HACKER Q&A
📣 LostDropBox

Dropbox Account Disabled


So, this isn’t going to be one of those “I have no idea why it happened” stories. I think I know what happened, it was totally reasonable on Dropbox’s part, but it puts me in a bad situation, and I don’t know what to do at this point.

A few weeks ago I started chatting on Element. I got chatting with someone about some tech topics, the chat turned casual, and we ended up talking about women and exchanging some adult images and video clips. A few days into us chatting like this he sent me a clip that didn’t show/play in the client, which had happened before, so I didn’t think much about it and just saved the video without thinking so I could play it in VLC. I’m not going to go into details other than saying it was horrific and disgusting. I freaked out. I reported him, deleted the file, uninstalled element, and shut my PC down.

I realized today that my Dropbox account was inaccessible on my phone, and had been disabled, and then realized that I must have saved the file into some random Dropbox folder that I had been saving some other things to, and it synced. So, now I’m freaking out that I’m going to be reported and need to figure out how to explain this to a cop, and I have lost access to files that I had cloud-only in Dropbox, including wedding videos. Yeah, I know stupid on my part to not have local backups. I’m sick to my stomach over this and just don’t know what to do, any advice would be appreciated.

  👤 accrual Accepted Answer ✓
Have you had any luck contacting Dropbox? Or did you get any emails about a ToS violation or anything like that? I've never had to go through Dropbox's support, but I hope you can find some way up their support tree so you can work with someone to recover your files.

Depending on what the content of the file was, it might also be good to build up a timeline of events/timestamps/logs, etc. in case you need to defend yourself legally.

👤 MQtips
IANAL but you are probably ok as far as the cops are concerned. You made a mistake and you did the right thing: as soon as you realized it, you deleted it, reported him, etc. I'm reasonably sure, at least in my state, that the law specifically says if you looked at CSAM for two seconds or less, it's not a violation. The point is, they understand that sometimes people receive things they didn't ask for and open them and take a second to realize what it is. My guess is you're ok. Invest a few hundred bucks and speak to a real criminal defense attorney if you really need your mind set at ease. It's expensive but if you're really worried it might be worth it for the peace of mind.

As to your files and memories: sorry, bub, they're probably gone for good. Dropbox just takes away your stuff. I just got my Dropbox account of well over 10 years abruptly turned off with no explanation other than "This account has been disabled for terms of use violation." They gave no warning, will not explain what the supposed violation was, will not reply further, will not give me a single chance to remedy the situation. They just yoinked my access to years of my work. I had most of it backed up locally, but the scary thing is, I don't actually know what I didn't have backed up.

Googling for this, this is a common story, and nobody I could find has ever found a way to get them to respond or to give access to the priceless property they've removed our access to. One guy on Reddit lost access to medical info he needed. It's hard to believe it's legal, but nobody has ever gotten together a class action suit so, boom, it's effectively legal, whether or not it really is.

This is the worst I have ever seen a business treat a paying customer for sure, and once you start searching online you'll see Dropbox have been doing this to their customers for years. Just google "Dropbox disabled my account" and check out what good company you're in.

So, the only comfort I can give is: you are not alone. And, in my unprofessional opinion (read: strictly a guess) you're probably alright with regard to the law. This got me worried for a sec too... What did they see in my account that I accidentally downloaded 11 years ago and didn't even realize was there? Am I going to get a knock on my door?

I'm thinking it's because I shared a bootleg of The Soft Boys at Lady Mitchell Hall.

I will tell you that my life's mission from here forwards is to make sure people know that Dropbox does this. I am pissed off.