

DropBox doesn't offer full privacy or encryption - whitecap

In today&#x27;s day and age, where everyone is looking in to your data, its shocking that popular services like Dropbox dont have strict privacy policy in place (something like zero-knowledge)... is it intentional so that they can use data in the future to sell ADs or is it technology? just curious because there are few who offer 100% encryption but not the popular ones, very strange !!!
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Illniyar
DropBox is built on the premise of availability (I.E. it's available from
everywhere, and easy to share). Availability is usually in direct conflict
with Security (let alone encryption).

If you want your files encrypted (or just some of the files), do what the rest
of the world does, and encrypt them locally (with archive software or builtin
protections most content making programs provide)

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newsign
It is not completely impossible as SpiderOak and others are able to offer....
it could be the cost of implementing it .... Cost vs. Benefit ... benefit in
terms of how much revenue it can generate by adding particular feature....but
the demand is growing so lets hope that things change soon.

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Piskvorrr
I have an alternate explanation: It's easier this way. I'm not attempting to
downplay Dropbox's (or anyone else's) efforts, but Crypto Is Hard. Really
Hard. Once you try to implement zero-knowledge full encryption, it gets Really
Freaking Ridiculously Hard, some cool things stop even being possible (Web
access? Sorry, no can do.), and it becomes easy to fail while appearing to
work (see e.g. [http://www.cryptofails.com/2013/07/synergy-integer-
overflow-...](http://www.cryptofails.com/2013/07/synergy-integer-overflow-key-
reuse-iv.html) ).

Also, there isn't (yet) a mass demand for such features, and there are smaller
providers offering those.

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migrantgeek
Dropbox doesn't offer great encryption because the service is meant to make it
very easy to share files and not a secure repository for your things.

The gripe is like someone saying "this axe doesn't cut butter very well".

Wrap your Dropbox stuff in TrueCrypt if you want security at the expense of
ease of sharing.

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falk
I'm not saying this is the reason why, but Dropbox was implicated in the whole
Prism scandal as "coming soon".

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jmacd
Dropbox de-duplicates data. That means that if you are storing the exact same
file as I am, then Dropbox only stores that file once. It is possible to do
something similar with encryption but it is far less efficient.

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sigsergv
Just use encfs for basic encryption, and something more powerful for reliable
solid encryption (pgp/gnupg for example).

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stephengillie
Can you back up your claim?

