How safe is Dropbox?

[irneb]

Thanks! The faq actually answers most of my questions positively!

I can't seem to find much info about the client app. Is there some screen shots available?

What I'm after is the setups _ if there's a way of setting include / exclude filters. Most of our data files have backup copies and temporary files which should be excluded.

I must say, IronTree seems quite impressive!

[Neville Bailey]

Is there some screen shots available?

I've attached a screenshot from my IronTree application - to give you an idea.

[irneb]

Thanks, though it doesn't actually show include/exclude filters. Here's our problem: We've got several projects with thousands of files & folders under each project. These files constantly get added to and edited. Even new folders created on a daily basis. Then also some folders would contain only temporary files which need not be updated, these folders would have some indication in their names so we can use an exclude filter instead of manually deselecting each. All the files are produced by various programs: Word / Excel / AutoCAD / Revit / PhotoShop / 3dStudio / etc. Most of these then also produce backup files after each edit.

E.g. an AutoCAD DWG file after editing & saving has a permanent corresponding .BAK file. Revit has several backup files. E.g. Filename.RVT could have anything from 1 to 20 corresponding Filename.####.RVT files. None of these need to be included in the backup. But excluding them manually would be a herculean task.

As an example here's a screen capture of one single project (we usually have around 10-20 current projects running). And we need to keep at least 10 years worth of project files due to legal issues.

Notice 16GB in 13k files and 900+ folders. Just going through that one project to manually select which files / folders to backup would take a day at least. And this needs to be repeated periodically as new files / folders are added to the project.

[Neville Bailey]

Thanks, though it doesn't actually show include/exclude filters. Here's our problem: We've got several projects with thousands of files & folders under each project. These files constantly get added to and edited. Even new folders created on a daily basis. Then also some folders would contain only temporary files which need not be updated, these folders would have some indication in their names so we can use an exclude filter instead of manually deselecting each. All the files are produced by various programs: Word / Excel / AutoCAD / Revit / PhotoShop / 3dStudio / etc. Most of these then also produce backup files after each edit.

I've attached a screenshot from IronTree's help file which explains how its file filter works - hopefully this will work for you!

[thinusmj]

Singhms,

You can also have a look at https://www.info.co.za
Info is designed to help you store and manage all your key personal or business information and documents.
You can store all common file types, such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, scanned documents (whether in TIFF or PDF format) and images.

[jerry]

ropbox takes the security of your files and of our software very seriously. We use the best tools and engineering practices available to build our software, and we have smart people making sure that Dropbox remains secure. Your files are backed-up, stored securely, and password-protected.

[AndyD]

Thanks for clarifying Jerry.

Given that there is copyright infringing material on all cloud storage servers I'm interested how Dropbox (or any other cloud storage business) would ensure that customers data wouldn't be lost should their servers be taken down and seized in a similar fashion to Megaupload for example.

[Stromberion]

Your files are actually safer while stored in your Dropbox than on your computer in some cases. We use the same secure methods as banks.

Dropbox takes the security of your files and of our software very seriously. We use the best tools and engineering practices available to build our software, and we have smart people making sure that Dropbox remains secure. Your files are backed-up, stored securely, and password-protected.

[irneb]

Given that there is copyright infringing material on all cloud storage servers I'm interested how Dropbox (or any other cloud storage business) would ensure that customers data wouldn't be lost should their servers be taken down and seized in a similar fashion to Megaupload for example.

We use the same secure methods as banks ... Your files are backed-up, stored securely, and password-protected.

It's not a question of if you backup the files or not, or even if there's secure access (similar to online banking), etc. etc. What he's on about is "if" one of your clients (i.e. someone with a Drop-Box account) places some copy-righted file on your server (say he's ripped a CD and placed the mp3s there), this is illegal. If he's found out, these files would then cause some legal agency (whoever that may be where your servers are located) to go to your premises and confiscate the entire server. E voila! No more drop-box available until the legal aspects can be sorted out. So at best all your clients would loose access to their data for a "while", to be restored later after it's been deemed not to be illegal data. But usually such takes years, and even then it's not too much of a mind-leap to imagine some inept government department simply blanket-stating that all this data is illegal and destroys the lot.

Now you have a backup (hopefully off-site), which this government didn't notice and thus didn't confiscate. As soon as you restore this backup onto a new set of servers, that government chappie's back at your door before you can turn the damn thing on!

I don't think there's any way anyone is going to get around that particular nettle! You can move the physical location of your servers to some country with less strict copyright laws (say Russia / China), but then you'll find that 50% (or even more) of your clientele may have your IP address blocked (due to all the spam coming from those countries' sites). And even then you're not entirely without risk of getting your servers confiscated, laws may change, or even more probably some backhanders are paid.

The only way I can even begin to imagine something like this not becoming an issue, is if you actively peruse each upload onto your servers to check if such seems to be illegal. Then if such found to remove the file(s) and discontinue the relevant customer's access. But then that fails other aspects of "security & data safety" - i.e. it means you would have access to the data yourselves (no encrypted & password-protected files on your server, or at least you being able to circumvent the encryption). And in that case you're no better than Google, even if you say you are not going to use this data.

Thus, from my point of view: Say I have only my work files on your server, I never place any infringing material there (i.e. no hacked games, or ripped musinc, or copied movies, or whatever) - all those files are only my own company's files. Say also some of those files are relating to a very sensitive project which might fail if it was know publicly (say it's some government secret building we're designing - worst case scenario). You (or one of your employees) see this file while checking for legality, notices what it's about and realises they can make huge quantities of money by selling it to other governments. We loose not only that project, but are sued by the government for leaking top sensitive data ... whatever happens we will never again get a project from that client! And all because some kid somewhere has descided to save his copied games on your server.

Nope, to me online backup is nothing but a farce. Online is for sharing, that's it! Even then only share non-sensitive stuff online. No-one should even attempt to think any online server is secure and safe, it's a contradiction in terms.

[AndyD]

I think given the political clout of the copyright lobbyists this is a very important consideration for anyone using or thinking about using any cloud storage/cyberlocker setup. I see an ongoing cat and mouse game between the MAFIAA et al versus cloud storage server providers. What makes this war more likely is the developer API that many storage facilities have (including Dropbox) that allows their services to be integrated into other applications.

Here's a prime example; Boxopus is a bittorrent protocol download client that integrates with dropbox accounts. Many people (less honest than myself) might use this program to download movies, software, audio or e-book files in breach or copyright law......straight into their dropbox. This makes Dropbox a high profil target for takedown action by the authorities.

What's the chances of this kinda thing catching on you might ask, why would people go to the trouble of setting up this kinda system to download illegal material? Well privacy and anonymity is the obvious one. Usually with bittorrent protocol downloads the system works by resolving ipaddresses with other bittorrent clients. This means it's difficult to download bittorrent files without your ipaddress being in the swarm which means it can be seen and you can be traced. Many pay money for a VPN or proxy service to avoid getting their ipaddy harvested. Apps like Boxopus mean you can download to a dropbox account which gives you a cheap (free) and easy level of privacy. This is what will make it a popular solution for piracy privacy and will also make both the application itself and Dropbox a target. The higher profile a target Dropbox becomes the more the likelyhood of collateral damage to other users when the service gets taken down.

I use Dropbox as an example here because it's one of the most popular cloud storage solutions but all the others are similarly vulnerable.