Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I'm saddened to see Dropbox on the list. Did they choose to participate or is it mandatory?

In any case, we've moved several projects to BTSync recently from Dropbox (for no other reason than to free up space on Dropbox for our personal files) and have been enjoying the service.

As a p2p encrypted protocol, I imagine it's much more difficult to eavesdrop on your files and would actually require a warrant to obtain.

I presume that's true for AeroFS as well.



The government's theory is that a national security letter is sufficient to get access to your data. No warrant required. And Dropbox is not allowed to tell you that it happened.

And yes, they can give your data to the government. Communications to/from Dropbox are encrypted. But it is unencrypted on the back end. See http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/04/how-dropbox-sacrifices-u... for how we can know that.


That proof is very confused.

The ability to detect duplication in no way proves the files are unencrypted (indeed this should be obvious from the fact that there is only negligible network traffic to confirm a duplicate! The bits can't be compared if they're not transmitted.)

It's the ability to serve deduplicated files that brings the service into question. Yet I wouldn't be surprised if there exists an asymmetric encryption method which permits decryption with one of several private keys – if so, secure deduplication is trivial: confirm the duplicate using a hash or comparing public-key encrypted versions; re-encrypt using both original and duplicate keys.

(And let's not even forget the ability to reset a forgotten password…)


I've read somewhere that it's voluntary edit: read it here http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/6/6/4403868/nsa-fbi-mine-dat...


The Verge is just summarizing the Washingon Post; they don't know any more than you would after having read the Post's scoop.



Yes. IMHO, information usually gets less and less accurate (though briefer and simpler) the further it travels from the source.


Cheers, I'll be sure to keep that in mind next time


Source.



Don't forget https://spideroak.com/ too.



Thanks for pointing out BTSync. Will have to set it up on a VM and a few places I have dropbox. May well be replacing Dropbox for a lot of uses.


BTSync cannot handle conflicting changes. It will destroy data if a file is modified in both places, and will proceed to overwrite something when it propagates the update.

And, if you're concerned about spying - well, it is closed source.


Is there an open source dropbox-style app that I can install on my own server?



Git and Sparkleshare offer something that is IMO much close to dropbox than owncloud.


Other people have offered some more "modern" options, but SFTP and WebDAV over SSL still work very well.


Try git-annex and git-annex-assistant; it doesn't even require a central server.


Try Tonido (http://www.tonido.com). It is not open source though.





Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: