Dropbox allows you to work on and synchronise documents from many computers. However, it does have a significant security weakness.
After installing Dropbox on your computer and creating an account you create folders on a Web server that is accessible from all your computers. To sync files with another computer you must download and install the appropriate version of Dropbox for that computer. Login to the your Dropbox account on all the computers you want to sync. The software will create a new folder on each computer called “Dropbox”. All the folders and files that are copied to that folder are synced to all the other computers. Those files are also available over the Internet using the Dropbox web interface.
Dropbox makes it easy to allow public access to your files. Inside of your Dropbox folder there is a subfolder called Public. Any folder or file inside of the Public folder is exactly that, public and accessible to the world. A document you need to send to a friend or coworker may be added to the Public folder. Just copy the publicly accessible link and email it to the intended recipient and have them download the document.
Security
Dropbox doesn’t offer encryption for your data. If they did, the web interface to access your files would be much less useful because you wouldn’t be able to view or download your files directly. Encryption would also make it much more complicated to share files with other people.
The lack of encryption makes this an unwise choice for any work related application.
“The lack of encryption makes this an unwise choice for any work related application”
So why write about it on this blog then?
Because a lot of people would not recognise the exposure. However, it is useful for a host of other uses, especially pictures.
When travelling, those fine folks at the border think everybody with pictures on their laptop are smuggling kiddy porn. Move the pics to Dropbox and sync them when you get home.