"Don't attribute to malice what could equally be explained by ignorance" is one of my favorite sayings and though I would hesitate to attribute ignorance to Dro

"Don't attribute to malice what could equally be explained by ignorance" is one of my favorite sayings and though I would hesitate to attribute ignorance to Dropbox I do feel some empathy when it comes to dealing with multi-platform file-system permission settings. I think it's completely reasonable to suspect at least some of Dropbox to be old code pushed quickly into production and caste almost instantly into legacy-matenence-mode that can not be easily refactored or iterated upon ("move fast and break things har har"). While this is almost inexcusable for an established and well-funded company that does not have a shortage of resources to fix the problem, I find it significantly more likely then some 5-eyes-esque surveillance or data mining strategy as you allude to.