That's not good. I guess I should go read the T&C again. That's t
| he sort of thing I was worried about.
|

The geeks like to say that cloud is just another
way of saying "someone else's server". The move
toward cloud has involved a gradual legal move.
It's not like physical realm. If you have a PO box
of safe deposit box, that's yours. The bank or the
store hosting the PO box wouldn't dream of claiming
they share copyright rights with you. Nor would they
claim the right to read/inspect your possessions. But
online services do that. Sometimes, as with GMail
and Win10, they just claim it's their right. Other times
they cook up legal gobbledygook, claiming they need
co-ownership in order to legally host your files. But
I have a safe deposit box. My bank never said anything
about having to share ownership in order to legally
host my possessions. Nor have I ever seen a landlord/
tenant agreement like that. Landlords in the US have
no right to enter rented property except by invite oi
in an emergency.

The data might also be
vulnerable to hackers. And law enforement can seize
it or inspect it without necessarily even informing you.
(As in the Megaupload case.) Similar cases have
involved gmail, with legal rulings being made that
define Google as the email owner, not you, so that
any subpoena goes to them and not you.

** People who use these services and accept the
mickey mouse terms are actively setting legal
precedent to allow exploitation. **


| FTR, the only reason I'm interested is that the camera is supposed to
| be set up to backup

The camera? Supposed to? You have a wirelessly
Internet-connected camera?

| Like Remote Desktop or other holes connecting
| you to online, there's no way to make it safe. On the\
|
| Does that include Team Viewer?
|

Yes. Corporate computers get protection from
being inside a firewall, despite being interconnected
on the intranet network. Stand-alone computers
benefit from not needing to use any vulnerable
networking functionality. If you want to use such
functionality you can't avoid some risk. It's the same
thing with file sharing. That's not known for extreme
risk, but you are leaving the local file system open
to the outside. And the same with Skype. That's
had a number of vulnerabilities in the past. They
all require opening a channel of some kind to the
outside, and that carries risks. So there's the
security angle and there's the privacy/ownership
angle.

I expect ownership is going to become an increasingly
hot topic in the future, as people gradually find that
they've lost all control over their own activities and
possessions. (We call it "data", but that data is your
possession.) A great deal of control has already been
lost. No one even expect companies like Apple, Google,
Microsoft, Facebook to be honest, decent, or even legal
in the way they manage their services. After 2 decades
of mainstream Internet, it's still considered a new medium
where normal rules don't apply.

Roger Mills wrote:
On 14/07/2016 19:52, Micky wrote:
I thought I'd join the With-it generation so I signed up for Dropbox.

Are there any security issues I should think about wrt Dropbox, or
with the Dropbox program they want me to install on my computers?


I have the vague feeling that there are risks here.

Have a look at Box.com instead. It provides similar features but doesn't
try to take over your life in the way that Dropbox does. You can decide
what you want to upload to it without it insisting on synching with your
other devices.

I've got several free Box accounts for things I want to share easily
with certain groups of people. You can share as much or as little as you
like by creating links to folders or individual files, etc.

Whilst it is reasonably secure, and your files cannot easily be accessed
by anyone whom you haven't authorised, I wouldn't put anything of a
sensitive nature in cloud storage. Nor would I put anything for which I
didn't have at least two copies on my own media.

I keep all my sensitive files on my own server in my bathroom. Is
that secure?

--
GW Ross

Puritanism: The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere may be happy.

In message , G. Ross
writes:
[]
I keep all my sensitive files on my own server in my bathroom. Is that
secure?

Only one copy? Then no, against burglary, fire, or hardware failure. A
bathroom also doesn't sound too good a place to keep computer hardware -
tendency to be hot and steamy. Hold on, though - maybe this is the
American meaning of bathroom, which is often a room in which there is no
bath - though still has a water supply, so again I'd say not ideal for
computer gear.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I long for the commercialised Christmas of the 1970s. It's got so religious
now, it's lost its true meaning. - Mike [{at}ostic.demon.co.uk], 2003-12-24

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 21:41:20 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , G. Ross
writes:
[]
I keep all my sensitive files on my own server in my bathroom. Is that
secure?

Only one copy? Then no, against burglary, fire, or hardware failure.


Right.


A
bathroom also doesn't sound too good a place to keep computer hardware -
tendency to be hot and steamy.


Right.


Hold on, though - maybe this is the
American meaning of bathroom, which is often a room in which there is no
bath -


The American meaning of bathroom is normally a room with a bathtub, a
shower, or both. A room with a toilet and sink, but no bathtub or
shower is normally called a half-bath.

It's pretty much only in a restaurant or store or airport that a room
with a toilet and sink, but no bathtub or shower, is called a
bathroom, but even there, it's often called a restroom, not a
bathroom.


though still has a water supply, so again I'd say not ideal for
computer gear.


Right.

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 09:00:09 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:


| Once you put them online
| your rights to your own files are questionable.
|
| That's not good. I guess I should go read the T&C again. That's t
| he sort of thing I was worried about.
|

The geeks like to say that cloud is just another
way of saying "someone else's server". The move
toward cloud has involved a gradual legal move.
It's not like physical realm. If you have a PO box
of safe deposit box, that's yours. The bank or the
store hosting the PO box wouldn't dream of claiming
they share copyright rights with you. Nor would they
claim the right to read/inspect your possessions. But
online services do that. Sometimes, as with GMail
and Win10, they just claim it's their right. Other times
they cook up legal gobbledygook, claiming they need
co-ownership in order to legally host your files. But

I cited you somewhere and someone came back to say that they say they
need to look at files that are available for sharing so that they
don't contribute to sharing copyrighted files, not that they have
co-ownership. One could compare that to border guards who check if
there are drugs in a car crossing the border. They don't have
co-ownership of the car. Or those who open suitcases at airports and
rummage through the contents looking for weapons. They don't claim
co-ownership of anything.

So are you sure they claim co-ownership?

I was looking for their T&C but so far*** only found stuff like this:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-dropbo...99.html?ref=gs
That iiuc they either go to specific links after they've gotten
complaints about them, sometimes by the copyright holder or his rep.
or they scan files using a hashing method, although I can't imagine
how that would work. (Oh, I see, they make a hash of this category of
file, not every copyrighted file there is.) But that either way,
they don't actually read the files' content.

and this
http://blog.gsmarena.com/dropbox-aut...e-copyrighted/

***And this
https://www.dropbox.com/privacy#terms and this
https://www.dropbox.com/dmca and this
https://www.dropbox.com/dmca#business_agreement
Limited Permission. Customer grants only the limited rights that are
reasonably necessary for to offer the Services (e.g., hosting Stored
Data). This permission also extends to our affiliates and trusted
third parties works with to offer the Services (e.g., payment provider
used to process payment of fees).

So that is not co-ownership, only the right to do the things it says
it does, comparing hash numbers, and even if they actually did a
lettter by letter comparison of the posted text with the copyrighted
text, I would think that was justified and not co-ownership.

People shoulld not be "sharing", that is, mass stealing, copyrighted
material and I'm happy if they're doing things to not be an accessory
to that.

I have a safe deposit box. My bank never said anything
about having to share ownership in order to legally
host my possessions. Nor have I ever seen a landlord/
tenant agreement like that. Landlords in the US have
no right to enter rented property except by invite oi
in an emergency.

The data might also be
vulnerable to hackers. And law enforement can seize
it or inspect it without necessarily even informing you.
(As in the Megaupload case.) Similar cases have

That has no effect on me. I never take pictures of my basement
slaves. Actually, if I ever did anything illegal, ... well I'm just
amazed at people so stupid they post it online.

involved gmail, with legal rulings being made that
define Google as the email owner, not you, so that
any subpoena goes to them and not you.

** People who use these services and accept the
mickey mouse terms are actively setting legal
precedent to allow exploitation. **


| FTR, the only reason I'm interested is that the camera is supposed to
| be set up to backup

The camera? Supposed to? You have a wirelessly
Internet-connected camera?

I didn't even know it had this when I bought it. So far, it seems to
have trouble using my LAN. But it has the ability to wirelessly save
its pictures on my smartphone, or to include 3?meg at a time, I think
the amount is, as attachments to email, or to upload to Facebook,
Youtube, Picasa, or Dropbox, only those 4 and picasa has changed its
name fwiw. So that leaves only Dropbox and that's my interest in
Dropbox.

I've never lost a camera, or a phone, but I have lost my wallet 3 or 4
times. I got it back twice. So backing up photos quickly might help.

**One time I lost it in Montreal. I still had enough cash for the
remaining day and my plane ticket home. Shortly after I got home, my
wallet arrived in the mail, complete. The finder had also called my
brother in Texas to see if he knew where in Montreal I was. And when
I sent him a reward, he sent it to Polish Solidarite.

Another time I lost it at the Fulton Fish Market, when it was used for
daily parking (because the market itself was closing down by 8AM.) and
a guy from NJ mailed it back to me, complete.

| Like Remote Desktop or other holes connecting
| you to online, there's no way to make it safe. On the\
|
| Does that include Team Viewer?
|

Yes. Corporate computers get protection from

Ugh,

Micky

being inside a firewall, despite being interconnected
on the intranet network. Stand-alone computers
benefit from not needing to use any vulnerable
networking functionality. If you want to use such
functionality you can't avoid some risk. It's the same
thing with file sharing. That's not known for extreme
risk, but you are leaving the local file system open
to the outside. And the same with Skype. That's
had a number of vulnerabilities in the past. They
all require opening a channel of some kind to the
outside, and that carries risks. So there's the
security angle and there's the privacy/ownership
angle.

I expect ownership is going to become an increasingly
hot topic in the future, as people gradually find that
they've lost all control over their own activities and
possessions. (We call it "data", but that data is your
possession.) A great deal of control has already been
lost. No one even expect companies like Apple, Google,
Microsoft, Facebook to be honest, decent, or even legal
in the way they manage their services. After 2 decades
of mainstream Internet, it's still considered a new medium
where normal rules don't apply.