Encryption at the user end?

[Mades]

Hi,

I am just new in this forum, I found it for the first time today, the right time.

I have been using Dropbox since its beginning. However in this morning my internet dropped for more than 12 hours even though my connection is NBN, I have windows 10 64bit.

To my surprise I could open any file from Dropbox in plain text. What that means is, not having internet connection I was sign out from Dropbox. What that means further is that anybody having access to my computer will have full access to all my files in Dropbox. 

Under this situation let's say somebody breaks into my house and steal my computer, Then where is my protecton of my files in Dropbox? 

In fact on the 21 of February 2018 I wrote to Dropbox inquiring about that and since they haven't given the answer. 

I will truly appreciate on your honest comments,

Michael

[Mark]

Welcome to the forum!

You seem to have missed the fact that Dropbox is a syncing tool. It is designed to have EVERYTHING on your local machine as well as in the cloud and on any linked devices for that exact reason.

So, everything you put in Dropbox is in a folder on your machine called 'Dropbox' which is accessible to anybody using your device and machine.

So, you need to secure the user account on the computer as you would have to do for the data anyway on your device.

[Mades]

Thank you Mark,

So, would you recommend Boxcryptor as an extra security to Dropbox?

[Mark]

Personally I cannot comment on it as I dont use it.

I know lots do.

For me I just encrypt my whole hard drive (Mac) and then have strong passwords on the user accounts so nobody else can access it.

[Elixir]

Hi! If you are concerned about the local security (on your device) of your data, you should encrypt your hard disc. If you have Windows Professional version, you can use in-built BitLocker to encrypt your local discs. Also you must protect your user account with strong password.

The data from your device is uploaded to Dropbox servers via a secure connection with encrypted data blocks (that means, a bad guy should not be able to make sense of data while in transit). As far as I know, Dropbox stores our data using some sort encryption in its servers, it is not stored in plain text. However, your data is not end-to-end encrypted. That means, a government agency can ask Dropbox to get access your data under the law. If you want to protect your data from such scenarios, you must encrypt your data prior to uploading to Dropbox. In that case you, you may use Boxcryptor for an integrated solution, otherwise you may use your own encryption tools, like TrueCrypt, VeraCrypt etc.

[Mades]

Hi Elixir,

Thanks for your comment.

You have raised some valuable points.

I used Boxcryptor before and I may use it again.

[Mades]

Yes, This has answered my question. 

Any other protection that I may need I have to do myself like implementing Boxcryptor is one solution.

I am happy the way things turned out.

Thanks a lot to all those who participated.

I can recommend this forum.

Michael

[Jay · Accepted solution]

As the others have said above, your files on the Dropbox servers are encrypted.

However the files on your local machine are not, like with any other folder on your computer, so a third party encryption software would be needed if you don’t want anyone to access or view your files there.

[Mades]

Perfectly said AgentJay, it couldn't have said better,

Take care and many thanks, 

Michel