Is.. is Dropbox.. pirating user files????
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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... 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 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?
I use wasabi, it's an Amazon s3 compatible storage solution, $5/month/TB with no network or access fees
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.
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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.
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
I, for one, have been trained by corporations and news agencies to react impulsively and without any deeper consideration for decades now.
/s
What? You expect people to actually read articles instead of jumping to conclusions based solely on the headlines? Outrageous
/s
Me, an intellectual, basing myself solely on the most legit looking comment instead of reading the article.
The more I read this community the more I think it's populated mainly by children and pearl-clutching conspiracy theorists.
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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. I bet Dropbox is running damage control on it.
Article said this news already hit other social media platforms.
Pinned comment on original article says:
Didn't see it mentioned in the article, but per the linked FAQ it says the alpha AI applies to:
In countries with the preferred language set to English.
Excluding Canada, the UK (United Kingdom), and countries within the EEA (European Economic Area).
They set it for me in Canada, so they are lying there
Hmm. I’m in the US. But I maybe I didn’t tell Dropbox I prefer English back when I signed up nearly 20 years ago.
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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.
How unsurprising, a headline that technically doesn't lie, but also gives a completely misleading impression. At least it has been fixed since: the current, accurate one is "Dropbox spooks users with new AI features that send data to OpenAI when used"
Because your files only get sent to the AI search service if you use the AI search feature, which it tells you will send the one specific file you are asking the AI to analyze to OpenAi. Which, you know... Duh?
The third-party AI toggle is only turned on to give all eligible customers the opportunity to view our new AI features and functionality, like Dropbox AI. It does not enable customers to use these features without notice. Any features that use third-party AI offer disclosure of third-party use, and link to settings that they can manage. Only after a customer sees the third-party AI transparency banner and chooses to proceed with asking a question about a file, will that file be sent to a third-party to generate answers. Our customers are still in control of when and how they use these features
Out of curiosity, do you (or anyone else reading this) have a screencap of the "third-party AI transparency banner" that the dropbox rep said is shown when using the functionality in question?
I did a quick ddg search for it, but couldn't find an example. I'd like to reserve judgement till I see the full verbiage of what is/was shown.
PSA: use Cryptomator if u gonna use public clouds
Also: public cloud + cryptomator > e2ee cloud (Proton etc)
What's this exactly? Would you mind an explanation? I would like my files to only be my files.
Creates a client-side fully e2ee vault to safely store your cloud files in on whatever cloud is compatible (Dropbox, OneDrive, Sync, etc)
That's neat, thanks!
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So glad I stopped using dropbox as soon as they hired Condoleeza Rice.
There’s my people. I had to scroll too far!
I have no idea what this is about, can you explain?
And this is precisely why you don't store your files in the cloud.
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.
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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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In its FAQ, Dropbox contradicts this claim, saying, "We won’t let our third-party partners train their models on our user data without consent."
In July, the company announced an AI-powered feature called Dash that allows AI models to perform universal searches across platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft Outlook.
Still, multiple Ars Technica staff who had no knowledge of the Dropbox AI alpha found the setting enabled by default when they checked.
It also says, "Only the content relevant to an explicit request or command is sent to our third-party AI partners to generate an answer, summary, or transcript."
Log into your Dropbox account on a desktop web browser, then click your profile photo > Settings > Third-party AI.
On that page, click the switch beside "Use artificial intelligence (AI) from third-party partners so you can work faster in Dropbox" to toggle it into the "Off" position.
The original article contains 518 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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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...
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Unsettling
Be interesting to see how long after today this stands
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