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Comment by plg | Hacker News Reader

Does it bother anyone else that dropbox is "processing" files at all? whether video or otherwise?

I was under the impression that Dropbox can't "see" your files in the sense that they wouldn't be able to tell what was inside a document or photo; it's all supposed to be encrypted. Given this new information, it appears that not only can they see what you have uploaded, they can actively process, encode, decode, etc.

Not exactly what I'm looking for in an online file storage company. I realize they've never outright said "we're 100% secure end to end" but they've indicated in the past that they have no interest in looking at their users' files. Now they are showing interest. Count me out.

> I was under the impression that Dropbox can't "see" your files in the sense that they wouldn't be able to tell what was inside a document or photo; it's all supposed to be encrypted.

No, that was never true. In particular, that would break Dropbox's model for deduplication, as well as their web clients, and various other things. If you're looking for an end-to-end encrypted solution, Dropbox was never it.

To expand on that, mega.co.nz does attempt to do encryption end deduplication. Each file uploaded is encrypted with it's own hash, and the hash is stored in the users encrypted account. The idea is that if two users upload the same file they will have the same hash and be deduplicated. It's not particularly secure or private in their implementation, but it can certainly be done.

Unless your online storage method of choice is encrypting your files on the client side before its transmitted, you should assume it's visible to the operators and anyone they grant access to.

And it's not just Dropbox that can see those files but also Amazon as Dropbox is doing the encoding of the videos on AWS.

I don't think Dropbox has ever claimed that they can't see your files on a technical basis. I'm sure that there are policies and auditing, but it's not secure storage. This is why I've told medical profession clients that they should absolutely NOT be using Dropbox.

If you want security, encrypt on your own or decide if you trust SpiderOak.

Personally: Not really. It's cool that I can view any videos I have uploaded on so many devices without any problems.

Dropbox can see your files.

If you want more privacy you can try http://www.nimbusvid.com which uses mega.co.nz plays encrypted video in the browser. Content is never sent to nimbusvid.com so you can watch your videos in privacy.

I think this is used just for playback, not for storage.

he probably doesn't like his files read at all

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