Dropbox- Internet Based Company

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Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc. that offers c`oud storage, file synchronization, and client software. Dropbox allows users to create a special folder on each of their computers, which Dropbox then synchronises so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of the computer it is viewed on. Files placed in this folder are also accessible through a website and mobile phone applications. Dropbox, Inc. was founded in 2007 by MIT graduates Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, as a Y Combinator startup company. Dropbox provides client software for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Linux, for Google Android, Apple iOS, and BlackBerry OS, and web browsers.

History According to Dropbox, founder Drew Houston conceived the idea after repeatedly forgetting his USB flash drive while he was a student at MIT. He says that existing services at the time "suffered problems with Internet latency, large files, bugs, or just made me think too much." He began making something for himself, but then realized that it could benefit others with the same problem.Houston founded Dropbox, Inc. in June 2007, and shortly thereafter secured seed funding from Y Combinator. Dropbox officially launched at 2008's TechCrunch50, an annual technology conference. Due to trademark disputes between Evenflow (Dropbox's parent company) and Proxy, Inc., Dropbox's official domain name was "getdropbox.com" until October 2009, when they acquired their current domain, "dropbox.com". OPSWAT reported in their December 2011 market share report that Dropbox held 14.14% of the worldwide backup client market, based on number of installations. In May 2011, Dropbox struck deals with Japanese mobile service providers Softbank and Sony Ericsson. As per the terms of the deal Dropbox will come preloaded on their mobile phones. In May 2010 Dropbox users in China were unable to access Dropbox. Later, Dropbox confirmed they had been blocked by the Chinese government. Due to the fact that the censorship usually focuses on popular services only, many considered this evidence of Dropbox's rapidly rising popularity and international user base. Up to Nov 2011, the website is still blocked in China, but locally installed applications are usable with some ISPs. As of October 2011, Dropbox had more than 50 million users. In April 2012, Dropbox announced a new feature allowing users to automatically upload photos or videos from camera, tablet, SD card or Smartphone. Users will be given up to 3 GB (initially 5 GB) extra space to accommodate the photos and videos uploaded in this fashion, but the space is permanently added to the user's allowance and is not restricted to pictures. It is viewed as a move against Google's recently launched Google Drive and Microsoft's Sky Drive.

As of 26 September 2012, Facebook and Dropbox integrated to allow group users to share files to Facebook Groups using Dropbox‘s cloud-based storage system. The feature allows users to directly share inside Facebook's group pages without exiting the Facebook domain. This did not replace the built in Facebook uploading feature but added to it for any files that were already uploaded to their Dropbox storage account. Financials Dropbox has received a total venture capital funding of US$257.2 million from several investors, including Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners. In 2011 it was speculated that Dropbox's valuation was more than $1 billion. TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Business Insider and Financial Post speculated that Dropbox's valuation could be up to $5 to $10 billion. Dropbox's annual revenue was expected to be $240 million in 2011. Dropbox is based in San Francisco, and is funded by Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Amidzad. Starting in mid-2009, they began releasing new features gradually to help measure customer interest, a Lean Startup technique. On April 3, 2012, Dropbox announced Bono and The Edge, two members of the Irish rock band U2 were individual investors in the company. Business model Dropbox uses a Fermium business model, where users are offered a free account with a set storage size and paid subscriptions for accounts with more capacity. Technology Both the Dropbox server and desktop client software are primarily written in Python.[23] The desktop client uses GUI toolkits such as wxWidgets and Cocoa. Other notable Python libraries include Twisted, ctypes, and pywin32. Dropbox ships and depends on the librsync binary-delta library (which is written in C). The Dropbox client enables users to drop any file into a designated folder that is then synchronised with Dropbox's Internet service and to any other of the user's computers and devices with the Dropbox client. Users may also upload files manually through a web browser. While Dropbox functions as a storage service, its focus is on synchronization and sharing. It supports revision history, so files deleted from the Dropbox folder may be recovered from any of the synced computers. Dropbox supports multi-user version control, enabling several users to edit and re-post files without overwriting versions. The version history is by default kept for 30 days, with an unlimited version called "Pack-Rat" available for purchase. The version history is paired with the use of delta encoding technology. When a file in a user's Dropbox folder is changed, Dropbox only uploads the pieces of the file that are changed when synchronising, when possible. The desktop client has no restriction on

individual file size; files uploaded via the web site are limited to not more than 300 MB per file. To prevent free users from creating multiple linked free accounts, Dropbox includes the content of shared folders when totaling the amount of space used on the account. Dropbox uses Amazon's S3 storage system to store the files; though Houston has stated that Dropbox may switch to a different storage provider at some point in the future. It also uses SSL transfers for synchronization and stores the data via AES-256 encryption. Dropbox also provides a technology called LANSync, which allows computers on a local area network to securely download files locally from each other instead of always hitting the central servers. LANSync was developed by early Dropbox Engineer Paul Bohm, who also submitted the IANA application for the protocol's registered ports 17500/tcp and 17500/udp. Power users have devised a number of innovative uses for and mash-ups of the technology that expand Dropbox's functionality. These include: sending files to a Dropbox via Gmail; using Dropbox to sync IM chat logs; BitTorrent management; password management; remote application launching and system monitoring; and as a free Web hosting service. Functionality There are official and unofficial Dropbox addons, mostly created by the Dropbox community. These addons are both in the form of web services such as SendToDropbox (which allows users to email files to their Dropboxes), Backup Box (which facilitates online backup of FTP, Git, MySQL, and other services to Dropbox accounts), and desktop applications such as MacDropAny (which allows users to sync any folder on their computer with Dropbox). There is also a web service and browser extension called cloudHQ for Dropbox which allows Dropbox users to synchronize Google Docs with files in Dropbox storage and also to edit Dropbox documents in the browser... There are a number of client applications for operating systems that Dropbox does not officially support, such as Maemo, Symbian, Windows Phone and webOS. An open source tool called Drop ship provided WHATunauthenticated access to Dropboxhosted files by using the Dropbox API to access files by their hash. Dropbox attempted to suppress this project by requesting its suspension where it was being hosted, and by issuing an erroneous DMCA takedown notice, later said by Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi to have been incorrectly auto-generated by a support tool used to ban the public links. Dropbox user demographics 32.7% of Dropbox users, the largest share, are from the United States, followed by 6.7% from the United Kingdom and 6.5% from Germany. 66.1% of Dropbox users use Windows only, 20.9% use Mac OS only, 2.0% use Linux only, and the remainder use more than one operating system. Reception Dropbox has been praised by many including the Crunchie Award in 2009 for Best Internet Application, and Macworld's 2009 Editor's Choice Award. It was nominated for a 2010 Webby Award, and for the 2010 Mac Design Awards by Ars Technica.

Dropbox has been named as the world's fifth most valuable web startup after Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon, has been described as Y Combinator's most successful investment to date, and is among the top 10 iPhone most popular apps of all time, according to TechCrunch. It was voted among the top 10 Android apps of all time, according to ZDNet, said to be one of the top 50 emerging companies by TIEcon, and called one of the 20 best startups of Silicon Valley. Drew Houston was called the best young tech entrepreneur by Business Week, and he and co-founder Arash Ferdowsi were named among the top 30 under 30 entrepreneurs by inc.com. In January 2012, the company was named startup of the year by Tech Crunch. Dropbox has been criticized by independent security researcher Derek Newton, who said that Dropbox's authentication architecture is inherently insecure, and by software expert Miguel de Icaza, who says that Dropbox's terms of service contradict its privacy policy, and that the company's famous claim "Dropbox employees aren't able to access user files" is a lie. In May 2011, a complaint was filed with the US FTC alleging Dropbox misled users about the privacy and security of their files. At the heart of the complaint was the policy of "deduplication", where the system checks if a file has been uploaded before by any other user, and links to the existing copy if so; and the policy of using a single AES-256 key for every file on the system so Dropbox can (and does, for deduplication) look at encrypted files stored on the system, with the consequence that any intruder who gets the key (as well as Dropbox employees) could decrypt any file if they had access to Dropbox's backend storage infrastructure. On June 20, 2011, TechCrunch reported that all Dropbox accounts could be accessed without password for 4 hours. This was later widely reported in the mainstream press and caused some doubt about Dropbox's 'cloud' technology model. The error was caused by an authentication code update made at 1:54 p.m. Pacific Time; it was detected at 5:41 p.m. and immediately fixed. About 1 percent of Dropbox's users were logged in at that time; all sessions were immediately terminated. All users with compromised accounts were notified by email. A class action lawsuit over this incident was filed, initiated by Cristina Wong of Los Angeles, claiming violation of the California Unfair Competition Law, filed as Wong et al. v. Dropbox Inc., No. 11-CV-3092-LB, (N.D. Cal. June 22, 2011), and allocated to be heard by U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler. As of May 2012, statements and conferences had been scheduled for December 2012, but there were no further entries on the case docket. On July 31, 2012, Dropbox announced that an employee's account had been hacked, resulting in a number of Dropbox users being spammed by email. publications—including The Economist, The New York Times, PC Magazine, and The Washington Post—for its simple design and ease of use. It has also received several awards, Headquarter Dropbox had premises at 760 Market Street in San Francisco, until moving to larger premises in July 2011. From that date Dropbox's corporate headquarters are at Suite 400 on the fourth floor of the China Basin Landing building in San Francisco. The company occupies the fourth floor of

the 1991 section of the facility, with 85,600 square feet (7,950 m2) of space, and an option to take more space. Notable competitors
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Bitcasa Box.com Google Drive MediaFire SkyDrive iCloud Soonr SpiderOak SugarSync TitanFile Ubuntu One YouSendIt SurDoc Cubby

INTRODUCING NEW BLOG-DROP BOX AT WORK

Every day, more people use Dropbox to collaborate with their teams, access their business documents or presentations from anywhere, and keep their stuff safe. The team is excited to announce that they recently launched a brand new blog, dedicated to using Dropbox at work.

This shares posts like tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Dropbox, examples of cool ways that organizations are using it, and updates on new features for Dropbox for Teams. In this week‘s blog post, they have highlighted the different ways you can share on Dropbox and has given a few examples to help us decide which method to choose. New Space Race Leaderboards It‘s been a week since the Great Space Race began, and all are amazed at the response received from all over the world. We‘ve heard all kinds of stories: from professors posting the rankings in their classrooms to students starting Facebook events to rally their school. The dropbox has made competition even hotter. They have added new leaderboards which helps us to see were our school stacks up against our fiercest competition. Whether it‘s the Pac-12, the Southeastern Conference or the Big Ten, now we can always have an eye on the biggest rival. For example-

Dropbox has also created new country-specific leaderboards, so we can view top schools by geography. Click on the flag next to any school to see the national ranking:

This helps to create a space for our school and improve the spirit. If we see a school that‘s missing from an existing leaderboard or have suggestions for a new one, we can mail to the dropbox website. The Great Dropbox Space Race.

Space Race is a chance for us to support our school and compete against other schools for eternal glory (eternal glory means up to 25 GB of free Dropbox space for two years).

How it works Earn points by referring your classmates, friends, and professors to Dropbox (we just need to sign in with our school email and install Dropbox if we don‘t have it already), and by getting them to complete the Get Started guide. As you and your classmates earn more points, everyone from your school registered for Space Race will get more free space.

The Details



Rules
o o o o

You must register for Space Race with an eligible school email address, even if you have an existing Dropbox account you can still join. If you‘ve signed up for Dropbox with a non-school email then you can verify your school account on the Space Race page. Your school gets 1 point for each person who registers for Space Race and installs Dropbox on their computer. Your school gets 2 more points for each person that goes through the Get Started guide.





Free Space o Just by signing up, you get 3 GB for two years. o Each level your school achieves means more free space. That means the more classmates and friends you rally to Dropbox, the more space every Space Racer at your school gets, up to 25 GB for two years. o In addition to earning points, you‘ll still get the normal 500 MB bonus for each referral. You‘ll have 8 weeks to get as many people as you can from your school signed up for Space Race.

Dropbox‘s roots are in schools. The earliest set of Dropboxers were fresh college grads ,so we know exactly where guys are coming from. Because of this, they love hiring interns and full-timers straight out of school. In fact, some recent interns sent Dropbox into space as a Hack Week project, and the space pun was just too convenient. Schools are also a place where Dropbox really shines. We‘ve heard of teachers using Dropbox for submitting homework, groups building amazing feats of engineering through shared folders, and theses being rescued from certain doom at the end of that critical allnighter. That being said, they wanted to do something for all the students and professors. Dropbox for Android: now starring photos. Dropbox created a new photos gallery in our Dropbox Android app that puts all our pictures front and center and displays them beautifully. Now it‘s even easier to flip through all of the photos we have automatically uploaded to Dropbox and share them in a snap, And since our

Camera Upload feature lets us gather all our photos in one spot, we can even see pictures we‘ve taken with other cameras. Check it out:

With this update, all of our awesome memories are just a tap away on our Android phone and easier to view, browse, and share. and enjoy. Your photos, simplified. Dropbox has made it easier for us to view our photos on the go, either through the Dropbox app on our phone or on dropbox.com. In the spring, dropbox has introduced ways to bring all of our photos and videos to one place, both on Android phones and on our iPhone or iPad. Today, dropbox team is super excited that they have also improved the viewing experience for photos on our phone‘s browser. Now, we can view our photos from mobile phones (like our friend‘s Droid) through dropbox.com and relive the memories as easily and vividly as you would from your computer.

Visit dropbox.com from your phone‘s browser, tap on the Dropbox icon at the top, and then the Photos button to see the photos in your Camera Uploads folder in a big, shiny gallery format. You can also tap to view them full size and flip through each one.

Share stuff from Dropbox in your Facebook Groups.

Dropbox helps to share stuffs right inside Facebook Groups. Now you can share notes with your study group, add the latest game schedule to your basketball team‘s group, or post a birthday video to your family‘s group at lightning speed from wherever you are. Just like other posts to Facebook Groups, people can like or comment on anything you share from within the group. And if you make any edits to a file you‘ve shared, the group will get an update automatically. To share with your Facebook group, click ‗Add File‘ on the group‘s page.

Once you choose to link Facebook to your Dropbox account, you‘ll be able to search through your Dropbox and select what you‘d like to share. Docs, photos, and videos shared from Dropbox will show up on the group‘s wall and can also be viewed on a smartphone or tablet.

Another layer of security for Dropbox account. Dropbox has announce the launch of two-step verification, a feature that will enhance the security of Dropbox by requiring two levels of authentication: our password, and a security code that will either be texted to our mobile phone or generated by a mobile authenticator app (available for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7). Turning on two-step verification is simple: go to the new Security tab in your Dropbox account settings and enable two-step verification in the ―Account sign in‖ section.

From there, just follow the steps to set up two-step verification. Detailed setup instructions are also available in our Help Center. On our desktop or mobile devices, we only need the

code the first time you sign in to Dropbox. On the web, we can also select the option to ―Trust this computer‖ and we won‘t need to re-enter a code again. Dropbox. They also created a way for us to view all active logins to our account on the Security tab, and they are working on Two-step verification is one of several steps that we‘re taking to enhance the security of our automated mechanisms to identify suspicious activity. Instant web updates. There is some new magic on the Dropbox website. Now when we make a change to a file on our computer or phone, the Dropbox website instantly updates to reflect those changes. We no longer have to hit refresh as we wait for our friend to share those super-important files or worry about getting out of sync. The latest files just automatically appear on our page. After all, every second counts. Dropbox in Space. Recently, Hack Week hit Dropbox in a big way. As interns, the two of them hadn‘t experienced the awesomeness of a Dropbox Hack Week, but when they were told that they could work on anything–absolutely anything–they knew they had to think big. They played around with a ton of project ideas, from real time collaboration tools to a Dropbox for Xbox app. But they decided to roll bold with a crazy idea: For years, Dropbox has let people take their stuff anywhere on Earth. They decided to take dropbox to space. 1

INTRODUCTION TO DROPBOX AT SPACE -

To do this, they decided to launch a high altitude helium balloon into the stratosphere. Attached were two Android smartphones- one programmed to take periodic photos, and the other to record video of the entire flight. At 100,000 feet above the ground, these photos and videos would capture the curvature of the Earth. In Dropbox spirit, there‘s also an added twist, they wanted the balloon to have Internet the entire flight. With an Internet connection, they would be able to use Dropbox‘s brand new Camera Uploads feature to beam live photos from the balloon back to ―mission control.‖

Research & Preparation About two weeks before Hack Week started, they began researching high altitude weather balloons and the legendary shopping list needed to launch one — from the balloon itself to radar reflectors, parachutes, and oversized helium tanks. Their next challenge was figuring out how to hook the balloon up with Internet. Since standard cell phone 3G fails at high altitudes, they needed to find an alternative Internet source. They first considered using amateur radio. TCP/IP, the communication protocol of the Internet, has been implemented over amateur radio before, but for them to do so would probably require a Hack Year instead of a week. After (very) briefly investigating a 50-mile long Ethernet cord, they settled on WiFi–the very same WiFi we use every day. Researchers have successfully broadcast a WiFi signal several hundred miles, so they were optimistic that they would be able to shoot for a modest 50 miles. Although they expected their balloon to rise only 15 miles vertically, wind could carry it anywhere from 40 to 100 miles laterally, greatly increasing the needed range of their WiFi connection. They purchased a large parabolic dish along with other long-range WiFi equipment from Ubiquiti Networks.

Assembly Due to the tight power and weight restrictions on balloon, their WiFi system was pretty complex. On the ground, they tethered a 4G Android smartphone to a laptop as their Internet source. The laptop was then connected to an antenna on balloon which was connected to an extremely lightweight wireless router. Unfortunately, the wireless router aboard the balloon sported only an Ethernet jack, with no way to connect it to the Android phone Their solution was to connect yet another small wireless router to rebroadcast a wireless network for the onboard phone to pick up. And because there were no power outlets on the balloon, they cut open the Ethernet cord connecting the two wireless devices and spliced in two battery packs, one for each wireless device.

They also got a handheld radio with GPS to track their balloon in real time and properly aim our dish from the ground. Their plan was to use the GPS data from the balloon, their position, and trigonometry to aim the dish, even once we could no longer see the balloon. The radio would broadcast GPS information over an amateur radio network. Other radio enthusiasts would pick up the signal, and the balloon‘s position would ultimately be displayed on a website where we could view the position on Google Maps. they hoped that the balloon‘s altitude, high above the usual obstructions, would give us a consistent GPS signal. With only two days before launch, they finally received our wireless equipment and started a mad dash to assemble it. Since the clock was ticking, they didn‘t get a chance to fully test our setup; the farthest distance we attempted was about half a mile. Come launch day, we could only hope that our setup would work over longer distances. Launch Day Early Friday morning, they drove out to our launch site in Vacaville, CA. they chose Vacaville because they wanted a place that wouldn‘t carry their balloon into any urban areas or large bodies of water. they arrived in time for sunrise, but spent several hours looking for a clear, flat launch site with strong 4G coverage. Eventually, they were able to set up on a dead end road next to a small hotel. They slowly began assembling the balloon starting with their wireless equipment. After a stressful couple of hours with several mysterious network failures, they secured the cameras and wireless devices in the styrofoam payload container. Next they began to inflate the balloon. Minutes before launch, they discovered that our GPS transmitter was busted. With no other choice, they packed the GPS device into their payload anyway, hoping that the strong signal it‘d get from high up would result in successful transmissions. they wrote their names and phone numbers on the sides of the container. If they were lucky, they would

receive a phone call if their balloon was found after a nice, gentle .

Fully inflated, their balloon reached a size of about 8 feet in diameter. With the wind picking up, it was actually incredibly difficult to hold on to. they tied the payload, parachute, and radar reflector to the balloon, and after confirming that photos were appearing in our Dropbox account in real time, they were ready for launch. they aimed our dish, crossed they fingers, and let go of the balloon. At almost exactly noon, several hours behind schedule, they launched. The first few minutes after lift off were incredibly exciting. The balloon rose quickly (more than 15 feet per second) and in just minutes was a small speck in the sky. For several minutes they successfully aimed their dish at the balloon, feeding it a WiFi signal which resulted in live photos uploaded over Dropbox. But the GPS data never materialized and eventually we were flying blind. they soon left to search the sky with their dish, waving it back and forth and monitoring the strength of the connection, our only feedback for finding our increasingly invisible balloon. they received photos in real time from their balloon for the first 3 or 4 minutes. While they maintained a network connection for many miles, we lacked the bandwidth to continue

transmitting full photos as the balloon rose higher and higher. Nonetheless, they were incredibly excited by the few photos they received in real time. After attempting to recover an Internet connection for an hour or so, they decided to drive in the direction of their balloon‘s predicted landing. Incredibly, two hours into the flight of the balloon and likely moments after landing, they received a phone call,their balloon had been found. The caller informed that she‘d gone outside to investigate a commotion among her horses when she discovered their balloon. Unbelievably thrilled, they drove to her farm to retrieve our equipment and upload the remaining photos and videos to Dropbox. After conveying their many thanks they sped back to Dropbox HQ in time for Hack Week‘s closing ceremony. They would like to give a big shout out to everyone who helped us turn an ambitious project idea into reality.

the photos from their flight.

Security update & new features A couple weeks ago, they started getting emails from some users about spam they were receiving at email addresses used only for Dropbox. They have been working hard to get to the bottom of this, and want to give updates. Their investigation found that usernames and passwords recently stolen from other websites were used to sign in to a small number of Dropbox accounts. They have contacted these users and have helped them protect their accounts. A stolen password was also used to access an employee Dropbox account containing a project document with user email addresses. Keeping Dropbox secure is at the heart of what they do, and they are taking steps to improve the safety of their Dropbox even if your password is stolen, including:
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Two-factor authentication, a way to optionally require two proofs of identity such as your password and a temporary code sent to your phone when signing in. New automated mechanisms to help identify suspicious activity. They will continue to add more of these over time. A new page that lets you examine all active logins to your account. In some cases, they may require you to change your password. commonly used .

At the same time, they strongly recommend to improve our online safety by setting a unique password for each website you use. Though it‘s easy to reuse the same password on different websites, this means if any one site is compromised, all your accounts are at risk. Tools like 1Password can help you manage strong passwords across multiple sites.

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