Dear Bill_S,
No one is handing out their password to anyone. Please read the following very carefully.
I’ll try to explain with a simple story. There are 3 users - admin, jack and jill. All users have passwords. There are 3 shares - Jack, Jill and Public. jack is the only user with any access to the share named Jack. Jill is the only user with access to the share named Jill.
Jack logs in from his laptop on the local network and creates a folder called Jack’s Photos on his share called Jack. He stores 10 photos there. He also creates a folder called Clients. Under Clients he creates folders with the names of his clients – John Smith, Jane Doe and Bill Bloggs. Under John Smith he creates folders called Court Case - Assault Charge, and IRS - Tax Fraud Documents.
Jill logs in from her laptop on the local network and creates a folder called Jill’s Photos on her share called Jill. She stores 20 photos there.
Jill then installs the My Photos app on her mobile phone. She chooses the local cloud device and logs in. The first time setup runs and she can now browse the cloud device. She can see the Public share and the Jill share, and she can view the 20 photos she stored there. But she can also see the share named Jack. She can see that in the folder call Jack’s Photos there are 10 photos, but she cannot see any thumbnails and cannot view the photos themselves. She can also see all the other folder names on the Jack share, such as Court Case - Assault Charge. The Photo App shows that there are 0 photos stored there. She is surprised she can see all of Jack’s folders so she tells him about it.
Jack isn’t very happy. He tells the admin user about this and to check that the access to the Jack share has been set up correctly. The admin says the access is correct, so goes looking on the WD Community forum to see if this is a known problem. He sees a post called ‘Photo App shows all folders’ and sees the advice from Bill_S. He deletes Jill’s My Photos registration using the My Cloud dashboard, as per the instructions Bill_S provided. He tells Jack the problem is fixed, that there is no security issue, and that he got this assurance first hand from a WD Community Manager, who pointed out where this is all documented.
Jill is not aware her access has been removed. She tries the My Photo app and finds that she can enter her username and password but can’t log in. Something is wrong. She deletes the app, goes back to the app store and reinstalls the app, hoping this will fix the problem. She runs the app, chooses the local cloud device and logs in successfully. The first time setup runs and she can now browse the cloud device. She’s happy she has fixed the problem just by reinstalling the app. This time she doesn’t tell Jack that she can see all his folders. But she does now know that she shouldn’t put anything of her own that is confidential in her own share called Jill, because she knows Jack will be able to browse it. So she stores her files elsewhere, defeating the whole purpose of installing the cloud device in the first place.
Jill also has a friend called Bill_S. She tells him that the WD My Cloud device is a great place to securely store all your confidential documents and photos. She asks her admin to create an account called bill_s and a share called Bill_S, with access restricted to just user bill_s. Bill_S now logs in and puts all his private files in his share. He has some interesting folder names which he would not like others to know about. But he is comfortable in the knowledge that the only person who could possibly view his share is the administrator, and he trusts him.
However, Bill_S doesn’t realise that Jill can browse all Bill_S’s folders using the My Photos app. Jill sees some interesting folder names and decides to stay away from Bill_S from now on.
Here endeth the tale.