We're making changes to the Community, so you may have received some notifications - thanks for your patience and welcome back. Learn more here.
Forum Discussion
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 an...
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.
OK, thanks, I'll try again.
But once Boxcryptor has disappeared, I don't think you could ever use it on a new device, since you have to be able to log in to something that no longer exists for the MacOS app to work. Or?
After starting over, I was in fact able to use Boxcryptor entirely off-line with a local account.
The long term problem remains however, how does one deal with a new Mac OS release breaking the product.
The only answer I can think of is to keep a back up copy of everything that’s been encrypted and keep it in cold storage.
The long term problem remains however, how does one deal with a new Mac OS release breaking the product.
The only answer I can think of is to keep a back up copy of everything that’s been encrypted and keep it in cold storage.
apfundDropbox Product Manager
Hi,
Since all encrypted Boxcryptor files end with.bc, you can simply do a grep filtering by that file extension:cd <THE FOLDER YOU WANT TO START YOUR SEARCH FROM> grep -r -i --include='*.bc' \.
Let me know if there are any questions!
- I still can not fathom how this went down so badly. All they had to do was just keep things as-is until they could refactor BC to be Dropbox native then have a seamless cut over. Maybe there was some legal shenanigans about BC because it was a German company so subject to GDPR? I can’t for the life of me think why else you would take $65/year subscribers and terminate them. That was easy money for no work! Truly disappointing.
- apfund
Thanks for initiating this discussion and asking questions about the Boxcryptor integration.
I'm Andrea, product manager for our native end-to-end encryption solution. I can confirm that we are working on this product (zero knowledge encryption, natively integrated with Dropbox) for business customers. While I can't confirm a specific timeline or roadmap at the moment, I want to assure you that we are aware of your need for this native integration. Also, we (and especially I personally) read your comments/wishes/ideas and all feedback shared in this forum.
I'm considering migrating all my data off Dropbox based on this decision. I've been using Dropbox since it was basically a startup and using a paid account for years now.
Boxcryptor was the best solution and DB acquired them and then removed the service but provided no alternative.
They could've seamlessly integrated the product with their UI/product but now we have to rely on less reliable options including Cryptomator or others. I've been testing Cryptomator and it doesn't work nearly as well. I will say Cryptomator does seem much faster than BC though, which is nice.
I already have a Synology with a file sync so most of Dropbox's services can be replaced. We all know Dropbox is just a custom rsync with a desktop shell but DB did a great job with that shell but overtime it's becoming a bloated behemoth.
It also appears Boxcryptor was the only service with proper MFA/YubiKey integration for disk encryption, which are all best practices for security. Dropbox doesn't care about their customers or the customers they acquired from BC.
I see the mention of a road map for Q1 2024 release (which we know could be delayed). But then why was Boxcryptor disabled so quickly? Why not sunset it Q3 2024 so all of your customers to have to spend dozens of hours reconfiguring and switching services depending on their level of integration and volume of data managed. No answer... I would be more understanding if there was a legitimate explanation or other issue.
- I agree to both of your comments. It is more and more unforgivable that FB/BC did not leave everything as it was, before presenting a new final product. It confirms total incompetence by the responsible persons. Andrea refused to comment to this specific question in all her comments still until today. It is ridiculous that there is still no progress after months which confirms that leaving DB in time was the best decision...
- apfund
chrissos Thank you very much for your open and honest words. I can assure you that our team is working hard on the native integration of end-to-end encryption and will inform the community as soon as the new feature is available. I would be happy if you would try the feature again once it is available and give it another chance.
- apfund
Hi Anton,
I totally understand that you are not happy with the current situation.
However, I want to confirm once again that we are already working on zero knowledge encryption, natively integrated with Dropbox for business customers. While I can't confirm a specific timeline or roadmap at the moment, I want to assure you that we are aware of your need for this native integration. Our team is working hard to deliver something as quickly as possible. Nonetheless, we need to make sure we deliver a product that meets the needs of our users - from a product, usability, and security perspective. I will let you know as soon as there is an update on end-to-end encryption here at Dropbox. Thank you for your patience!
- apfund
Hi Eethan,
I appreciate your feedback! End-to-end encryption will be offered to our business customers, but we did not yet finalize any pricing/bundling/add-on decisions.
I will make sure to share your feedback internally, thank you so much.
- apfund
I completely understand your frustration and the inconvenience this has caused for you and other users.
While I don't have an immediate solution to offer, I'll pass on your feedback to my team. But I can assure you, that they are aware of the urgency and are already working on this topic. Thank you!
- As much as I love Dropbox because it works so well across devices, the company has endlessly proven their priority is to grow revenue over the greater good of its community. — See the eight year battle for “Ignore folder (without selective sync)”.
Dropbox is highly likely making new revenue by eliminating BoxCryptor, the #1 provider of user privacy. The question is — Who or What is the source of that revenue that benefits most from eliminating zero-knowledge encryption? The acquisition cost needs to be offset somehow.
DropBox’s non-action and deflective responses indicate community rants will have zero impact.
The **ONLY** solution is a 3rd party provider of zero-knowledge encryption, like BoxCryptor.
— This thread should be used to share leads on new providers filling the BoxCryptor void.
As for me, I stopped using encryption which is terribly uncomfortable with (insecure) online storage due to the growing number of bad actors out there.
