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
message.
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 downloads.
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 banned.
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 upload files.
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 upon it.
this experience has left a really sour taste in my mouth, and also led
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 to access your
private documents at any time. I would never put anything private in the
cloud, but that's besides the point. Individuals and business users
often want to store letters, contact information and documents so
they're backed up in case of a computer crash. 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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