Tag Archives: private sharing

US Government Denies Megaupload User Access To His Own Files

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The case of the collateral damage brought about by January’s closure of file-sharing site Megaupload has deteriorated further for users who still cannot access their own private files.

Kyle Goodwin, an Ohio videographer who runs a business recording high school sporting events, has been told by the US Department of Justice that he has no right to demand his files back from the US government. Despite the fact he was supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and that the Motion Picture Association of America (one of the bodies represented by the prosecution against Megaupload) had no problem with him having his files returned to him, the US DOJ won’t budge.

The reasoning behind this decision is quite long-winded and has to do with the manner in which data was seized and the relevant warrants that were executed, so for the purposes of this blog we won’t delve into the specifics. If you’d like to know more about the legal issues surrounding this, Ars Technica goes into more depth.

The point I’m trying to make is that whenever you entrust any third-party to hold on to your files, you are potentially at the mercy of how they operate in relation to the law(s). If anything untoward is suspected of happening with that company, then you may suddenly find that you are separated from your own data with no indication of when you may be reunited with it.

If you are trying to run a business and important documents are out of reach, then this can pose some very serious problems. This situation has arisen from a legal issue – there are other ways you can lose your data that are completely out of your hands, such as hacking or server malfunctions.

If you need to make files available from a number of locations and to a number of people, then there is a safer and more secure way of doing this. DADapp has a user to user sharing system that allows for the easy private sharing of files, music, videos and photos – without the need for cloud hosting.

It’s more private than Facebook, easier than Windows networking and more flexible than Dropbox. If you’d like to share with your own world and not the whole world, then download DADapp and create your own private social network today.

A Teacher’s View On Facebook – Does Over-Sharing Harm Employment Prospects?

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During a recent function at my old school I got talking with one of my former teachers about Facebook and the notion of ‘over-sharing’. To put things into context, I am 26 years old and left this college in 2004 when I was 18. Facebook was not around in my time and getting away with things was a lot easier. That said, the teachers also had a pretty good idea of what we were up to, most of the time.

We came to the conclusion that one of the problems with posting the minutiae of your lives on Facebook is that once it’s there, it’s very hard to erase it. It can also be copied and spread in an instant, taking the control away from you. This can be fine if you’re only sharing with friends, but when you don’t know who they are friends with, Facebook – and the internet – can become a very small place.

The hypothetical problem scenario that we both immediately thought of was this:

Imagine you are an employer trying to fill a single position and you have two identical candidates, so you look online and one has a Facebook profile full of risque photos. Chances are you will employ the candidate with the cleaner profile.

On the flip side, my old teacher and I also agreed that things posted on Facebook these days are probably no worse than anything that the interviewers themselves will have got up to in their youth. The difference is, when the interviewers were having their fun in the 70s, 80s or even 90s, there was no such thing as Facebook, and images never travelled as fast or as far back then.

The reality is, people won’t stop trying to have fun. However, the way we document this fun, or perhaps how we going about sharing the evidence, is something that is much more easily controlled. If you simply must share the pictures from a lads’ holiday in the sun or the late night photos and gossip from the graduation ball, then sharing privately is the best bet. It’s better to share with your own world, not the whole world.

Burglars Terrorise Australian Mother After Photo Of Cash Is Posted On Facebook

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Here’s another quick story to remind you all that the amount of personal information you choose to disclose on social networks, and the internet in general, can have threatening consequences.

A teenage girl in Australia posted images on Facebook of herself with a “large sum of cash“ that she had helped count at her grandmother’s house in Sydney. Within hours two robbers, armed with a knife and a club, descended upon the girl’s mother’s house in the town on Bundanoon - some 120km south-west of Sydney.

Despite telling the intruders that her daughter no longer lived there, the masked men took a small amount of cash and some personal objects before leaving the property. It is not understood precisely how the thieves obtained the family address, especially considering that the Facebook photo of the money was actually taken at the grandmother’s Sydney house.

Police in the area have issued a warning over the dangers that posting sensitive and personal information online can bring. While Facebook is brilliant for so many different things, there is always the risk that the wrong privacy settings can mean something intended to be shared with a closed group of people can end up being on display for the whole world to see. Studies have also shown how criminals use social media to plan burglaries in the UK.

If you have something to share that might attract unwanted attention or potentially put anyone in danger, you’re better off using a private sharing network. After all, sometimes it’s best to share with your own world, not the whole world.

Twitter Fighting Government Subpoena For #Occupy Information

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Twitter are engaged in a legal wrangle with the New York City district attorney’s office over access to tweets made by an Occupy Wall Street protester who is being prosecuted for disorderly conduct. In a motion file on Monday, Twitter is requesting that the court order requiring it to hand over three months worth of tweets posted by Malcolm Harris, be thrown out.

Lawyers speaking on behalf of Twitter argue that the micro-blogging site is in the untenable position of “either providing user communications and account information in response to all subpoenas or attempting to vindicate its users’ rights by moving to quash these subpoenas itself.”

I’m not exactly what you’d call a legal expert and my understanding of the inner workings of the American judicial system leaves a lot to be desired. However, what I can deduce from this matter is that Twitter is doing its best to defend the privacy of their users while trying not to break the law themselves nor incur the wrath of the authorities.

So in short it seems that Twitter are exploring all of the various laws and statutes (in this case citing the fact they would be in violation of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment if they handed over the information) before they pass this user’s data on to the authorities.

I don’t want to dwell on the legal specifics of this story, but instead move onto the point that what people say on social networks is viewed by prosecuting forces as suitable evidence to be used against them. In this case I don’t think telling a protestor to communicate in private would do much good – by their very nature protestors want attention and an audience.

However, be warned – even things said as a joke on Twitter have landed people in legal hot water before.  In two separate incidents within the last two years a British man and an Irish national were both detained on suspicion of being terrorists because of tweets meant as jokes.

If the authorities want to get more information about from Twitter, then the company still appear to be fighting your corner as is evident from the Malcolm Harris case. But who knows what will change legally in the near future? If there’s something you need to communicate that might be misinterpreted or taken in a way that could potentially cause problems for you, then it’s probably best to send it privately – or perhaps not at all.

Dropbox Allow Public Links To Files – Convenient Or A Privacy Risk?

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Dropbox have updated their cloud based file-sharing service to allow public links to any file or folder. What this means for existing users is that they no longer have to place certain files or folders into their Dropbox Public folder, and this also makes it possible to share read-only files with any web user, even if they don’t have an account with Dropbox.

This is not a novel concept, as this functionality is already available in other services such as SugarSync and LogMeIn Cubby, but now that Dropbox have incorporated it, they can now compete more strongly with file-sending services like YouSendIt. Some commentators are suggesting that this is a preemptive move to counteract the competition that Dropbox will be faced with now that Google Drive has now been launched. According to Drew Houston, Dropbox CEO, there will soon be a new iPhone feature that allows auto-upload of photos.

This does makes things a lot more convenient, but at the same time a lot less private. Having public links to your files and folders – even if only in read-only format – floating around immediately opens your life up to scrutiny to anyone. All it takes is for an email to get forwarded by accident and suddenly what you wanted to share privately with someone is now very much public. And there’s no auto-expire on the links, so if you want to make a file or folder private again you’ll have to do this using the Dropbox website.

At DADapp we’re proud to say that we offer a viable alternative to cloud based sharing with our private user to user sharing model. Simply drag and drop any file(s) from your PC or Mac onto another DADapp user from your own list of contacts to share directly with them. There’s no need for sending links or uploading your files to the cloud – you share securely and privately, directly between your two machines.

To start sharing privately with DADapp, visit our main website and download the free trial for PC or Mac.