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Dropbox acquires Boxcryptor. What will happen to all those files that have been encrypted?
Hi
As most will know, dropbox has purchased boxcryptor.
At this point my question is, what will happen to all those files that have been encrypted with boxcryptor ? Should they all be decrypted and wait for communication on how the transaction will be handled by Dropbox ?
Boxcryptor was used to encrypt files using other cloud services, will this change ?
Thank you very much
Riccardo
riccardo1981 wrote:
At this point my question is, what will happen to all those files that have been encrypted with boxcryptor ?
Since this is such a new development, such answers are likely not available yet, beyond what has been stated by the Boxcryptor founders (emphasis mine).
What does this mean for our users and customers?
First of all: All our existing users and customers will remain with the German Secomba GmbH with the same shareholders as during the past 10 years. No contracts, customer data or keys will migrate to Dropbox, all data will remain in our German data centers.
While we’ve sold several key technology assets to Dropbox, we will continue to service our existing users and customers pursuant to the terms of their existing contracts. However, as of today, we will not allow the creation of new accounts or purchases of any new licenses.
If you’re an existing customer, you can keep using Boxcryptor as you do today, and we’ll be in touch with more details as we join forces with Dropbox. If you’re new here and would like to stay up to date on Dropbox’s progress, join the Dropbox mailing list.
You will also find the most important FAQs regarding the next steps below.
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UnicormPink
Dropbox's plans were just explained here again by apfund .i.e. that Boxcryptor will no longer be available as stand-alone solution (for other cloud services) but its technology will be used to implement a native E2E encryption into paid Dropbox packages.
As mentioned here earlier and in at least one more thread, it is not necessary to decrypt your files if you have downloaded your private key from your Boxcryptor account. You can do the decryption offline(!) at any later time when needed.
Tomachi
What do you mean by "...unable to recover...". Could you please provide more details? Do you mean that you could not decrypt the files or what?
apfundDropbox Product Manager
Hi UnicormPink , we will start to onboard first early access customers to our native end-to-end encryption implementation. We plan to release the public version in April next year.
Thank you for your patience!- Hi Riccardo, I'm not sure what Dropbox's plans are for BoxCryptor, but I would recommend reaching out to their customer support team for more information. In the meantime, it may be a good idea to decrypt your files and make backups just in case. As for encryption with other cloud services, it's hard to say whether or not that will change until we hear more about Dropbox's plans.
- I've not been able to recover my files reticent to use and lay for Dropbox account if I am unsure if the investment will pay off
Hello, I have wanted to use Dropbox for about four months. I like the offering, but my only issue is that it doesn't come with E2EE. The acquisition of Boxcryptor last year was meant to have resolved this with this being offered to business users.
Is there any update on this? I will be a paid user when this happens.
- apfund
Hi Dwight B.3 ,
I understand your concerns, and I apologize if the responses provided so far have not met your expectations.
Regarding Boxcryptor, I regret to inform you that it will no longer be available for customers in the future. This means that you will need to seek an alternative solution for your encryption needs for other storage providers than Dropbox.
For Dropbox business users, we will introduce our own native implementation of end-to-end encryption in the upcoming months. Early access for this feature will begin in December 2023, with a planned public release scheduled for April 2024.
That answer doesn’t even begin to answer the question about what will happen to my files that are encrypted using Boxcryptor, especially those files stored on other services, such as Google Drive. How about answering the questions asked by your loyal users? You’e been ignoring us for months. How about some answers!
The latest development with Microsofts "lost" masterkey confirms again how important it is to use zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption for cloud servers. Providers that don't offer this technology for all(!) plans as a standard, can no longer be considered as trustworthy and professional. The poor communication and actions by MS regarding this matter is same level that we can expect from Dropbox after such an incident...
Thanks for making that clear.
Dropbox help is good help.
- apfund
Hi PitchCascadia ,
Thanks for reaching out!
The boxcryptor drive letter is a virtual drive that gives you a plaintext view on your Dropbox files. Once you remove the boxcryptor software from your computer, the letter will be available again and you will find your regular Dropbox files within the regular Dropbox folder (not under the X: drive).
For any further questions regarding boxcryptor, please reach out directly to the boxcryptor team.
Thank you!
