Edited the title to what the article has now.
… enabled-by-default…
… shares your Dropbox data with OpenAI …
… an experimental AI-powered search feature. …
… user data [IS] shared with third-party AI partners…
This would be more than enough reason for me to cancel and delete my account if I were still a customer.
If you can’t trust a company with your data, then you can’t trust the company at all.
Why do companies have to be so opaque with things? If they really wanted users to try some experimental, data-sharing feature, offer it to them as an opt-in beta feature and pay them for being a guinea pig.
Consent with compensation is way better than non-consent with zero transparency.
This should be justification enough for any enterprise company using Dropbox to dump them overboard
Fuck. I have been using them for backup for years, I currently have everything on my NAS but still like having important stuff in an offsite backup.
Anyone know a reasonably priced cloud storage provider that has integration (either 3rd or 1st party) with Unraid?
Edit: Dropbox just renewed my annual subscription last night at midnight 🙃
Double edit: I went into my Dropbox web portal and found that the setting was enabled by default for me. I’m in the US.
I use wasabi, it’s an Amazon s3 compatible storage solution, $5/month/TB with no network or access fees
Oh that’s not bad! Thanks I’ll look into it. What are you using to send the backups to Wasabi?
I run my NAS on TrueNAS, and it just has a built-in solution for taking ZFS snapshots, encrypting them, and shipping them to an S3-compatible storage.
However, for unraid, I think your easiest thing will be to use the
rcloneplugin
I use Unraid too. What app are you using for backup? Most allow for encrypted backups which renders this issue moot (though still shitty).
I use Duplicacy (not to be confused with the unreliable Duplicati) and send encrypted backups to B2 Backblaze.
I’m actually not backing up my NAS at the moment. It’s been on my to do list for a while to figure out a solution.
How much does Backblaze run you per month? I’ve got ~2tb stored currently.
$6/TB/month
I had good luck with B2 backblaze but recently switched to storj for E2EE backups without having encrypted filenames in the browser. Overall these solutions are slower and more expensive than typical cloud backups, but it’s well worth it to stick it to the man.
Edit: more expensive, not cheaper.
Cool I will look into that! What are you running on your NAS to facilitate the backups?
TrueNAS Scale has a built-in cloud backup tool that supports the common sites and protocols. Most all NAS solutions have something similar. It’s really just an rsync wrapper with authentication and storage protocol support.
There’s a lot of missing context with those ellipsis. Enabled by default means you’re just going to see the feature but it’s not doing anything or sending any data until you interact with it. Even when you do it prompts you first to explain what it’s going to do. If you don’t want to see the feature at all you can just toggle it back off but no data has moved until you’ve consented to it.
Yes, a fair point that was mentioned in the article.
I may be speaking only for myself, but I don’t want any new features enabled by default. Subsequent popups and warnings may be hastily ignored/skipped during a user’s busy day, so it’s too easy to accidentally give consent, and consent shouldn’t be accidental.
Let users know about the feature in a newsletter or “what’s new” section of the site, and let the user opt-in to try this new feature (if they wish). That’s really the only ethical, transparent, and 100% way to ensure consent.
They made some seriously bad choices in the past few years that I honestly don’t believe they can survive by 2030. Just like photobucket and vimeo, Dropbox has reached peak shit.
I already moved anything sensitive out of my pro account, switched to free, and now use it to store memes and porn since that realization.
Holy hell guys, did you all just read the headline and run to the comment section?
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enabled by default means you can see the feature and interact with it if you choose to do so
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when you interact with it, it explains it needs to send this file to OpenAI. Of course it does, that’s how it knows what you’re asking of it. You are prompted to choose to use this feature
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if you choose not to interact with it, nothing has changed, nothing has been sent anywhere
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if you really don’t want to look at it anymore you can turn it off, which is nice. A lot of companies drop stuff like this and you’re stuck with it whether you like it or not
when you interact with it, it explains it needs to send this file to OpenAI
/thread
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Removed by mod
ITT: not nearly enough people demanding that Dropbox execs go to prison for massive violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Weird, I can’t find the setting in settings…
It’s not in any of the articles, but in dropbox forums:
The Third-Party AI features are not available to everyone yet. The features are in alpha and are only available to customers on Dropbox Professional, Essentials, Business, Business Plus, and some customers on Dropbox Standard and Advanced.
If you’re on a Basic, Plus or Family account, or you’re part of one of the other groups that don’t yet have access, the Third-Party AI features won’t be available to you.
Cool, so we have to just keep thinking about it and checking in to turn it off. Great way to combat a wave of people opting out.
By the time it appears, it will have been “on” for some nonzero duration before you switch it off, so I guess they could already have irreversibly vacuumed up your existing data…
Yikes.
Prayers to all the companies using Dropbox as cloud storage.
Your intellectual property and private docs is now given to AI! Haha y’all are so fucked!
Same, it’s not in my settings anywhere.
Enabled by default but can’t be disabled…
I found it under “Third-party AI” on the web portal settings. It was enabled for me, I’m in the US.
So glad I stopped using dropbox as soon as they hired Condoleeza Rice.
There’s my people. I had to scroll too far!
PSA: use Cryptomator if u gonna use public clouds
Also: public cloud + cryptomator > e2ee cloud (Proton etc)
An interesting note: OneDrive really dislikes that, it reads your encrypted files as ransomware and asks you to say they’re OK every time you upload something new. It’s really annoying.
Then stop using it and go to Sync > Dropbox > Box (not 100% if it works for Box), way better
Of course OneDrive hates it, you’re cucking Microsoft from access to your cleartext files.
I can’t haz private files? 🥺
—Microsoft, definitely
That’s neat, thanks!
And this is precisely why you don’t store your files in the cloud.
Me with my 70 gigabytes of furry porn commissions
Of all things and companies in existence, I had never imagined Dropbox would betray me like that.
Tech companies are only as good as their financial health.
Loyalty is stupid.
In desperation, they will milk you.
Tech companies are only as good as their financial health.
This is true, in every way.
It only interacts with OpenAI when you use the feature and warns you about it ahead of time. None of your files were automatically sent over and if you don’t want to use this feature they allow you to turn it off. This is in the article.
Hey I was thinking about cloud backups. I gotta encrypt important files then if dropbox is gonna have AI go through them at will. My alternative was just copying stuff to a hard drive and shoving it in a safety deposit box…
NAS + cloud backup is the way to go. Any NAS software worth its salt can do E2EE backup with any old cloud backup solution.
Definitely not for the faint of heart though. If you don’t actively enjoy fiddling then there aren’t many good options. Maybe icloud if you trust Apple to not de-platform you.
On a side note, I love that article image that they used. The contrast it’s trying to portray is so chef’s kiss
Be interesting to see how long after today this stands
Not available in Europe, UK and Canada, but in California. Interesting
wait hold on a second, don’t I have a reasonable expectation that my non public files aren’t public?
Not according to Dropbox ToS. You already agree to allow them to use your materials for marketing and research purposes. This is only a minor step further.
