4 ms·

If there are any Dropboxers here (drew—I emailed you a few weeks ago, but I imagine you're busy): I went to prison for 18 months, my digital and physical life

by joshmn 4mo ago

If there are any Dropboxers here (drew—I emailed you a few weeks ago, but I imagine you're busy): I went to prison for 18 months, my digital and physical life was stolen from me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45451567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45451567 applies to my Dropbox account (and Apple but separate problem); I just received the "your account will be going bye-bye" email. I have very important dead-mom-club stuff in there, and support is useless. :( Edit: Thanks unofficial Dropbox support channel; thanks Drew :) Edit edit: Try my luck with my Apple account now, I guess—Tim Cook, you busy?

swyx 4mo ago
sad that going viral on social media is the only functional support system for many tech companies. good luck hope you get your mom's stuff.
- SV_BubbleTime 4mo ago
  I was selling a GPU on Facebook marketplace during covid. The description was that the card was good for gaming or “turning dinosaurs into clean money”. Banned permanently and no way to ever reach a human. I sold a rifle legally on an online auction site. The buyer was offered to pay with PayPal they were given the option to use. The buyer took that option, making me break PayPal TOS. Banned permanently and no way to ever reach a human. Banned from Venmo, absolutely no idea why. SO banned from Venmo, absolutely no idea why. Banned permanently and no way to ever reach a human. Fuck. Big. Tech.
  - maxbond 4mo ago
    > Banned from Venmo, absolutely no idea why. SO banned from Venmo, absolutely no idea why. Prior to 2013 or after? Maybe they merged ban lists with PayPal (who owns them).
  - dcposch 4mo ago
    It's because Venmo is owned by PayPal
    - SV_BubbleTime 4mo ago
      It’s not though. All three of those events were separated by at least a year each long after PayPal bought Venmo.
  - sieabahlpark 4mo ago
    [dead]
  - phlogisticfugu 4mo ago
    even though it was a joke, what you did looked like money laundering. which probably triggered a SAR which companies are legally forbidden from disclosing https://www.finra.org/arbitration-mediation/rules-case-resources/sar-confidentiality-requirements https://www.finra.org/arbitration-mediation/rules-case-resou...
- dhouston 4mo ago
  Fair criticism. The tricky part though with any scaled service is that for every legitimate case like this, there are many more bad actors trying to hijack accounts through exactly this mechanism -- so account recovery has to be conservative by default, which means legitimate cases sometimes get caught in the friction. Not an excuse, but it's a hard problem at scale and not just e.g. a cost-cutting thing or not giving a shit.
  - yesitcan 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - OsrsNeedsf2P 4mo ago
      Seems minorly AI ("Fair criticism.", emdash), but as someone who works adjacent to this space, the rest reads like something I'd write.
      - Sohcahtoa82 4mo ago
        It wasn't an em dash though — It was two hypens --
    - nikkwong 4mo ago
      Not every use of the em dash is Ai. I’ve long used it and always am accused of using Ai in responses — though I never do.
      - maxbond 4mo ago
        No indicator of AI writing is going to last forever. We really shouldn't over index on the oldest indicator (which is liable to decay first). People are starting to say "delve" more in verbal conversations. This treadmill will keep moving. Unfortunately we have little choice but to keep up with it.
      - Sohcahtoa82 4mo ago
        It wasn't even an actual em dash — It was two hyphens --
sieabahlpark 4mo ago
[dead]
dhouston 4mo ago
Hi Josh -- Drew here -- our escalations team should be reaching out shortly. (Losing phone, 2FA keys, etc. can be tricky but they should be able to work with you and hopefully verify enough to get you unblocked.)
- justmarc 4mo ago
  Awesome move to help a simple user in need. hats off.
- ra0x3 4mo ago
  Thanks for helping!
- simonebrunozzi 4mo ago
  Well done, Drew!! And congrats on building an amazing company. Hope you'll get some rest before embarking in whatever is next. Coincidentially, I know the new CEO, Ashraf Alkarmi; we met at AWS when he was launching Appstream, I believe back in 2013 if I'm not mistaken. It's funny to recognize a name. I am hopeful that he will do well as a CEO.
tibbydudeza 4mo ago
This must be one hell of an edge case - glad to see you are "free" :).
- joshmn 4mo ago
  It's the digital equivalent of your house burning down, your devices are inside it, and you never bothered to bring the 2FA codes you definitely wrote down to the bank.
bmurphy1976 4mo ago
Oh man, sorry to hear that. I had a secondary Dropbox account I used for a few small but important documents. At some point I somehow lost the 2FA factor, and I don't know how as I've managed to keep the 2FA for every other one of my services across multiple app/os/phone installs. Anyway, I reached out to their support for help and they were utterly useless. I had a couple weeks of back and forth with them before giving up. I hope I never actually need those docs. I hope you have a better outcome than I did.
s_dev 4mo ago
>I went to prison for 18 months, my digital and physical life was stolen from me This is wild phrasing.
- xyst 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - joshmn 4mo ago
    Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844197
    - s_dev 4mo ago
      Appreciate the context, however if I was to follow up on my own comment. You were sentenced to prison, I went to the grocery store yesterday. It's the casualness of the phrasing that is jarring.
      - joshmn 4mo ago
        The shame has passed and I served my time. What I owe now is not doing it again—which I'm not.
        s_dev 4mo ago
        To clarify I'm not commenting on what you've done but how you've phrased it. I really don't mind about pirating movies I don't even see it as wrong.
        lunchbucket 4mo ago
        They understand, they just don't care and shouldn't care. It is always jarring to encounter someone with a different life experience, but processing that is your business. They don't need to spend the rest of their life crafting their words to avoid making people uncomfortable. It's the same principle as someone in public when they're disfigured. You just became aware of something traumatic that happened to this person, and it is totally understandable to feel uncomfortable. But they are just existing in public. They have no obligation to present themselves in a way that avoids making you uncomfortable, and doing that everyday of their lives would be exhausting and wasteful. In that example it is immediately obvious that it would be inappropriate to ask them to cover up. But it's the same principle, either way.

by joshmn 4mo ago

swyx 4mo ago

sad that going viral on social media is the only functional support system for many tech companies. good luck hope you get your mom's stuff.

SV_BubbleTime 4mo ago
I was selling a GPU on Facebook marketplace during covid. The description was that the card was good for gaming or “turning dinosaurs into clean money”. Banned permanently and no way to ever reach a human. I sold a rifle legally on an online auction site. The buyer was offered to pay with PayPal they were given the option to use. The buyer took that option, making me break PayPal TOS. Banned permanently and no way to ever reach a human. Banned from Venmo, absolutely no idea why. SO banned from Venmo, absolutely no idea why. Banned permanently and no way to ever reach a human. Fuck. Big. Tech.
- maxbond 4mo ago
  > Banned from Venmo, absolutely no idea why. SO banned from Venmo, absolutely no idea why. Prior to 2013 or after? Maybe they merged ban lists with PayPal (who owns them).
- dcposch 4mo ago
  It's because Venmo is owned by PayPal
  - SV_BubbleTime 4mo ago
    It’s not though. All three of those events were separated by at least a year each long after PayPal bought Venmo.
- sieabahlpark 4mo ago
  [dead]
- phlogisticfugu 4mo ago
  even though it was a joke, what you did looked like money laundering. which probably triggered a SAR which companies are legally forbidden from disclosing https://www.finra.org/arbitration-mediation/rules-case-resources/sar-confidentiality-requirements https://www.finra.org/arbitration-mediation/rules-case-resou...
dhouston 4mo ago
Fair criticism. The tricky part though with any scaled service is that for every legitimate case like this, there are many more bad actors trying to hijack accounts through exactly this mechanism -- so account recovery has to be conservative by default, which means legitimate cases sometimes get caught in the friction. Not an excuse, but it's a hard problem at scale and not just e.g. a cost-cutting thing or not giving a shit.
- yesitcan 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - OsrsNeedsf2P 4mo ago
    Seems minorly AI ("Fair criticism.", emdash), but as someone who works adjacent to this space, the rest reads like something I'd write.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4mo ago
      It wasn't an em dash though — It was two hypens --
  - nikkwong 4mo ago
    Not every use of the em dash is Ai. I’ve long used it and always am accused of using Ai in responses — though I never do.
    - maxbond 4mo ago
      No indicator of AI writing is going to last forever. We really shouldn't over index on the oldest indicator (which is liable to decay first). People are starting to say "delve" more in verbal conversations. This treadmill will keep moving. Unfortunately we have little choice but to keep up with it.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4mo ago
      It wasn't even an actual em dash — It was two hyphens --

sieabahlpark 4mo ago

[dead]

dhouston 4mo ago

Hi Josh -- Drew here -- our escalations team should be reaching out shortly. (Losing phone, 2FA keys, etc. can be tricky but they should be able to work with you and hopefully verify enough to get you unblocked.)

justmarc 4mo ago
Awesome move to help a simple user in need. hats off.
ra0x3 4mo ago
Thanks for helping!
simonebrunozzi 4mo ago
Well done, Drew!! And congrats on building an amazing company. Hope you'll get some rest before embarking in whatever is next. Coincidentially, I know the new CEO, Ashraf Alkarmi; we met at AWS when he was launching Appstream, I believe back in 2013 if I'm not mistaken. It's funny to recognize a name. I am hopeful that he will do well as a CEO.

tibbydudeza 4mo ago

This must be one hell of an edge case - glad to see you are "free" :).

joshmn 4mo ago
It's the digital equivalent of your house burning down, your devices are inside it, and you never bothered to bring the 2FA codes you definitely wrote down to the bank.

bmurphy1976 4mo ago

Oh man, sorry to hear that. I had a secondary Dropbox account I used for a few small but important documents. At some point I somehow lost the 2FA factor, and I don't know how as I've managed to keep the 2FA for every other one of my services across multiple app/os/phone installs. Anyway, I reached out to their support for help and they were utterly useless. I had a couple weeks of back and forth with them before giving up. I hope I never actually need those docs. I hope you have a better outcome than I did.

s_dev 4mo ago

>I went to prison for 18 months, my digital and physical life was stolen from me This is wild phrasing.

xyst 4mo ago
[flagged]
- joshmn 4mo ago
  Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844197
  - s_dev 4mo ago
    Appreciate the context, however if I was to follow up on my own comment. You were sentenced to prison, I went to the grocery store yesterday. It's the casualness of the phrasing that is jarring.
    - joshmn 4mo ago
      The shame has passed and I served my time. What I owe now is not doing it again—which I'm not.
      - s_dev 4mo ago
        To clarify I'm not commenting on what you've done but how you've phrased it. I really don't mind about pirating movies I don't even see it as wrong.
        lunchbucket 4mo ago
        They understand, they just don't care and shouldn't care. It is always jarring to encounter someone with a different life experience, but processing that is your business. They don't need to spend the rest of their life crafting their words to avoid making people uncomfortable. It's the same principle as someone in public when they're disfigured. You just became aware of something traumatic that happened to this person, and it is totally understandable to feel uncomfortable. But they are just existing in public. They have no obligation to present themselves in a way that avoids making you uncomfortable, and doing that everyday of their lives would be exhausting and wasteful. In that example it is immediately obvious that it would be inappropriate to ask them to cover up. But it's the same principle, either way.