3 ms·
Perhaps they encrypt your unique personal files, but share duplicates among all the users? In one tb, there must be a lot of common mp3s, movie files, etc.
by herge 14y ago
Perhaps they encrypt your unique personal files, but share duplicates among all the users? In one tb, there must be a lot of common mp3s, movie files, etc.
- JackWebbHeller 14y agoDropbox does this too. I think I read somewhere that they md5 your file and see if matches one already on the network, if so, they just replicate a 'link' to that file in your account. That's why sometimes if you upload a movie you downloaded, it uploads in a matter of seconds.
- varikin 14y agoI thought they changed that because someone found that if you added that hash to your Dropbox to your local Dropbox database/config, it would download the movie. And for a week or two, people were pirating movies this way. Though I suppose Dropbox could still use the same deduplication while making it harder to link a file to your account.
- pronoiac 14y agoI believe they broke that scheme using other methods, which I can't recall. Edit: They changed how it works on the server side, without going into detail. It's discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2483053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2483053