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“Get rid of Dropbox” urges Edward Snowden

In the information age where everything can probably be hacked into or spied upon, users can’t always be sure that what a company is offering is in fact what they are going to get. No man knows this better than NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who recently urged internet users to not make use of Dropbox as he claims it isn’t secure – but also to forego any service that is “hostile to privacy.”

In a video interview as part of the New Yorker Festival, Snowden said that users should make use of alternatives such as SpiderOak.

“We’re talking about encryption. We’re talking about dropping programs that are hostile to privacy. For example, Dropbox? Get rid of Dropbox, it doesn’t support encryption, it doesn’t protect your private files. And use competitors like SpiderOak, that do the same exact service but they protect the content of what you’re sharing.

Dropbox does actually make use of encryption for files, but it does so while the files are being transferred. SpiderOak on the other hand encrypts files while they are still on your computer. Dropbox over the weekend let user know that some of their files might have been deleted due to a glitch in its system.

Snowden also explained a bit as to why he decided to leak information about the NSA.

“We can have secret programs. You know, the American people don’t have to know the name of every individual that’s under investigation. We don’t need to know the technical details of absolutely every program in the intelligence community. But we do have to know the bare and broad outlines of the powers our government is claiming … and how they affect us and how they affect our relationships overseas. Because if we don’t, we are no longer citizens, we no longer have leaders. We’re subjects, and we have rulers.”

The leaker is still a wanted man in the US, and while he had been holed up in Russia since his identity became known, he explained that he would like to return to the US, but under certain conditions – a fair and open trial, for starters.

“I’ve told the government again and again in negotiations, you know, that if they’re prepared to offer an open trial, a fair trial in the same way that Dan Ellsberg got, and I’m allowed to make my case to the jury, I would love to do so. But to this point they’ve declined.”

The full video interview can be seen below:

[Source – TechCrunch]

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