Yeah,
I see where you're coming from. A bit baughty really.
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Mobeen Iqbal
Sent: 12 March 2016 17:04
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Dropbox deception, extremely annoyed!
Hi Steve.
That's my point, I found no record anywhere that my file had been downloaded
that many times. I can only conclude that it was the bandwidth they were
annoyed about. the image was around 1.5GB in size, so I suppose 10 or 15
people downloading it would've killed my allowance. Its not so much the
bandwidth, its the not being told at any point that annoys me. at least if
i'd received some prier warning I could have disabled the link and prevented
further downloads! No one even told me there was a bandwidth limit. they
certainly don't make it clear on their website which I think is totally
wrong. People are uploading and sharing videos these days which are quite
large in size.
if sharing suddenly stops working for them I can't imagine very many people
being happy.
all the best,
Mo.
On 12/03/2016 16:58, Steve Hyde-Dryden (Redacted sender csdryden for
DMARC) wrote:
Hi Mo,message.
I understand your frustration and the way drop box has handled your data.
Mind you though, even for a private account, 100,000 downloads per day
is quite a sizeable amount. What size was your file?
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of Mobeen Iqbal
Sent: 12 March 2016 13:16
To: BCAB Discussion List
Subject: [access-uk] Dropbox deception, extremely annoyed!
Hello Everyone.
This email is quite long, so have a beverage handy. I've been using
dropbox for years to sync files between various devices. Its very easy
to use and extremely convenient. However, someone contacted me on
Wednesday to inform me that a link to a custom linux image i'd shared
with them wasn't working the way they'd expected. They were getting an
error code 429 when accessing the shared link page and the following
downloads.
Error 429: This account's links are generating too much traffic and
have been temporarily disabled!
I wasn't aware that my account was using too much bandwidth when
sharing files. Dropbox had not emailed me even though I'm subscribed
to all email alerts. I had no way of checking to see which files had
generated the large amount of traffic dropbox were referring to, nor
could I see when my link sharing ability would be restored and if I'd
been banned in the past. I searched online forums and discovered other
users complaining regarding the same issue in other words, not being
made aware that dropbox does have bandwidth limits per day, not having
the ability to monitor daily bandwidth usage, and not being able to
see why they'd been banned and what file had generated the traffic!
I contacted dropbox support and received the following response from
them this morning.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
------
----
Noah, Mar 11, 2:45 PM:
Hi Mo,
Thank you for contacting the Dropbox Account Security Team.
Shared links and file requests are automatically banned when they
generate large amounts of traffic and exceed our bandwidth or download
limits. In order to prevent abuse, Basic accounts are limited to 20 GB
of bandwidth and 100,000 downloads per day, while Pro and Business
accounts have a much higher limit of 200 GB per day and unlimited
banned.
Please note that Dropbox does not offer a way to buy an additional
bandwidth allowance for your account.
Due to the way we track shared links and file requests, we cannot
provide information about why a particular link or file request was
upload files.
However, if a recipient of a shared link sends it to other users who
subsequently download it, this could account for high bandwidth usage.
Similarly,
if a single recipient downloads the shared link multiple times, each
download is counted separately for bandwidth tracking purposes. This
can also cause shared links to be banned.
If a requester receives a large number of uploads of files by one user
or multiple users, this could account for high bandwidth usage. This
could be due to one recipient re-uploading a file often or if a
recipient forwards the file request email to other users who subsequently
upon it.
Shared links and file requests are banned temporarily (1 day for the
first
time) and will be restored when the ban has expired.
Regards,
Noah
So basically it doesn't tell us much at all. I am not in the habit of
broadcasting public dropbox links on forums. I think its despicable
that dropbox don't make it clear to their users that their accounts
could be limited, and also that when a limit is applied which files
caused them to be banned. or even that the account has had limits placed
this experience has left a really sour taste in my mouth, and also ledto access your private documents at any time.
me to question how secure my data actually is. I'm switching to
another, more secure provider. sync.com is looking very good at the
moment. I am currently in the process of trying out their windows
client. It seems accessible enough with some jaws curser work in the
preferences. I didn't want others to get sucked in by dropbox's false
promises. Its awful that they have the right to access your files at
any time and that they hold the encryption keys to allow law enforcement
I would never put anything private in the cloud, but that's besidescomputer crash.
the point. Individuals and business users often want to store letters,
contact information and documents so they're backed up in case of a
sync.com claim to provide a fully encrypted service end to end and
claim that they do not hold any keys to allow others to access your
data. they also do not restrict bandwidth usage as far as I can see
and offer 500GB of storage for $49 per year and 5GB for free. Lets
hope they live up to their claims and that they're as reliable as
dropbox. If I had a fast enough connection, i'd host my own cloud.
all the best,
Mo.
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