Comment by antoncohen
10 years ago
I have given Dropbox access to my files, admins rights, and ability to run in the kernel. I'm not freaking out about the Accessibility API.
setuid binaries:
$ tree -p /Library/DropboxHelperTools/
/Library/DropboxHelperTools/
├── [-r-s--x--x] DropboxHelperInstaller
└── [drwxr-xr-x] Dropbox_u501
├── [-r-s--x--x] dbaccessperm
├── [-r-s--x--x] dbfseventsd
└── [-r-s--x--x] dbkextd
kernel extension:
$ kextstat -b com.getdropbox.dropbox.kext
Index Refs Address Size Wired Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
163 0 0xffffff7f835b5000 0x6000 0x6000 com.getdropbox.dropbox.kext (1.7.5)
Dropbox on Linux needs none of that. Sure it doesn't have the fancy icons in file managers, but it also runs in user-space without a kernel module.
There are plugins that give you the fancy icons for some file managers, and they still run in user-space (and as non-root).
> plugins
Finder doesn't have plugins, hence the accessibility API shenanigans necessary to get the same effect.
1 reply →
Since the arrival of FSEvents I don't understand why DB needs a kernel mod at all
Dropbox Infinite:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11570888