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The call for greater US government transparency just got louder: Dropbox has filed a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court brief that endorses petitions to disclose exact national security request numbers. Much like LinkedIn, Dropbox believes that limiting disclosures to broad ranges hurts transparency by implying that smaller firms get as many requests as larger rivals. The ban on exact figures also violates a First Amendment right to publish specific information, according to the cloud storage provider. We likely won’t know the effectiveness of the brief for some time — or ever, if the court proceedings remain a secret — but Dropbox can at least say that it made its case.

Filed under: Storage, Internet

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Source: Dropbox

ClockworkMod dev Koushik Dutta has teased us with a few interesting ways to get our own media streaming on Chromecast, but now he’s actually releasing one to the public. AirCast runs on your Android device and streams video from the gallery, Dropbox or Google Drive to Google dongle, with playback controls available in the app or from the notification bar. So why is this ready for release now? According to the developer, he’s reverse engineered the protocols and is no longer using the SDK. Still, the app is just in testing now and he warns that the button doesn’t appear in gallery apps on some devices, including the HTC One. It will stop working on its own after a couple of days while Dutta works the kinks out, look below for links to the download or more information, and check out a video demo after the break.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Mobile, Google

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Source: Koushik Dutta (Google+), AirCast APK download

Cloud storage is great and all, but with so many concerns about privacy, some people just can’t trust companies with their personal files. BitTorrent Sync looks to solve such a dilemma with a new app launching for Android devices that offers a cloud-like storage system without the cloud. The app entered public beta today with the launch of the Android app.

BitTorrent Sync aims to be a cloud-like storage solution that allows you to sync files across multiple devices, but the files aren’t stored in the cloud. Instead, they’re stored locally on all of your devices, and when changes are made to files, or if you delete or add files, all of your devices will update with the changes when connected to the internet.

Better yet, your files never pass through a server when shared, and the transfers are always encrypted. The service relies on the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol in order to sync all of your documents, photos, videos, music, etc., but the data never travels through someone else’s computer. This also allows no restrictions on storage limits other than the storage space your devices have available.

Sync was first introduced back in January as a pre-alpha project, and since then, it has changed dramatically thanks to user feedback. Perhaps the best part is that the service is completely free, no matter how much storage space you use up, making this quite an appealing offer for cloud storage fans.

While BitTorrent Sync is only available on Android as far as mobile platforms go, the company is currently working on an iOS version as well. Furthermore, the service includes a feature called SyncArchive, which is a folder inside of Sync that gives you access to archives of previous versions of your synced files.

VIA: Android Community

SOURCE: BitTorrent Blog

BitTorrent Sync Android app arrives as cloud-less Dropbox alternative is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Many online services are implementing two-factor authentication to bulk up security and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information. Dropbox is just one of those online services that offers the feature, but it’s been recently discovered that the company’s two-factor authentication method is still vulnerable to breaching.

It turns out that as long as someone has the username and password of your Dropbox account, they can bypass the two-factor authentication and log right into your account with a couple of clever tricks. Since Dropbox doesn’t verify email addresses when users sign up for a new account, a hacker can use a new email address that’s similar to an existing one by placing a period in somewhere, similar to how Gmail addresses work.

For this fake account, two-factor authentication is enabled and an emergency code is generated in case users ever lose their phone. The hacker will then login to the victim’s account, but will be prompted to enter the code for that account. However, the hacker will simply select that the victim lost their phone and they’ll be promoted for that emergency code.

Since the email address that the hacker signed up with is similar to the victim’s email address. the emergency code will work on the victim’s account. From there, the hacker can disable two-factor authentication and gain access into the victim’s Dropbox account. This is because that “baseballboy@yahoo.com” is registered as being the same “baseball.boy@yahoo.com,” just like how Gmail handles email addresses.

Of course, you have to know the user’s password before you can do this, but once you get a hold of it, it seems relatively easy to bypass Dropbox’s two-factor authentication. However, the security team that found the vulnerability is already said to be working with Dropbox to fix the bug.

VIA: The Hacker News

Dropbox hack allows bypass of two-factor authentication is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Dropbox 2.3 for iOS has just been released.

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