You have a valid point in that people should not be fired for most simple, stupid mistakes. God knows I've made plenty. I'm just saying that dropping the ball on authentication is a pretty big deal. Especially for something like Dropbox. From personal experience where I work, there are lots of simple stupid mistakes that would get me called into an office and reprimanded, theres plenty that would be overlooked, but there are a few that are grounds for immediate release from employment. Problems with authentication is one of them. I would agree with Lt Dan, it probably was a holdover from some testing and so the blame lies on mulitple people/groups. In that case, firing whole teams isn't a reasonable answer, but a solid reprimand across the board to make sure that everyone knows this sort of thing can't happen again would be in order. Also, I am in idiot. I have a bad habit of making strongly worded statements initially, that, had I taken a little more time to think them through would have come out as a tad more reasonable. It drives my wife nuts.

Seriously, someone needs to have their head roll. Proper authentication is a.) the first thing I learned when doing web programming b.) reasonably simple to put in place c.) so damned important that even for a small website with nothing particularly sensitive, anyone who drops the ball on it should shown the door with swiftness. I really like Dropbox, but they've had some drama lately and I think it's time to look elsewhere

Somebody tell House!