4 ms·

Here's a hacking opportunity - obfuscate files prior to Dropbox sync so they fail at their duplicate detection.

camus2 13y ago
no need for obfuscation. Respect Dropbox TOS and your files will not be deleted. Share some copyrighted material and deal with the consequences. By the way you can encrypt files before sending them to the cloud, but in order to share them with a third party you'd have to give your keys, which makes little sense.
- jschmitz28 13y ago
  Makes perfect sense to me if you don't trust your host not to report you. Keys are small enough to just send in a private chat rather than hosted alongside the encrypted file.
  - holyjaw 13y ago
    > if you don't trust your host not to report you Don't do illegal shit on Dropbox; problem solved.
    - nitrogen 13y ago
      Laws are numerous and vary from place to place. Such simplistic advice can never capture the nuances of every "right" decision everywhere.
  - schoen 13y ago
    It sounds like this is starting down the path of "not trusting cloud servers in particular ways". At the end of that path lies Tahoe LAFS, which tries to do online file storage while avoiding trusting the servers at all. https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs (One of the properties of Tahoe is managing the keys to decrypt data completely outside of the servers, so that the servers never have any knowledge of what they're storing.)
- officemonkey 13y ago
  There are plenty of valid fair use reasons for me to share copyrighted material. Example, my wife and I are physically separated (let's say she is in Europe for a week) and she wants a copy of "Frozen" that I just ripped from the DVD I own. (It's a long plane ride home.) Making a copy is fair use, and putting a copy on her computer is not illegal. Dropbox is treading a fine line. If they fuck with my files, I will drop them fast.
- ElDiablo666 13y ago
  You're right that that's what traitors say about sharing but that's not a real world solution for serious people. Perhaps you aren't aware of this but copyright holding monopolies have purchased laws in the US that criminalize perfectly normal behavior, like sharing copyrighted material over a computer network. My friend, remember that we can't allow these traitors to wreck our brains with propaganda and make us think that publishers deserve a payment every time someone even thinks about a song or movie.

no need for obfuscation. Respect Dropbox TOS and your files will not be deleted. Share some copyrighted material and deal with the consequences. By the way you can encrypt files before sending them to the cloud, but in order to share them with a third party you'd have to give your keys, which makes little sense.

jschmitz28 13y ago
Makes perfect sense to me if you don't trust your host not to report you. Keys are small enough to just send in a private chat rather than hosted alongside the encrypted file.
- holyjaw 13y ago
  > if you don't trust your host not to report you Don't do illegal shit on Dropbox; problem solved.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    Laws are numerous and vary from place to place. Such simplistic advice can never capture the nuances of every "right" decision everywhere.
- schoen 13y ago
  It sounds like this is starting down the path of "not trusting cloud servers in particular ways". At the end of that path lies Tahoe LAFS, which tries to do online file storage while avoiding trusting the servers at all. https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs (One of the properties of Tahoe is managing the keys to decrypt data completely outside of the servers, so that the servers never have any knowledge of what they're storing.)
officemonkey 13y ago
There are plenty of valid fair use reasons for me to share copyrighted material. Example, my wife and I are physically separated (let's say she is in Europe for a week) and she wants a copy of "Frozen" that I just ripped from the DVD I own. (It's a long plane ride home.) Making a copy is fair use, and putting a copy on her computer is not illegal. Dropbox is treading a fine line. If they fuck with my files, I will drop them fast.
ElDiablo666 13y ago
You're right that that's what traitors say about sharing but that's not a real world solution for serious people. Perhaps you aren't aware of this but copyright holding monopolies have purchased laws in the US that criminalize perfectly normal behavior, like sharing copyrighted material over a computer network. My friend, remember that we can't allow these traitors to wreck our brains with propaganda and make us think that publishers deserve a payment every time someone even thinks about a song or movie.