Ask HN: Has anyone recently had their Dropbox disabled?

16 points by rockarage 4 years ago | 3 comments

Dropbox seems to be disabling some accounts in waves, if you are part of this wave you're in danger of losing your data forever.

For a little context watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buduP--pZ1Q

and read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31142845

I'm hearing from other people that they are getting their accounts disabled as well. I want us to work together to resolve this issue.

Dropbox has made it clear to many of us they will not restore our account, and we would need a court order for any further communication. Therefore we need to hire attorneys to get an injunction.

I used to think I understood Dropbox's policy, I was wrong, their policy is incredibly abusive and illegal.

Imagine a property manager claiming that drugs were discovered in your home-office, and their solution is to burn down your home-office. The property manager does not show you the actual drugs you are accused of having, nor do they mention the specific drug. They hint that law enforcement is involved but you don't know for sure. Without any due process the property managers says it is their right to burn down your place with the drugs. That's what Dropbox is doing. Dropbox will destroy people's digital files / property without due process.

my email is in my profile, thanks.

Jugurtha 4 years ago |

I don't know. I stopped using Dropbox when their Linux client started telling me that my filesystem was not supported anymore; they dropped support for encrypted disks and asked me to do something about it (i.e: not encrypt my disk).

I also stopped using Box because it keeps sending mfa text messages to a phone number I do not control anymore, and trying to do something about it I get asked to ask my administrator for help or to ask support. Too much hassle. I may do it.

To change the old phone number the 2FA code is sent to, I have to be logged in, and to log in, I have to have access to the old phone number.

I had also lost control over that phone number, which I've had for fifteen years, because I had to send it airtime every three months. I was abroad and I missed sending airtime by one day and it was blocked and taken from me. I asked the telco to give it back to me, they said it's impossible and it will be assigned to someone else. I asked can that someone else be "me"; they said no; it's random. I asked if I can randomly buy it back; they said no.

So, from my perspective, Box and Dropbox are as useful now as the services they set out to replace in 2007 or something.

yakytaky 4 years ago | |

Have you considered using Nextcloud or Owncloud for this purpose? There is a bit more overhead as you are responsible for maintaining the system, but the upside is that you’re in control of the things you’ve mentioned are pain points.

vmoore 4 years ago |

Well I know that Dropbox deactivates your account if you haven't logged in in a year, which is a shocking practice as you could lose backup data in that case. Don't store anything precious in a Dropbox account. Yes, I know, you may have a local copy, but still...