Dropbox for Linux runs just fine as a user-mode program.
Besides, Dropbox does much nastier stuff than look at your files; it bloody hooks into your shell (Finder/Explorer) and manipulates the icons. It could decide to replace an .exe icon with the icon for a Word Document, for example.
Thought they just used icon overlays, much like all other status-icon shell extensions such as version control (TortoiseSVN). Not exactly some low level windows hack, it's a plugin system in Explorer. I probably have five or six such icon overlay extensions on my machine.
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Dropbox for Linux runs just fine as a user-mode program.
Besides, Dropbox does much nastier stuff than look at your files; it bloody hooks into your shell (Finder/Explorer) and manipulates the icons. It could decide to replace an .exe icon with the icon for a Word Document, for example.
Thought they just used icon overlays, much like all other status-icon shell extensions such as version control (TortoiseSVN). Not exactly some low level windows hack, it's a plugin system in Explorer. I probably have five or six such icon overlay extensions on my machine.