5 ms·

I would pay DropBox premium for this feature.

by st3fan 15y ago

hemancuso 15y ago
You and about 5,000 other people. Not a big market, unfortunately.
- ecaron 15y ago
  It may not be a big market that the masses are clamoring for, but it will soon be similar to services encrypting passwords in the database. The outside world shouldn't be expected to know about the existence of rainbow tables and the futility of md5-hashes. The educated, however, know what to demand, will expect their services to offer it, and will leave lacking-services for support-services - and in their exodus the masses inevitably follow (e.g. Hotmail -> GMail)
  - batista 15y ago
    > The educated, however, know what to demand, will expect their services to offer it, and will leave lacking-services for support-services - and in their exodus the masses inevitably follow (e.g. Hotmail -> GMail) That's not how it works. People didn't leave Hotmail because the "educated" left, they left it because Google gave several GBs for free, the interface was simpler, the search better and MS was out of fashion. If you're not a large market you don't get a service, or you only get niche vendors to cater to you. You can bypass this by setting trends for the "uneducated" (whatever that means), else we will all be using Lisp Machines or Smalltalk environments.
    - skarayan 15y ago
      Educated/uneducated may not be the right terms, but it is possible to have hindsight just by understanding the landscape. Privacy is becoming a large problem in the internet and encryption will likely be part of the solution. Without encryption, the ownership of data is on the service provider instead of the person. Privacy is a feature just like free storage. One day, privacy can be available to the masses just like storage is today. (also think back how many people actually wanted or needed multiple gb of free storage for their emails until one was provided by a service like gmail)
  - nextstep 15y ago
    I think you are right. The only thing holding back cryptography from being widely adopted is the lack of a service that makes strong cryptography super easy to setup and use. I know this isn't a trivial task, but it's not impossible to implement strong crypto in a user-friendly way.
- gte910h 15y ago
  This is wrong. SOX compliant fortune 500 companies can't legally use dropbox due to confidentiality requirements. Adding encryption would fix the confidentiality issues. The BIGGEST deepest pockets would pay handsomely for this.
  - rarrrrrr 15y ago
    FYI, SpiderOak has always supported zero knowledge encryption, and recently launched an enterprise product. https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226176/SpiderOak_launches_secure_storage_cloud_for_businesses https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226176/SpiderOak_la...
    - gte910h 15y ago
      JungleDisk has too
sreitshamer 15y ago
How would you verify that they never got your encryption key? You installed their software on your computer. How can you be sure it never sent your key to their server?
- harshreality 15y ago
  The same way you can be sure that any of the hundreds or thousands of other programs installed on your computer are not keylogging and sending your passphrases and plans for world domination to the NSA, Bilderberg Group, and the Russian mob. That is to say, you can't be sure. However, Dropbox is a company in good legal standing, and they have a lot to lose if they offered client side encryption and then leaked the passphrase. Spideroak (definitely) and Backblaze (I think?) already have client software which offers client side encryption. Whether you trust them is up to you.
joejohnson 15y ago
I would too. I would pay maybe $100+ a year for this, even for only 4GB or whatever I currently have on Dropbox. But maybe this still wouldn't be profitable to develop if only a small group of paranoid users would buy it.
- Retric 15y ago
  10$ a month is not a lot of money. But, why not just use Dropbox on locally encrypted files?
  - joejohnson 15y ago
    Because then the web interface is worthless and you have to decrypt the files on every machine you sync with Dropbox
    - hemancuso 15y ago
      Check SpiderOak - sounds like exactly what you want. https://spideroak.com/ https://spideroak.com/
denishennessy 15y ago
I'm launching a product shortly that offers exactly this feature to Dropbox (or Google Drive, SkyDrive, ...). It's a native OSX and Windows app that keeps the keys on the users' computer and transparently encrypts and decrypts files before they're sent to your cloud storage provider. The product is in beta right now but I'd love some more people to try it out. If you sign up at http://safeboxapp.com http://safeboxapp.com, you'll get a download link to try it out.
- nuttendorfer 15y ago
  Just signed up for it. How does it compare to BoxCryptor where you can also access your files using EncFS?
  - denishennessy 15y ago
    Unlike BoxCryptor, it's not based on an encrypted volume. Instead, files and directories in a designated folder are individually encrypted (much like Dropbox).
    - nuttendorfer 15y ago
      Wow, I had the exact same idea around a month or two ago, but didn't have time to execute. Please tell me you are sending out invites today.

I would pay DropBox premium for this feature.

by st3fan 15y ago

I would pay DropBox premium for this feature.

hemancuso 15y ago

You and about 5,000 other people. Not a big market, unfortunately.

ecaron 15y ago
It may not be a big market that the masses are clamoring for, but it will soon be similar to services encrypting passwords in the database. The outside world shouldn't be expected to know about the existence of rainbow tables and the futility of md5-hashes. The educated, however, know what to demand, will expect their services to offer it, and will leave lacking-services for support-services - and in their exodus the masses inevitably follow (e.g. Hotmail -> GMail)
- batista 15y ago
  > The educated, however, know what to demand, will expect their services to offer it, and will leave lacking-services for support-services - and in their exodus the masses inevitably follow (e.g. Hotmail -> GMail) That's not how it works. People didn't leave Hotmail because the "educated" left, they left it because Google gave several GBs for free, the interface was simpler, the search better and MS was out of fashion. If you're not a large market you don't get a service, or you only get niche vendors to cater to you. You can bypass this by setting trends for the "uneducated" (whatever that means), else we will all be using Lisp Machines or Smalltalk environments.
  - skarayan 15y ago
    Educated/uneducated may not be the right terms, but it is possible to have hindsight just by understanding the landscape. Privacy is becoming a large problem in the internet and encryption will likely be part of the solution. Without encryption, the ownership of data is on the service provider instead of the person. Privacy is a feature just like free storage. One day, privacy can be available to the masses just like storage is today. (also think back how many people actually wanted or needed multiple gb of free storage for their emails until one was provided by a service like gmail)
- nextstep 15y ago
  I think you are right. The only thing holding back cryptography from being widely adopted is the lack of a service that makes strong cryptography super easy to setup and use. I know this isn't a trivial task, but it's not impossible to implement strong crypto in a user-friendly way.
gte910h 15y ago
This is wrong. SOX compliant fortune 500 companies can't legally use dropbox due to confidentiality requirements. Adding encryption would fix the confidentiality issues. The BIGGEST deepest pockets would pay handsomely for this.
- rarrrrrr 15y ago
  FYI, SpiderOak has always supported zero knowledge encryption, and recently launched an enterprise product. https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226176/SpiderOak_launches_secure_storage_cloud_for_businesses https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226176/SpiderOak_la...
  - gte910h 15y ago
    JungleDisk has too

sreitshamer 15y ago

How would you verify that they never got your encryption key? You installed their software on your computer. How can you be sure it never sent your key to their server?

harshreality 15y ago
The same way you can be sure that any of the hundreds or thousands of other programs installed on your computer are not keylogging and sending your passphrases and plans for world domination to the NSA, Bilderberg Group, and the Russian mob. That is to say, you can't be sure. However, Dropbox is a company in good legal standing, and they have a lot to lose if they offered client side encryption and then leaked the passphrase. Spideroak (definitely) and Backblaze (I think?) already have client software which offers client side encryption. Whether you trust them is up to you.

joejohnson 15y ago

I would too. I would pay maybe $100+ a year for this, even for only 4GB or whatever I currently have on Dropbox. But maybe this still wouldn't be profitable to develop if only a small group of paranoid users would buy it.

Retric 15y ago
10$ a month is not a lot of money. But, why not just use Dropbox on locally encrypted files?
- joejohnson 15y ago
  Because then the web interface is worthless and you have to decrypt the files on every machine you sync with Dropbox
  - hemancuso 15y ago
    Check SpiderOak - sounds like exactly what you want. https://spideroak.com/ https://spideroak.com/

denishennessy 15y ago

I'm launching a product shortly that offers exactly this feature to Dropbox (or Google Drive, SkyDrive, ...). It's a native OSX and Windows app that keeps the keys on the users' computer and transparently encrypts and decrypts files before they're sent to your cloud storage provider. The product is in beta right now but I'd love some more people to try it out. If you sign up at http://safeboxapp.com http://safeboxapp.com, you'll get a download link to try it out.

nuttendorfer 15y ago
Just signed up for it. How does it compare to BoxCryptor where you can also access your files using EncFS?
- denishennessy 15y ago
  Unlike BoxCryptor, it's not based on an encrypted volume. Instead, files and directories in a designated folder are individually encrypted (much like Dropbox).
  - nuttendorfer 15y ago
    Wow, I had the exact same idea around a month or two ago, but didn't have time to execute. Please tell me you are sending out invites today.