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Intermingling personal and work accounts is almost always a bad idea. I've seen colleagues get their personal accounts subpoenaed, have a firing result in loss

Intermingling personal and work accounts is almost always a bad idea. I've seen colleagues get their personal accounts subpoenaed, have a firing result in loss of primary email/cell, or have really awkward communications show up in an IT audit. The overhead of maintaining separate accounts is very small (multi-profile browser, multi-account smartphone, etc.), and more than worth it given the liabilities. Beyond that, I think it's just a lot healthier to know where the boundaries between your work and personal life are.

pearkes 14y ago
I recently bought a second laptop for home, even though it was common at the company I work for to use your computer for work and pleasure. Under California employment law, an employer can argue that they own anything created on company machines[1]. If you work on side projects, I think it's a worthy investment. [1] http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a-company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-st/20126#20126 http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-...
- justinschuh 14y ago
  Definitely. I'm comfortable using my employer-provided laptop to keep tabs on my personal email (and use multi-profile to keep it separate). However, if I was doing any side work at all I would keep it entirely off of my employer's systems and outside work hours, because my baseline assumption is that it belongs to your employer if you produced it with their resources or on their time.
- jevinskie 14y ago
  Careful! I believe they can still claim any work that is related to the company's field. Or is that just something that is commonly included in employment contracts?
  - obviouslygreen 14y ago
    I recall this being present in IT contracts at least ten years ago, but some time around then people figured it out and started insisting on removing that section... though I actually personally saw something like this for the first time just last week. Fortunately, a client had just sent me the wrong form, but there's no way I would have signed it. It's just a matter of carefully reading contracts and making sure you know what you're getting yourself into.
  - pearkes 14y ago
    You're right in my case. That being said, I have no interest in competing - it's more for side projects.
  - maaku 14y ago
    No, although that is a common clause in employment contracts. The GP on the other hand is talking about the default ruling under California law. You're allowed side projects in the same field on your own time, so long as your contract doesn't say otherwise. (As always, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, etc.)
- larrys 14y ago
  "I recently bought a second laptop for home, even though it was common at the company I work for to use your computer for work and pleasure." Another option is to make your work laptop dual boot - either with the internal drive (partition) or with a portable external drive. If you have to return the laptop (with the internal drive partitioned) you can wipe that partition. Not necessary with the external drive option. For a practical matter (even under california employment law) they aren't going to know that you are doing this.
rgarcia 14y ago
The overhead of maintaining separate Dropbox accounts is pretty high IMO. There's no easy way to switch between accounts on the desktop client, an I'm pretty sure there's no way to be logged in to multiple accounts.
- tomcorrigan 14y ago
  This is the thing that is holding me back from embracing dropbox with open arms. I of course have separate accounts for work (2 jobs, 2 accounts) and a third private account. I don't mix the data on the for the reasons that the top poster listed. If there was a convenient way to sync all three through the desktop client I would be overjoyed in much the same way I was when gmail/google apps allowed multiple sign ins.
- Adirael 14y ago
  On OS X (and Linux I guess) it can be done, but it's not easy nor intuitive. I managed to do it and you end up with two (or more) Dropbox folders and two (or more) Dropbox processes running. EDIT: Found the link: http://maketecheasier.com/run-multiple-dropbox-accounts-in-mac-and-linux/2010/05/24 http://maketecheasier.com/run-multiple-dropbox-accounts-in-m...
- justinschuh 14y ago
  Then segregating by systems is a better option (and the one I choose for persistent personal data other than Web profiles or email). Of course, there's also an opportunity here for Dropbox or a competitor to offer something better. I expect there's a non-negligible demand for the ability to sync multiple accounts to different directory sets on a single client. So, maybe it's a feature that could be offered only to paying customers, to allow them to more easily separate their personal and business accounts.
- dubya 14y ago
  At least on OS X, different users can be logged in to different Dropbox accounts at the same time. So you could use different user accounts for your different tasks, or work out something with shared directories. But, yeah, it's not user friendly, and it's hard to imagine Dropbox adding support to the regular client.
aspir 14y ago
As much as I agree with you, your examples prove how little "regular" users consider this. With technologies that are historically user-unfriendly, such as email, individuals may be aware of the importance of separating work and personal, especially because email is such an 'old' technology. But, for something new, like cloud storage, and for a company like Dropbox, that prides itself in "just working," this is a critical feature oversight.
Timothee 14y ago
Absolutely. As much as possible, I try not to log into personal stuff at work and vice-versa. In particular, I won't set up my work email on my phone unlike many of my colleagues. For one, there have been stories of people's phones being wiped off thanks to an Exchange admin feature. And second, if the company I work for needs me to have access to my email at all times, they need to pay for my phone and my bill. (on top of it, it's typically forbidden by ToS to use your personal account for business purposes) For the same reason, I won't put my cell phone on my business cards or email signature (actually, I don't use email signatures…). I also set up specific IM and Skype accounts for each company I work for. I don't want all my colleagues to know when I'm up or not, and I might not want to keep that contact after I'm gone. It really helps being harder to reach after hours. In the case of Dropbox, I also create a new account with the added benefit that I can refer myself and get another 250MB for both accounts. (new email address, new computer) It's not very complicated to manage. I have a couple of shared folders for stuff I really need to access from both computers.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > For one, there have been stories of people's phones being wiped off thanks to an Exchange admin feature. Wow, this is such bullshit. Why isn't there a feature on the phones to block any such admin access?
  - nemeth88 14y ago
    Since ActiveSync is a patented and licensed technology, no major manufacturer is going to make a device that falsely claims to support remote wiping but actually ignores the command. Remote wipe is usually implemented by simply re-setting the hardware encryption key, so there's no easy way to have remote wipe destroy only the corporate data. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124591.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124591.aspx says that would actually be acceptable, but they note no manufacturers have created devices that are capable of selectively wiping only corporate data.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
csense 14y ago
> Intermingling personal and work accounts Yes, this is a bad idea. The problem seems to be that this particular service provider has "one person, one account" and "one computer, one account" baked deeply into their design. Which makes it difficult-to-impossible for people to use more than one account. This approach probably simplified things when they were making it; as a startup, maybe the complexity would have been outside of the development resources if they hadn't made these simplifying assumptions of the model. But by now these assumptions are so deeply baked into every part of the service that it'd be really hard for them to change. This is just a guess; I'm not affiliated with Dropbox in any way, and I've never even used their service.

pearkes 14y ago

I recently bought a second laptop for home, even though it was common at the company I work for to use your computer for work and pleasure. Under California employment law, an employer can argue that they own anything created on company machines[1]. If you work on side projects, I think it's a worthy investment. [1] http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a-company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-st/20126#20126 http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-...

justinschuh 14y ago
Definitely. I'm comfortable using my employer-provided laptop to keep tabs on my personal email (and use multi-profile to keep it separate). However, if I was doing any side work at all I would keep it entirely off of my employer's systems and outside work hours, because my baseline assumption is that it belongs to your employer if you produced it with their resources or on their time.
jevinskie 14y ago
Careful! I believe they can still claim any work that is related to the company's field. Or is that just something that is commonly included in employment contracts?
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  I recall this being present in IT contracts at least ten years ago, but some time around then people figured it out and started insisting on removing that section... though I actually personally saw something like this for the first time just last week. Fortunately, a client had just sent me the wrong form, but there's no way I would have signed it. It's just a matter of carefully reading contracts and making sure you know what you're getting yourself into.
- pearkes 14y ago
  You're right in my case. That being said, I have no interest in competing - it's more for side projects.
- maaku 14y ago
  No, although that is a common clause in employment contracts. The GP on the other hand is talking about the default ruling under California law. You're allowed side projects in the same field on your own time, so long as your contract doesn't say otherwise. (As always, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, etc.)
larrys 14y ago
"I recently bought a second laptop for home, even though it was common at the company I work for to use your computer for work and pleasure." Another option is to make your work laptop dual boot - either with the internal drive (partition) or with a portable external drive. If you have to return the laptop (with the internal drive partitioned) you can wipe that partition. Not necessary with the external drive option. For a practical matter (even under california employment law) they aren't going to know that you are doing this.

rgarcia 14y ago

The overhead of maintaining separate Dropbox accounts is pretty high IMO. There's no easy way to switch between accounts on the desktop client, an I'm pretty sure there's no way to be logged in to multiple accounts.

tomcorrigan 14y ago
This is the thing that is holding me back from embracing dropbox with open arms. I of course have separate accounts for work (2 jobs, 2 accounts) and a third private account. I don't mix the data on the for the reasons that the top poster listed. If there was a convenient way to sync all three through the desktop client I would be overjoyed in much the same way I was when gmail/google apps allowed multiple sign ins.
Adirael 14y ago
On OS X (and Linux I guess) it can be done, but it's not easy nor intuitive. I managed to do it and you end up with two (or more) Dropbox folders and two (or more) Dropbox processes running. EDIT: Found the link: http://maketecheasier.com/run-multiple-dropbox-accounts-in-mac-and-linux/2010/05/24 http://maketecheasier.com/run-multiple-dropbox-accounts-in-m...
justinschuh 14y ago
Then segregating by systems is a better option (and the one I choose for persistent personal data other than Web profiles or email). Of course, there's also an opportunity here for Dropbox or a competitor to offer something better. I expect there's a non-negligible demand for the ability to sync multiple accounts to different directory sets on a single client. So, maybe it's a feature that could be offered only to paying customers, to allow them to more easily separate their personal and business accounts.
dubya 14y ago
At least on OS X, different users can be logged in to different Dropbox accounts at the same time. So you could use different user accounts for your different tasks, or work out something with shared directories. But, yeah, it's not user friendly, and it's hard to imagine Dropbox adding support to the regular client.

aspir 14y ago

As much as I agree with you, your examples prove how little "regular" users consider this. With technologies that are historically user-unfriendly, such as email, individuals may be aware of the importance of separating work and personal, especially because email is such an 'old' technology. But, for something new, like cloud storage, and for a company like Dropbox, that prides itself in "just working," this is a critical feature oversight.

Timothee 14y ago

Absolutely. As much as possible, I try not to log into personal stuff at work and vice-versa. In particular, I won't set up my work email on my phone unlike many of my colleagues. For one, there have been stories of people's phones being wiped off thanks to an Exchange admin feature. And second, if the company I work for needs me to have access to my email at all times, they need to pay for my phone and my bill. (on top of it, it's typically forbidden by ToS to use your personal account for business purposes) For the same reason, I won't put my cell phone on my business cards or email signature (actually, I don't use email signatures…). I also set up specific IM and Skype accounts for each company I work for. I don't want all my colleagues to know when I'm up or not, and I might not want to keep that contact after I'm gone. It really helps being harder to reach after hours. In the case of Dropbox, I also create a new account with the added benefit that I can refer myself and get another 250MB for both accounts. (new email address, new computer) It's not very complicated to manage. I have a couple of shared folders for stuff I really need to access from both computers.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> For one, there have been stories of people's phones being wiped off thanks to an Exchange admin feature. Wow, this is such bullshit. Why isn't there a feature on the phones to block any such admin access?
- nemeth88 14y ago
  Since ActiveSync is a patented and licensed technology, no major manufacturer is going to make a device that falsely claims to support remote wiping but actually ignores the command. Remote wipe is usually implemented by simply re-setting the hardware encryption key, so there's no easy way to have remote wipe destroy only the corporate data. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124591.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124591.aspx says that would actually be acceptable, but they note no manufacturers have created devices that are capable of selectively wiping only corporate data.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

csense 14y ago

> Intermingling personal and work accounts Yes, this is a bad idea. The problem seems to be that this particular service provider has "one person, one account" and "one computer, one account" baked deeply into their design. Which makes it difficult-to-impossible for people to use more than one account. This approach probably simplified things when they were making it; as a startup, maybe the complexity would have been outside of the development resources if they hadn't made these simplifying assumptions of the model. But by now these assumptions are so deeply baked into every part of the service that it'd be really hard for them to change. This is just a guess; I'm not affiliated with Dropbox in any way, and I've never even used their service.