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Dropbox is actually pretty invasive. They save space and bandwidth by recognizing media files that other people have stored and just copying internally instead
by wmil 9y ago
Dropbox is actually pretty invasive. They save space and bandwidth by recognizing media files that other people have stored and just copying internally instead of uploading from your computer.
- pier25 9y agoAny source on that?
- wmil 9y agoNo, this is from memory, I could be wrong. Specifically I recall a story that pirates were using their api to just upload the hash and basically use it as a file transfer service. They had to start requesting random chunks of files to make sure you actually had the file you were trying to sync. Edit - I found a link: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/dropbox-dmca-position http://www.wired.co.uk/article/dropbox-dmca-position
- mixmax 9y agoI remember a story where someone uploaded a large file known to be popular (a new torrented movie if I recall correctly) that would have a reasonably chance of already being in someone elses dropbox. The file uploaded in an instant, lending a lot of credibility to the theory that the software hashes a file and looks for the same hash in a central database, and if there's a match doesn't bother to upload the file but simply adds a pointer to it.
- warrenm 9y agoIt's basic dedup tech Not really surprising