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Why Services Like Dropbox and Box Need Document Protection

added: 05.11.2014, by Hiro Kataoka

Last week it was revealed that links to files shared on services such as Dropbox and Box could be found and accessed on the Web, basically making much of the information stored and shared on those services public. Scary, but not surprising, as it has always been possible to re-share links or files on shared links—as well as passwords. The reality of most file sharing, whether it is a cloud service like Dropbox or Box or simply attaching a file to an e-mail, is that the owner loses control once it is sent.

A week or so before the Dropbox news the company that disclosed the vulnerabilities, Intralinks, acquired docTrackr, which is one of our competitors. As the name implies, docTrackr developed technology to enable the control and tracking of access to PDF and Microsoft Office files, much like we do here for you at HoGo. Now you can see why Intralinks seeded the news about Dropbox and Box’s vulnerabilities. They acquired document protection technology, and will use it as a weapon to compete with the cloud storage heavyweights.

The recognition that people must protect and control their private, confidential, copyrighted, and otherwise important and valuable information is a step in the right direction. As we have been writing here on Blog Confidential, you are responsible for protecting your documents. At HoGo, we make it easy for you to do just that, and with our new APIs, other file sharing services can use our document protection technology too.

Maybe someday even Dropbox and Box.

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