I deleted my account about a week ago. Some things, like google (mail, drive etc) are harder to drop but with so many cloud storage applications out there this was an easy choice.
appointing someone who advocates(or at least once did) warantless surveillance is certainly less overt than more direct cooperation and there are other organizations more strongly implicated in NSA surveillance. I don't feel like my cancellation will make a lick of difference nor do I feel like my citizen vigilance quota is filled up for the year. However it's one small thing I can do in under a minute.
This seems like the most straight forward argument, and far more germane to Rice's role at Dropbox as a continuation of her role as National Security Adviser. There she was expected to provide independent advice to the President. Now she's expected to provide independent advice to the CEO and Board. The worry is she either got rolled by more strident hawks in the Bush Administration or went along willingly because she believed the arguments. Neither explanation encourages much faith in her role as an independent director at a company with lots of my data.
According to 'dang, the original "drop Dropbox" story was the most-flagged submission in the entire HN database, by a factor of 3. This story is a mere subsidiary of that one. It's worth flagging as well. There are better places to advocate against Dropbox (which is banned for other reasons at my company) than on HN.
It was the most flagged submission, by a factor of 3, out of the most recent million posts. That probably true of the whole dataset as well, but I didn't have time to scan everything.
The current story was killed by user flags. We didn't touch it.
If you seriously think that way, it's a sign that the US tech industry is going to have to get hit by a big expensive cluestick before it realizes it's going to have to get both a legal and technology divorce from the surveillance state and it's proponents.
I saw her speak at Google in '09. She took questions, which were largely softballs, when finally one guy had the courage to ask something along the lines of, "Don't you want to apologize?" She was visibly annoyed; unapologetic and completely dismissive.
I left the talk, blood boiling, thinking, gee, there really are no consequences for this woman (and the bush admin).
That said, she's a skilled enough political figure that I'd be shocked if she doesn't have a more diplomatic line to trot out now. Hard political lines are bad for business.
The problem is her APNSA position was central to the use and expansion of illegal methods that are still with us today in various capacities that we still don't have a full accounting of. Without Snowden, we'd have far less information.
Maybe she'll help Dropbox navigate those challenges to help protect the privacy of their users (black hat to white hat), but I'm dubious. She had a historic opportunity and went in the extreme other direction.
If she actually carries out her role with a primary responsibility to Dropbox, as such roles and business practices are currently defined, then her primary concern will be liability.
And in terms of corporate liability with respect to extant surveillance practices, a consistent line of argument and arm-twisting has been to proffer immunity in return for cooperation. ("Give us the data, and you won't be liable, criminally nor civilly.")
So... I don't see her new role at Dropbox as particularly encouraging with respect to the privacy of Dropbox users' data. Her concern, per the above, will be to ensure that if and when Dropbox provides surveillance access, the corporation cannot be prosecuted nor sued for doing so.
If you want some context for this argument, just refer back to all the stink about telecommunications companies' liability/immunity that erupted particularly into the public dialog around 2007 - 2008. Look also at the deals that have been proposed for what access ISP's should be required to provide and what they would get in return. Etc.
Hmm.. This person was a sociopath a decade ago. I wonder if she's not a sociopath anymore.
(Yeah, not directly comparable, but she is still very much a sociopath, just like all other high-ranking politicians. True, this is just an assertion I'm making, so take it for what it's worth, but please do think for yourself.)
It'd be sad if another tech company board member got run out of town. But I'll say that if dropbox didn't expect this reaction, they're foolish. They hired Rice for her political ties, so I'm slightly less sympathetic if the public judges her for her political ties.
This seems a little crazy. Just because someone who has different political views than me is on the board of a company whose product I use, doesn't mean I must support their political views. By that logic, I can never use a product made by a company who has a board member who doesn't have the same views as me.
And to the point that her political views will somehow cloud security at Dropbox: they probably brought her on to advise on how to deal with security requests by the government.
In any case, the idea that adding Rice to the board will somehow make Dropbox excitedly comply with all governments surveillance is preposterous.
Original title of this submission "Dropbox's Condoleezza Rice advocating for warrantless NSA surveillance" is more than a little dishonest.
The article is talking about statements she made on TV in 2005. That is bad enough, I don't understand why you feel the need to make it seem like she is going to the White House today in a Dropbox t-shirt advocating for NSA surveillance.
It's not so much the statements as the fact that she specifically helped get bills passed that enabled warrantless wiretapping. There was no concern for Constitutional law.
Personally, I don't think people change much. I doubt she thinks she did the wrong thing, and would not hesitate to do it again if she went back in time.
It's one thing to agree or disagree with her position at Dropbox but are you trying to argue against what she said on camera? "I heard she might..." is not the case here since she was a public face for quite a while and she defended removing Americans' liberties in favor of something closer to a police state.
I don't understand this decision. Dropbox in February (2014) was finally allowed use back in China, so my understanding is they're going hard for that market of over a billion people.
I wouldn't be surprised if China blocked them again due to this appointment.
I would guess that someone from the administration that did the most to unleash the surveillance state on Americans would be highly compatible with the Chinese government's view on the role of state security in the communications infrastructure.
Dropbox probably recruited her for her conservatism in this area, and for the prestige of her previous position. If she causes problems it would be because her prestige was dinged by backlash in the US.
I'm no fan of warrantless surveillance, but this is a bit too much sensationalist thinking for hacker news no? The NSAs ability to look at your dropbox files has not been affected one way or the other by this appointment I'm sure. If you catch my drift.
To me the bigger issue for Dropbox is that it's a feature not a platform, which explains why they're having so much trouble entering new markets.
added: [wow, some pretty aggressive downvoting going on there, must have touched a nerve.]
I have 15 people on Dropbox for Business, so it's not so straightforward to migrate off, but it'll be done before our renewal deadline. Mostly because of this. The $2.5k/y was just an annoyance, but this is a matter of principles now.
We're currently evaluating BitTorrentSync and Owncloud. Any opinions about their relative merits for a 15-strong team that's half distributed, half local, and using this as a "shared drive" of sorts, are welcome!
First, Eich was taken down by crusading morons and now this? I don't agree with Eich's former donation (see how stupid that sounds when actually stated?), and I'm not a fan of Ms. Rice (oh noes, he's not a fan...) but no thanks, I'm passing on your political hate train.
appointing someone who advocates(or at least once did) warantless surveillance is certainly less overt than more direct cooperation and there are other organizations more strongly implicated in NSA surveillance. I don't feel like my cancellation will make a lick of difference nor do I feel like my citizen vigilance quota is filled up for the year. However it's one small thing I can do in under a minute.