20 ms·

SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns

879 points by mortenjorck 7y ago

scotth 7y ago
I looked into adding Zoom to our Slack workspace this morning, and was beside myself with the set of permissions they requested — reading the contents of every channel and private chat they're included in? For a slash command? That's a hard no. Turned me off the service entirely.
- RandallBrown 7y ago
  It's only available in the paid version, but slack's video conferencing works pretty well.
  - scotth 7y ago
    Yeah, I saw that. Got pretty close to pushing the button on it after this episode, and probably will soon.
  - dewey 7y ago
    For me Slack's video conferencing never really worked that well. Even Google Meet worked better.
  - adabsurdo 7y ago
    Ugh ... It sorta works, sure, but doesn't hold a candle to zoom in terms of overall video and audio quality and reliability.
  - aidos 7y ago
    It works, but it burns through so much CPU your computer will be a gibbering mess. There's some pretty silly inefficiencies going on, for example; if you switch away to another window, they display a small video player while keeping the big one running the background. Each time you switch into screen sharing mode, they drag you back to the app again. If you draw on the screen, someone has screwed up their linear algebra so you end up seeing double with an extra copy of what you're drawing, in totally the wrong place. Annoyingly it's a bit too convenient, so going out of band is a pain.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - leecb 7y ago
      I regularly have complaints that people can't hear me over my laptop's fan when using slack video conferencing, or jokes about hair driers. Computer is a MBP16. Seems like they need to get their CPU use under control.
      - jachee 7y ago
        You could also get a headset instead of yelling at your built-in mic. As a 100% remote employee, even before Covid, the coworkers with headsets are much easier to understand, and have less background/foreground noise. As a headset user myself, no one ever asks me to repeat myself, notices when I type, or hears anything not within an inch of my mouth. Plus, I've got a physical mute switch for instant, unambiguous mute, as-needed.
  - paxys 7y ago
    It works great for 1:1 and small group conversations, but its max meeting size (15 people I think) is an immediate disqualifier. We regularly have hundreds of people on Zoom calls with no issues.
  - lostmyoldone 7y ago
    YMMV, but for me ut turns my computer into a simulation of a space heater even when I'm not sharing my screen, and those gigantic unhidable toolbars makes me feel like I'm playing whack a mole more than working a times. Oh, and yes,I "almost forgot" ! How to they even physically manage to get multiple seconds latency at times, when everyone in the call is in the same city, and where the worst connection on the call is at about 20Mbit? Are they just buffering for the heck of it, why not simply drop some frames if you get behind?
  - twic 7y ago
    There's no video in the Android client, though (not sure about iOS). Zoom and Meet can both do that.
- whateveracct 7y ago
  > reading the contents of every channel and private chat they're included in? For a slash command? This may improve soon. Slack is starting to force apps to request granular permissions (vs a big-tent "bot" scope like before) and when you submit to their store, they vet each permission and verify what you're using it for. They don't let you request permissions "just because" in my experience.
- kalvin 7y ago
  We have Zoom on our Slack workspace and we'd remove it immediately if this were the case, but it appears to be false. The full list of permissions required by the official Zoom Slack integration is at www.slack.com/apps/A5GE9BMQC-zoom, and doesn't have read access to any channels, private or public, except for "some URLs in messages".
  - scotth 7y ago
    Following your link brings me to the same list of permissions that I was talking about. Here are (some) of them: * View some URLs in messages * View messages and other content in public channels, private channels, direct messages, and group direct messages that Zoom has been added to * View basic information about direct and group direct messages that Zoom has been added to * View basic information about public channels in your workspace * View basic information about private channels that Zoom has been added to * View files shared in channels and conversations that Zoom has been added to * View pinned content in channels and conversations that Zoom has been added to * View messages and files that Zoom has starred * View emoji reactions and their associated content in channels and conversations that Zoom has been added to
echelon 7y ago
SpaceX is strategic national defense, so this makes sense. I expect many similar companies to follow suit.
- bob1029 7y ago
  Seems like any organization under ITAR should prefer in-house solutions in areas relating to dissemination of sensitive design notes.
  - fludlight 7y ago
    I wonder if in NOVA the startup pitch cliche is "x for ITAR" instead of "uber for x".
  - gpm 7y ago
    "In house (software)" is usually synonyms with "not properly tested or secured"... I'd generally rather they relied on third party code audited by the nations security services.
    - nisse72 7y ago
      Rather than "NIH" solutions, I think that such businesses commonly choose products that can be hosted on premise. There's also MS Government Cloud: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/government/dod/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/gove...
  - antpls 7y ago
    Are you basically asked to rewrite your own Zoom app or are there ITA certified videoconferencing softwares ? (Any names?)
    - annoyingnoob 7y ago
      Its not so much that you need to have your own, its just much more complicated to do it in the cloud. When you have to be able to prove by audit that only US persons are authorized to access the datacenter and that only US persons have accessed the datacenter then you need a provider willing to do that as well as contracts, policies, and procedures. It all needs to be audit-able and evidence based. If you need to do these things in the cloud then you need to do them in-house too. Which means that you already do the basics in-house making it attractive to do things in-house. Take Confluence for example, if I use the cloud version I can't store any files there or have any information about certain projects. But I can run the same Confluence in-house and then we can share project details. As you point out, its not always that easy.
hunter2_ 7y ago
The fact that they show end users (no pun intended) an "end-to-end encrypted" badge on the meeting window itself, and elsewhere explain how a Zoom server (not Zoom client) is what constitutes an "end" despite the whole rest of the electronic communication industry using "end-to-end" to refer exclusively to user agents, is bonkers.
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  Agreed. It's unlikely they stumbled onto an industry standard phrase like that alone, then innocently used it without knowing the generally accepted meaning. This is deceptive advertising.
  - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
    Not just "deceptive" nor "unlikely", it's blatant false advertising.
    - harry8 7y ago
      Fraudulent is the word i would use.
      - diggan 7y ago
        "Fraudulent", at least as far as I know, is reserved for "intentional deception". It could be that Zoom is indeed doing this intentionally, but without proof of it being intentional, I don't think we should assume so. insert Hanlons razor quote here
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        loup-vaillant 7y ago
        A company this prominent is unlikely to be that incompetent. Malice is more probable at this point, Hanlon's razor notwithstanding.
Ohn0 7y ago
It was clear from Zoom's security vulnerability last year that they value ease-of-use over security, so it seems obvious to me they wouldn't care about privacy.
georgewfraser 7y ago
I've found Hangouts to be equal in call quality to Zoom, and it runs entirely in the web browser. The only down side is it consumes a LOT of power, so you need to stay plugged in while you use it.
- waynenilsen 7y ago
  Also can't have too many attendees
  - georgewfraser 7y ago
    You can have 200, and you can also live-stream large meetings. It is a bit weird that you have to split the stream, but it's worked great for us doing ~300 person all-hands meetings.
    - tonyztan 7y ago
      Google Meet also works well if you have G Suite: https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/ https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/
- kiwijamo 7y ago
  Consuming a lot of power could be a show stopper for organisations where lots of staff are on older equipment? Zoom works flawlessly even on older hardware.
deminature 7y ago
This is a knee-jerk reaction. Zoom was indirectly sending information to Facebook as part of their Facebook SDK integration to enable login, not directly as part of explicit information gathering. Any app that integrates with the Facebook SDK does this, and they've also patched it already [1]. The supposed root exploit found in Zoom also requires physical, logged-in access to the machine, at which point a Zoom exploit is the least of your problems [2]. Zoom is a solid piece of software, and the developers are responsive and seem to care. I'm disappointed to see it getting dumped on during the past few days. A cynic might even suspect a co-ordinated campaign by Cisco, considering Zoom was started by frustrated ex-Cisco employees and has had runaway growth during the viral crisis, while the same cannot be said for Cisco's competitor product WebEx. [1] https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/27/zoom-use-of-facebook-sdk-in-ios-client/ https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/27/zoom-use-of-facebo... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/01/new-zoom-bugs-takeover-macs-cam-mic-root/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/01/new-zoom-bugs-takeover-macs-c...
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  > This is a knee-jerk reaction. When you make weapons technology (as SpaceX does; rockets are weapons technology) and are involved in launching military satellites (as SpaceX is), you kinda have to take security issues seriously.
- yumraj 7y ago
  > This is a knee-jerk reaction. Large part of, if not entire, Zoom engineering is based in China, so just based on that singular fact IMHO this is not at all a knee-jerk reaction. Add to that numerous security found in Zoom just over the last few days, and I'm surprised why more companies are not doing the same.
  - shrewduser 7y ago
    exactly, plus when you're spaceX or a similar tech company it's much better to be safe than sorry. you don't always have the luxury to assume good intentions.
  - damanamathos 7y ago
moron4hire 7y ago
Setting up Jitsi on a very basic Linux VM is super easy. I know, because I am terrible at server setup and even I was able to do it in a couple of hours this morning.
- pugworthy 7y ago
  Yes, but what do you know about its security?
  - moron4hire 7y ago
    Well, it's my own server, and the code is open source, so... pretty trivial to verify.
    - nemothekid 7y ago
      >and the code is open source, so... pretty trivial to verify. * laughs in Heartbleed
    - pugworthy 7y ago
      Yes, but what do you know about its security? Your user name doesn't give me confidence...
    - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
      It will never be trivial to verify outside the most basic of programs.
    - topkeks 7y ago
      Unless your name is Tavis Ormandy, you're retarded.
m0zg 7y ago
As they should, since they're subject to ITAR regulations, and ITAR is not a joke.
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  Came to say the same thing. Zoom is impossible if you are considered part of the DoD supply chain. Most of the public products are untenable if you need to talk about ITAR projects or about anything considered CUI.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Even if they weren't supplying the DoD with anything, rocket technology is missile technology. (Granted, liquid fueled ICBMs are old-school, but they'd nevertheless still be under ITAR even if they took no government contracts.)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
They also don't use AWS.
- galacticaactual 7y ago
  Pretty definitive statement there. Source?
  - etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
    Can't seem to find it right now :/ sorry.
    - numpad0 7y ago
      Plausible though, considering Musk’s fundamentalist tone
      - gpm 7y ago
        And the amount of classified material they handle, and the fact that Jeff Bezos is a direct competitor so Amazon is very very closely affiliated with a direct competitor.
        slenk 7y ago
        So, SpaceX.com at least uses an IP address owned by Amazon: https://www.abuseipdb.com/whois/50.112.120.214 https://www.abuseipdb.com/whois/50.112.120.214 slenk@Enterprise:~$ host spacex.com spacex.com has address 50.112.120.214 [output truncated]
        _ph_ 7y ago
        Well, there is no security problem to host a public web site on e.g. AWS. I think the restrictions more affect internal, confidential data.
droithomme 7y ago
I'm not Zooming, but everyone I know is, and it looks pretty damn slick and seems to work great. I can't think of any service that has had as fast and huge an adoption, which is obviously due to blind luck/things beyond their control (no one saw global apocalypse coming and hoping for such would be a horrible business plan). Of course there's been other services working just as well or better for at least 10 years now. Interesting things converged suddenly on Zoom. I guess full cross-platform support was the key? Also interesting is the deluge of anti-zoom articles that are blanketing the cybersphere :-) just as they are getting traction. Jealous rivals? Disgruntled lovers?
- dang 7y ago
  Zoom is the deluge du jour (literally—today has been the day of Zoom deluge complaints), but Occam called and wanted to let us know that we don't need any sinister explanations. It's obviously (or at least, explicable) as an effect of the covid crisis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22751116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22751116
  - droithomme 7y ago
    Thanks, that "black hole story" is a really useful and compelling metaphor.
gonesilent 7y ago
Spacex is a targeted environment. It's smart for them to not use such a service. Many years back it was getting hardware shipments intercepted and bugged. A company was spun out of just dealing with the amount of attempts to root Elons devices.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Which company?
  - bootloop 7y ago
    Many claims. Not enough sources.
  - gonesilent 7y ago
    Spikes Security.
  - DingleDook101 7y ago
    Musk is My Daddy LLC.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
Guys, I'm starting to think this company isn't worth a P/E ratio of 1600.
- julianlam 7y ago
  I'm surprised by the concerns raised by the HN commenters. When Zoom filed their S1, HN was nothing but complimentary about their product and business model. The time to pull out might be after their next quarterly report.
nilkn 7y ago
Zoom is such a bizarre product. For huge video calls, it tends to perform as well or better than everything else out there. Yet at the same time it literally seems like straight-up malware and seems to violate your trust and privacy left and right every step of the way, even in the installer (!).
- allover 7y ago
  To be fair it does perform better than everything else, which is why people are so forgiving of it, but it still doesn't excuse their ineptitude on privacy and security.
  - flattone 7y ago
    Yeah. Security and privacy preclude performance. Like ... i dont need a Ferrari with an activated self destruct. ill take the camry, thanks.
    - blackoil 7y ago
      More like all glass Ferrari vs all black Camry. People are choosing Ferrari
      - caycep 7y ago
        the Ferrari is noted for an unfortunate tendency to catch on fire and burn to the ground...
  - grahamburger 7y ago
    In my experience Google's Hangout Meetings have been at least as good or better quality and the interface is far superior in my opinion. For example it works in the browser without any plugins (even in Firefox.)
    - pragmatic 7y ago
      The quality send to suffer when there are a large number of participants. Which is the reason zoom gets used so much.
rflrob 7y ago
The rumor that I've heard is that the "security and privacy concerns" are that Boeing has somehow gotten access to their Zoom. I don't know what that means, exactly, but it's at least somewhat more rational than being concerned that facebook is siphoning up the data.
- 34679 7y ago
  Where did you hear this rumor?
  - pugworthy 7y ago
    I'd like to know that too. Worthy of a downvote until substantiated.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  Good, maybe they'll learn a thing or two about how to build reliable space vehicles.
dsimms 7y ago
I have to agree that Zoom just doesn't seem to care very much about privacy or security. Once? Sure, maybe an honest mistake. But, come on. Also, I have been enjoying this: https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector which highlights how optional the use of the native client is.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
To those saying SpaceX is subject to ITAR and defence standards, what does that say for anyone in healthcare, finance, California or Europe? Zoom is looking like it’s closer to Discord than Slack.
- stonogo 7y ago
  Zoom and Slack are both FedRamp authorized for government use. Zoom is even authorized Moderate, while Slack is still being audited for that rating. https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/product/zoom-for-government https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/product/zoom-for-governmen... https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/product/slack https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/product/slack
  - annoyingnoob 7y ago
    You don't get zoom's government platform by default, you have to ask for it and I'll bet it has different pricing. I suspect you also lose some features, like recording (at least at the server). I haven't checked Zoom but other FedRamp products I've seen are 3x the price of the standard offering.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - eitally 7y ago
      FedRAMP moderate doesn't require an isolated, US citizen-only-staffed, environment. Only FedrAMP High requires that, so they can still be on shared infra for moderate.
  - ibrault 7y ago
    I'm not sure what FedRAMP is but I work at an FFRDC and Slack is explicitly banned for all ITAR materials. Mattermost is used, though
    - stonogo 7y ago
crankylinuxuser 7y ago
Being the Linux geek, I use MS Teams. I even use it with its Linux client, and works astonishingly well. My only 2 grievances with it are: 1. Teams steals focus to make the next message on a group, rather than in the threat ALL THE TIME. Ive been there for a dozen comments because Teams stole cursor focus. 2. Its easy to make an invite to a one-shot room, rather than use an existing room. Doing so loses all history and provenance and discussion. And there's no "merge this room with the real place" when that happens. But all in all, Ive been on 130+ person calls with no issue. Works very well, aside those issues above.
- fartcannon 7y ago
  Yikes. The only place MS has in any of this is on the list of privacy invaders and products to avoid.
- kiwijamo 7y ago
  Teams has video conferencing? Wow never knew this and I use Teams often for $WORKPLACE. I find it a bloated mess with little things that don't work very well e.g. opening Word documents opens in a weird HTML editor which stuffs up the formatting of delicate documents. It's so bad I never share things via Teams and just email instead. So not sure if I'd want to try its video conferencing function if it can't get other basic stuff right?
- btilly 7y ago
  I have to use MS Teams and hate it. The fact that I lived with the bug described in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741348 for a long time with no idea how to fix it didn't help.
shirro 7y ago
I feel very conflicted on Zoom. It mostly just works and on every platform, even Linux. My kids use it to do their music lessons now. It really is very good at what it does in a time when such solutions are needed. Also they responded to the mobile facebook sdk issue and the macos issue quickly. But I agree the way they suggest it is end to end encrypted is misleading. I don't think it really can be end to end to get the performance and features. People just need to see each other at the moment. You can do anything sensitive with more secure communication. But it clearly doesn't belong in any place discussing technology with military applications. I still think it is solid for my kids to keep up with their lessons or for a weekly meeting about some web development. There are genuine criticisms of Zoom at the moment that need to be taken seriously but there is likely also some negative media being generated from their competition that are missing out.
- simonh 7y ago
  They did not address the OSX issue for ages. They claimed it was intentional and a valuable feature for customers. In the end Apple had to release a security update to remove the web server.
ramshorns 7y ago
So what's a good open source replacement? Jitsi, Jitsi Meet, Linphone, Ekiga, Jami and a bunch of others look okay [1], but it's hard to say how easy they are to use. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software
- Maakuth 7y ago
  I've used Jitsi Meet with ordinary (that is, non-IT) people without trouble.I've also recommended it to elementary school teachers, who have been happy with it. It works with desktop browser, on mobile it offers a minimal app installation. Self-hosting is quite easy with their apt repo.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  I don't even know the other projects because I'm so satisfied with Jitsi. Everyone around me uses it and also seems pretty happy.
namelosw 7y ago
Zoom's hidden doctrine "convenience over privacy" works really well. They assume their user wouldn't care too much about security and privacy, and sadly, for the vast majority, they assumed correct.
rootsudo 7y ago
Good, the less we use Zoom the better. Even facebook Messenger is more secure.
- kiwijamo 7y ago
  Would you suggest organisational video conference meetings of e.g. 25-100 people over Messenger...? There is a niche Zoom is occupying very well.
  - rootsudo 7y ago
    It's more of a "trusting" facebook transparency vs if Messenger has the same solution that Zoom fits in. Meanwhile, it's 2020. Didn't think video conferencing was such a big deal.
nojvek 7y ago
That's the right thing to do. If SpaceX is important to national security, then Zoom security and privacy is so bad, that a bad actor could steal SpaceX technology. At my previous job, we used to dial in random zoom numbers and entered into random conversations of other companies. Once we landed into a Facebook call where they were talking about Libra (before it was a thing). If you turn of camera and video, the host doesn't even know you're there unless they check guest list.
- gnicholas 7y ago
  Doesn’t it chime when someone enters?
  - chance_state 7y ago
    Sure, but with a large enough call, legitimate users may come and go during the call too.
  - lttlrck 7y ago
    It’s optional.
W-Stool 7y ago
I've never heard of the Zoom app until about three weeks ago and now I'm reading something about it here on HN almost every day. Why is this company and their app suddenly so popular and so critiqued? I thought the world was Skype, FaceTime, WebEx, that whole cluster of technologies and related applications. Why are the Zoom folks suddenly on the front page everywher?
- xyproto 7y ago
  The ongoing pandemic increses the need for online conversations with 100+ people.
- twic 7y ago
  WebEx is terrible, FaceTime is Apple-only, Skype is circling the drain since being bought by Microsoft, so there is a lot of pent-up demand for a good cross-platform videoconferencing tool. Zoom is one of the front-runners. There is a good overview of the options in an article recently posted here - see under "Videoconferencing": https://apenwarr.ca/log/20200309 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20200309
keyle 7y ago
"Please use email, text [...]" as an alternative with concern over privacy?
Antoninus 7y ago
Think of the poor engineers working to roll out some form of legit end-to-end protocol while this blows up in management's face. Godspeed.
rasz 7y ago
Remember the movie Antitrust, where Bill Gates type character played by Tim Robbins records everyones computer screens to steal secrets? Thats Zoom for you, minus the murders.
dba7dba 7y ago
I really really wish Apple would build a replacement for zoom, that is available on as many devices as zoom is. This is a matter of national issue. This rush to remote is not something that will go away completely. I think many security minded people are not comfortable with zoom, but have to use it. Please Apple, build something that can replace zoom.
sunkenvicar 7y ago
First TikTok now Zoom. Chinese soft power with a side of espionage.
HenryBemis 7y ago
Has anyone noticed how hard some late-night-US-TV-shows are pushing (advertising) Zoom? Stephen Colber, Seth Meyers... Zoom is spending big $$$$ to advertise. While competition (WebEx for example) has been silently killing it. I feel that Zoom wants to be "the new cool kid" in town for which nobody knows anything about.. and while we do learn it looks that it's got some shady practices (as we discuss here).
_ph_ 7y ago
The problem with Zoom isn't, that it doesn't have end-to-end encryption. If you consider the problem, it is extremely difficult to solve, as in contrast to a 1:1 video call, the server somehow has to to multiplex the streams and thus at least some access to them. With a trustworthy provider, this isn't a big issue. A trustworthy provider will have a clear policy which ensures that only the multiplexer has access to the unencrypted data. After all, you are running a proprietary client from that provider, and each client of course has access to all unencrypted data. The problem is, that the actions of Zoom doesn't make them look like a trustworthy provider. They lied about the end-to-end encryption. What they should have done instead is to be transparent on how unencrypted data is used on their servers and what their protocols are to prevent unauthorized access to that data. Which is especially important in a business context, because the business users themselves have confidentiality agreements, they need to guarantee and using an external provider for confidential data required that provider passing the neccessary scrutiny. And of course, the huge pile of security issues coming up with their client, the web server, the mac installer, the script host, give any reason to believe that they either don't know what they are doing or completely reckless at least. And the term "reckless" doesn't fit in a conversation about security :).
- diebeforei485 7y ago
  FaceTime seems to do it well enough. It's limited to ~30 people per call though.
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    The problem is the required bandwidth, if you send all streams to all participients. If you do that, you can do end-to-end encryption, but you have to send all streams at the maximum resolution you want to support. If the server handles the mixing, each client only needs to be send one full-resolution stream.
- mdavidn 7y ago
  No. "End-to-end encryption" does not protect metadata necessary to route the data over a network, just the contents of the communication. The clients could negotiate keys to protect the contents of a meeting end-to-end. In other words, Zoom servers could deduce who was speaking, when they spoke, and for how long, but not what they said. Your internet service provider can deduce the same about your HTTPS connections.
garyclarke27 7y ago
I use MS Teams in my company, seems to work very well, great quality video, I’m don’t fully understand the security issues with Zoom, so I’m curious, does anyone know how MS Teams compares to Zoom?? The school my kids go to (in Portugal) also use Teams, for online learning, seems to be working well for them now. (Europe had issues a few weeks ago with Teams, when most of the schools first closed)
- LatteLazy 7y ago
  I believe... MS Teams is better but you have to pay for it (and maybe it's complex to implement too). Zoom is free (and supports large numbers of participants which other free alternatives don't). Also meetings can be setup with about 4 mouse clicks by the user himself with no other kit than a browser in Zoom. Getting your art department home workers to correctly It has been weird watching people insist we use zoom because it supports so many users, when there are only three of us actually in a meeting. So the cynic in my suspects it's being used by (say) schools and universities (as the Skype limit was 32 people, now 50). And other people have assumed it's better since Harvard\Cambridge use it, so now they use it for 4 people...
  - garyclarke27 7y ago
    Thanks - Teams is surprisingly easy (for a Microsoft product) to set up a glitch free video conference call. I was curious how secure it is? Its free with an Office 365 subscription and they are quite cheap, office is pretty much essential for most businesses, I think schools get it very cheap or even for free.
- gnud 7y ago
  The issue with Teams is the issue all modern Microsoft services have: Their account systems are really confusing, and they actively make it worse in the UI. I have 4 different accounts that have access to different Teams instances. They all have my full name, and therefore the same initials. There is no way to tell which account you are logged in as, in the UI. A couple of months ago, they finally fixed the "log out and log in as a different user" flow so it actually did something for me. Before that, it would log out, and then just automatically log back in as the same user. You can't (as far as I can tell) run two instances as different users at the same time. I join most Teams meetings as "guest" on my phone. That works OK, but it doesn't really say much good about the Windows app.
fbnlsr 7y ago
I'm completely out of the loop with Zoom. What's so great about this compared to Google Meet for instance?
zkid18 7y ago
Why ppl are so obsessed with e2e as a de-facto synonym for security? Another question, why ppl who so care about security keep relying marketing stuff rather than using open-source solution?
tmoravec 7y ago
So what video conferencing solution do they use instead?

879 points by mortenjorck 7y ago

I looked into adding Zoom to our Slack workspace this morning, and was beside myself with the set of permissions they requested — reading the contents of every channel and private chat they're included in? For a slash command? That's a hard no. Turned me off the service entirely.

RandallBrown 7y ago
It's only available in the paid version, but slack's video conferencing works pretty well.
- scotth 7y ago
  Yeah, I saw that. Got pretty close to pushing the button on it after this episode, and probably will soon.
- dewey 7y ago
  For me Slack's video conferencing never really worked that well. Even Google Meet worked better.
- adabsurdo 7y ago
  Ugh ... It sorta works, sure, but doesn't hold a candle to zoom in terms of overall video and audio quality and reliability.
- aidos 7y ago
  It works, but it burns through so much CPU your computer will be a gibbering mess. There's some pretty silly inefficiencies going on, for example; if you switch away to another window, they display a small video player while keeping the big one running the background. Each time you switch into screen sharing mode, they drag you back to the app again. If you draw on the screen, someone has screwed up their linear algebra so you end up seeing double with an extra copy of what you're drawing, in totally the wrong place. Annoyingly it's a bit too convenient, so going out of band is a pain.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - leecb 7y ago
    I regularly have complaints that people can't hear me over my laptop's fan when using slack video conferencing, or jokes about hair driers. Computer is a MBP16. Seems like they need to get their CPU use under control.
    - jachee 7y ago
      You could also get a headset instead of yelling at your built-in mic. As a 100% remote employee, even before Covid, the coworkers with headsets are much easier to understand, and have less background/foreground noise. As a headset user myself, no one ever asks me to repeat myself, notices when I type, or hears anything not within an inch of my mouth. Plus, I've got a physical mute switch for instant, unambiguous mute, as-needed.
- paxys 7y ago
  It works great for 1:1 and small group conversations, but its max meeting size (15 people I think) is an immediate disqualifier. We regularly have hundreds of people on Zoom calls with no issues.
- lostmyoldone 7y ago
  YMMV, but for me ut turns my computer into a simulation of a space heater even when I'm not sharing my screen, and those gigantic unhidable toolbars makes me feel like I'm playing whack a mole more than working a times. Oh, and yes,I "almost forgot" ! How to they even physically manage to get multiple seconds latency at times, when everyone in the call is in the same city, and where the worst connection on the call is at about 20Mbit? Are they just buffering for the heck of it, why not simply drop some frames if you get behind?
- twic 7y ago
  There's no video in the Android client, though (not sure about iOS). Zoom and Meet can both do that.
whateveracct 7y ago
> reading the contents of every channel and private chat they're included in? For a slash command? This may improve soon. Slack is starting to force apps to request granular permissions (vs a big-tent "bot" scope like before) and when you submit to their store, they vet each permission and verify what you're using it for. They don't let you request permissions "just because" in my experience.
kalvin 7y ago
We have Zoom on our Slack workspace and we'd remove it immediately if this were the case, but it appears to be false. The full list of permissions required by the official Zoom Slack integration is at www.slack.com/apps/A5GE9BMQC-zoom, and doesn't have read access to any channels, private or public, except for "some URLs in messages".
- scotth 7y ago
  Following your link brings me to the same list of permissions that I was talking about. Here are (some) of them: * View some URLs in messages * View messages and other content in public channels, private channels, direct messages, and group direct messages that Zoom has been added to * View basic information about direct and group direct messages that Zoom has been added to * View basic information about public channels in your workspace * View basic information about private channels that Zoom has been added to * View files shared in channels and conversations that Zoom has been added to * View pinned content in channels and conversations that Zoom has been added to * View messages and files that Zoom has starred * View emoji reactions and their associated content in channels and conversations that Zoom has been added to

echelon 7y ago

SpaceX is strategic national defense, so this makes sense. I expect many similar companies to follow suit.

bob1029 7y ago
Seems like any organization under ITAR should prefer in-house solutions in areas relating to dissemination of sensitive design notes.
- fludlight 7y ago
  I wonder if in NOVA the startup pitch cliche is "x for ITAR" instead of "uber for x".
- gpm 7y ago
  "In house (software)" is usually synonyms with "not properly tested or secured"... I'd generally rather they relied on third party code audited by the nations security services.
  - nisse72 7y ago
    Rather than "NIH" solutions, I think that such businesses commonly choose products that can be hosted on premise. There's also MS Government Cloud: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/government/dod/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/gove...
- antpls 7y ago
  Are you basically asked to rewrite your own Zoom app or are there ITA certified videoconferencing softwares ? (Any names?)
  - annoyingnoob 7y ago
    Its not so much that you need to have your own, its just much more complicated to do it in the cloud. When you have to be able to prove by audit that only US persons are authorized to access the datacenter and that only US persons have accessed the datacenter then you need a provider willing to do that as well as contracts, policies, and procedures. It all needs to be audit-able and evidence based. If you need to do these things in the cloud then you need to do them in-house too. Which means that you already do the basics in-house making it attractive to do things in-house. Take Confluence for example, if I use the cloud version I can't store any files there or have any information about certain projects. But I can run the same Confluence in-house and then we can share project details. As you point out, its not always that easy.

hunter2_ 7y ago

The fact that they show end users (no pun intended) an "end-to-end encrypted" badge on the meeting window itself, and elsewhere explain how a Zoom server (not Zoom client) is what constitutes an "end" despite the whole rest of the electronic communication industry using "end-to-end" to refer exclusively to user agents, is bonkers.

paulryanrogers 7y ago
Agreed. It's unlikely they stumbled onto an industry standard phrase like that alone, then innocently used it without knowing the generally accepted meaning. This is deceptive advertising.
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  Not just "deceptive" nor "unlikely", it's blatant false advertising.
  - harry8 7y ago
    Fraudulent is the word i would use.
    - diggan 7y ago
      "Fraudulent", at least as far as I know, is reserved for "intentional deception". It could be that Zoom is indeed doing this intentionally, but without proof of it being intentional, I don't think we should assume so. insert Hanlons razor quote here
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - loup-vaillant 7y ago
        A company this prominent is unlikely to be that incompetent. Malice is more probable at this point, Hanlon's razor notwithstanding.

Ohn0 7y ago

It was clear from Zoom's security vulnerability last year that they value ease-of-use over security, so it seems obvious to me they wouldn't care about privacy.

georgewfraser 7y ago

I've found Hangouts to be equal in call quality to Zoom, and it runs entirely in the web browser. The only down side is it consumes a LOT of power, so you need to stay plugged in while you use it.

waynenilsen 7y ago
Also can't have too many attendees
- georgewfraser 7y ago
  You can have 200, and you can also live-stream large meetings. It is a bit weird that you have to split the stream, but it's worked great for us doing ~300 person all-hands meetings.
  - tonyztan 7y ago
    Google Meet also works well if you have G Suite: https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/ https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/
kiwijamo 7y ago
Consuming a lot of power could be a show stopper for organisations where lots of staff are on older equipment? Zoom works flawlessly even on older hardware.

deminature 7y ago

This is a knee-jerk reaction. Zoom was indirectly sending information to Facebook as part of their Facebook SDK integration to enable login, not directly as part of explicit information gathering. Any app that integrates with the Facebook SDK does this, and they've also patched it already [1]. The supposed root exploit found in Zoom also requires physical, logged-in access to the machine, at which point a Zoom exploit is the least of your problems [2]. Zoom is a solid piece of software, and the developers are responsive and seem to care. I'm disappointed to see it getting dumped on during the past few days. A cynic might even suspect a co-ordinated campaign by Cisco, considering Zoom was started by frustrated ex-Cisco employees and has had runaway growth during the viral crisis, while the same cannot be said for Cisco's competitor product WebEx. [1] https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/27/zoom-use-of-facebook-sdk-in-ios-client/ https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/27/zoom-use-of-facebo... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/01/new-zoom-bugs-takeover-macs-cam-mic-root/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/01/new-zoom-bugs-takeover-macs-c...

toasterlovin 7y ago
> This is a knee-jerk reaction. When you make weapons technology (as SpaceX does; rockets are weapons technology) and are involved in launching military satellites (as SpaceX is), you kinda have to take security issues seriously.
yumraj 7y ago
> This is a knee-jerk reaction. Large part of, if not entire, Zoom engineering is based in China, so just based on that singular fact IMHO this is not at all a knee-jerk reaction. Add to that numerous security found in Zoom just over the last few days, and I'm surprised why more companies are not doing the same.
- shrewduser 7y ago
  exactly, plus when you're spaceX or a similar tech company it's much better to be safe than sorry. you don't always have the luxury to assume good intentions.
- damanamathos 7y ago

moron4hire 7y ago

Setting up Jitsi on a very basic Linux VM is super easy. I know, because I am terrible at server setup and even I was able to do it in a couple of hours this morning.

pugworthy 7y ago
Yes, but what do you know about its security?
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Well, it's my own server, and the code is open source, so... pretty trivial to verify.
  - nemothekid 7y ago
    >and the code is open source, so... pretty trivial to verify. * laughs in Heartbleed
  - pugworthy 7y ago
    Yes, but what do you know about its security? Your user name doesn't give me confidence...
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    It will never be trivial to verify outside the most basic of programs.
  - topkeks 7y ago
    Unless your name is Tavis Ormandy, you're retarded.

m0zg 7y ago

As they should, since they're subject to ITAR regulations, and ITAR is not a joke.

annoyingnoob 7y ago
Came to say the same thing. Zoom is impossible if you are considered part of the DoD supply chain. Most of the public products are untenable if you need to talk about ITAR projects or about anything considered CUI.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Even if they weren't supplying the DoD with anything, rocket technology is missile technology. (Granted, liquid fueled ICBMs are old-school, but they'd nevertheless still be under ITAR even if they took no government contracts.)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

They also don't use AWS.

galacticaactual 7y ago
Pretty definitive statement there. Source?
- etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
  Can't seem to find it right now :/ sorry.
  - numpad0 7y ago
    Plausible though, considering Musk’s fundamentalist tone
    - gpm 7y ago
      And the amount of classified material they handle, and the fact that Jeff Bezos is a direct competitor so Amazon is very very closely affiliated with a direct competitor.
      - slenk 7y ago
        So, SpaceX.com at least uses an IP address owned by Amazon: https://www.abuseipdb.com/whois/50.112.120.214 https://www.abuseipdb.com/whois/50.112.120.214 slenk@Enterprise:~$ host spacex.com spacex.com has address 50.112.120.214 [output truncated]
        _ph_ 7y ago
        Well, there is no security problem to host a public web site on e.g. AWS. I think the restrictions more affect internal, confidential data.

droithomme 7y ago

I'm not Zooming, but everyone I know is, and it looks pretty damn slick and seems to work great. I can't think of any service that has had as fast and huge an adoption, which is obviously due to blind luck/things beyond their control (no one saw global apocalypse coming and hoping for such would be a horrible business plan). Of course there's been other services working just as well or better for at least 10 years now. Interesting things converged suddenly on Zoom. I guess full cross-platform support was the key? Also interesting is the deluge of anti-zoom articles that are blanketing the cybersphere :-) just as they are getting traction. Jealous rivals? Disgruntled lovers?

dang 7y ago
Zoom is the deluge du jour (literally—today has been the day of Zoom deluge complaints), but Occam called and wanted to let us know that we don't need any sinister explanations. It's obviously (or at least, explicable) as an effect of the covid crisis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22751116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22751116
- droithomme 7y ago
  Thanks, that "black hole story" is a really useful and compelling metaphor.

gonesilent 7y ago

Spacex is a targeted environment. It's smart for them to not use such a service. Many years back it was getting hardware shipments intercepted and bugged. A company was spun out of just dealing with the amount of attempts to root Elons devices.

Robotbeat 7y ago
Which company?
- bootloop 7y ago
  Many claims. Not enough sources.
- gonesilent 7y ago
  Spikes Security.
- DingleDook101 7y ago
  Musk is My Daddy LLC.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

Guys, I'm starting to think this company isn't worth a P/E ratio of 1600.

julianlam 7y ago
I'm surprised by the concerns raised by the HN commenters. When Zoom filed their S1, HN was nothing but complimentary about their product and business model. The time to pull out might be after their next quarterly report.

nilkn 7y ago

Zoom is such a bizarre product. For huge video calls, it tends to perform as well or better than everything else out there. Yet at the same time it literally seems like straight-up malware and seems to violate your trust and privacy left and right every step of the way, even in the installer (!).

allover 7y ago
To be fair it does perform better than everything else, which is why people are so forgiving of it, but it still doesn't excuse their ineptitude on privacy and security.
- flattone 7y ago
  Yeah. Security and privacy preclude performance. Like ... i dont need a Ferrari with an activated self destruct. ill take the camry, thanks.
  - blackoil 7y ago
    More like all glass Ferrari vs all black Camry. People are choosing Ferrari
    - caycep 7y ago
      the Ferrari is noted for an unfortunate tendency to catch on fire and burn to the ground...
- grahamburger 7y ago
  In my experience Google's Hangout Meetings have been at least as good or better quality and the interface is far superior in my opinion. For example it works in the browser without any plugins (even in Firefox.)
  - pragmatic 7y ago
    The quality send to suffer when there are a large number of participants. Which is the reason zoom gets used so much.

rflrob 7y ago

The rumor that I've heard is that the "security and privacy concerns" are that Boeing has somehow gotten access to their Zoom. I don't know what that means, exactly, but it's at least somewhat more rational than being concerned that facebook is siphoning up the data.

34679 7y ago
Where did you hear this rumor?
- pugworthy 7y ago
  I'd like to know that too. Worthy of a downvote until substantiated.
CamperBob2 7y ago
Good, maybe they'll learn a thing or two about how to build reliable space vehicles.

dsimms 7y ago

I have to agree that Zoom just doesn't seem to care very much about privacy or security. Once? Sure, maybe an honest mistake. But, come on. Also, I have been enjoying this: https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector which highlights how optional the use of the native client is.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

To those saying SpaceX is subject to ITAR and defence standards, what does that say for anyone in healthcare, finance, California or Europe? Zoom is looking like it’s closer to Discord than Slack.

stonogo 7y ago
Zoom and Slack are both FedRamp authorized for government use. Zoom is even authorized Moderate, while Slack is still being audited for that rating. https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/product/zoom-for-government https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/product/zoom-for-governmen... https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/product/slack https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/product/slack
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  You don't get zoom's government platform by default, you have to ask for it and I'll bet it has different pricing. I suspect you also lose some features, like recording (at least at the server). I haven't checked Zoom but other FedRamp products I've seen are 3x the price of the standard offering.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - eitally 7y ago
    FedRAMP moderate doesn't require an isolated, US citizen-only-staffed, environment. Only FedrAMP High requires that, so they can still be on shared infra for moderate.
- ibrault 7y ago
  I'm not sure what FedRAMP is but I work at an FFRDC and Slack is explicitly banned for all ITAR materials. Mattermost is used, though
  - stonogo 7y ago

crankylinuxuser 7y ago

Being the Linux geek, I use MS Teams. I even use it with its Linux client, and works astonishingly well. My only 2 grievances with it are: 1. Teams steals focus to make the next message on a group, rather than in the threat ALL THE TIME. Ive been there for a dozen comments because Teams stole cursor focus. 2. Its easy to make an invite to a one-shot room, rather than use an existing room. Doing so loses all history and provenance and discussion. And there's no "merge this room with the real place" when that happens. But all in all, Ive been on 130+ person calls with no issue. Works very well, aside those issues above.

fartcannon 7y ago
Yikes. The only place MS has in any of this is on the list of privacy invaders and products to avoid.
kiwijamo 7y ago
Teams has video conferencing? Wow never knew this and I use Teams often for $WORKPLACE. I find it a bloated mess with little things that don't work very well e.g. opening Word documents opens in a weird HTML editor which stuffs up the formatting of delicate documents. It's so bad I never share things via Teams and just email instead. So not sure if I'd want to try its video conferencing function if it can't get other basic stuff right?
btilly 7y ago
I have to use MS Teams and hate it. The fact that I lived with the bug described in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741348 for a long time with no idea how to fix it didn't help.

shirro 7y ago

I feel very conflicted on Zoom. It mostly just works and on every platform, even Linux. My kids use it to do their music lessons now. It really is very good at what it does in a time when such solutions are needed. Also they responded to the mobile facebook sdk issue and the macos issue quickly. But I agree the way they suggest it is end to end encrypted is misleading. I don't think it really can be end to end to get the performance and features. People just need to see each other at the moment. You can do anything sensitive with more secure communication. But it clearly doesn't belong in any place discussing technology with military applications. I still think it is solid for my kids to keep up with their lessons or for a weekly meeting about some web development. There are genuine criticisms of Zoom at the moment that need to be taken seriously but there is likely also some negative media being generated from their competition that are missing out.

simonh 7y ago
They did not address the OSX issue for ages. They claimed it was intentional and a valuable feature for customers. In the end Apple had to release a security update to remove the web server.

ramshorns 7y ago

So what's a good open source replacement? Jitsi, Jitsi Meet, Linphone, Ekiga, Jami and a bunch of others look okay [1], but it's hard to say how easy they are to use. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software

Maakuth 7y ago
I've used Jitsi Meet with ordinary (that is, non-IT) people without trouble.I've also recommended it to elementary school teachers, who have been happy with it. It works with desktop browser, on mobile it offers a minimal app installation. Self-hosting is quite easy with their apt repo.
solarkraft 7y ago
I don't even know the other projects because I'm so satisfied with Jitsi. Everyone around me uses it and also seems pretty happy.

namelosw 7y ago

Zoom's hidden doctrine "convenience over privacy" works really well. They assume their user wouldn't care too much about security and privacy, and sadly, for the vast majority, they assumed correct.

rootsudo 7y ago

Good, the less we use Zoom the better. Even facebook Messenger is more secure.

kiwijamo 7y ago
Would you suggest organisational video conference meetings of e.g. 25-100 people over Messenger...? There is a niche Zoom is occupying very well.
- rootsudo 7y ago
  It's more of a "trusting" facebook transparency vs if Messenger has the same solution that Zoom fits in. Meanwhile, it's 2020. Didn't think video conferencing was such a big deal.

nojvek 7y ago

That's the right thing to do. If SpaceX is important to national security, then Zoom security and privacy is so bad, that a bad actor could steal SpaceX technology. At my previous job, we used to dial in random zoom numbers and entered into random conversations of other companies. Once we landed into a Facebook call where they were talking about Libra (before it was a thing). If you turn of camera and video, the host doesn't even know you're there unless they check guest list.

gnicholas 7y ago
Doesn’t it chime when someone enters?
- chance_state 7y ago
  Sure, but with a large enough call, legitimate users may come and go during the call too.
- lttlrck 7y ago
  It’s optional.

W-Stool 7y ago

I've never heard of the Zoom app until about three weeks ago and now I'm reading something about it here on HN almost every day. Why is this company and their app suddenly so popular and so critiqued? I thought the world was Skype, FaceTime, WebEx, that whole cluster of technologies and related applications. Why are the Zoom folks suddenly on the front page everywher?

xyproto 7y ago
The ongoing pandemic increses the need for online conversations with 100+ people.
twic 7y ago
WebEx is terrible, FaceTime is Apple-only, Skype is circling the drain since being bought by Microsoft, so there is a lot of pent-up demand for a good cross-platform videoconferencing tool. Zoom is one of the front-runners. There is a good overview of the options in an article recently posted here - see under "Videoconferencing": https://apenwarr.ca/log/20200309 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20200309

keyle 7y ago

"Please use email, text [...]" as an alternative with concern over privacy?

Antoninus 7y ago

Think of the poor engineers working to roll out some form of legit end-to-end protocol while this blows up in management's face. Godspeed.

rasz 7y ago

Remember the movie Antitrust, where Bill Gates type character played by Tim Robbins records everyones computer screens to steal secrets? Thats Zoom for you, minus the murders.

dba7dba 7y ago

I really really wish Apple would build a replacement for zoom, that is available on as many devices as zoom is. This is a matter of national issue. This rush to remote is not something that will go away completely. I think many security minded people are not comfortable with zoom, but have to use it. Please Apple, build something that can replace zoom.

sunkenvicar 7y ago

First TikTok now Zoom. Chinese soft power with a side of espionage.

HenryBemis 7y ago

Has anyone noticed how hard some late-night-US-TV-shows are pushing (advertising) Zoom? Stephen Colber, Seth Meyers... Zoom is spending big $$$$ to advertise. While competition (WebEx for example) has been silently killing it. I feel that Zoom wants to be "the new cool kid" in town for which nobody knows anything about.. and while we do learn it looks that it's got some shady practices (as we discuss here).

_ph_ 7y ago

The problem with Zoom isn't, that it doesn't have end-to-end encryption. If you consider the problem, it is extremely difficult to solve, as in contrast to a 1:1 video call, the server somehow has to to multiplex the streams and thus at least some access to them. With a trustworthy provider, this isn't a big issue. A trustworthy provider will have a clear policy which ensures that only the multiplexer has access to the unencrypted data. After all, you are running a proprietary client from that provider, and each client of course has access to all unencrypted data. The problem is, that the actions of Zoom doesn't make them look like a trustworthy provider. They lied about the end-to-end encryption. What they should have done instead is to be transparent on how unencrypted data is used on their servers and what their protocols are to prevent unauthorized access to that data. Which is especially important in a business context, because the business users themselves have confidentiality agreements, they need to guarantee and using an external provider for confidential data required that provider passing the neccessary scrutiny. And of course, the huge pile of security issues coming up with their client, the web server, the mac installer, the script host, give any reason to believe that they either don't know what they are doing or completely reckless at least. And the term "reckless" doesn't fit in a conversation about security :).

diebeforei485 7y ago
FaceTime seems to do it well enough. It's limited to ~30 people per call though.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  The problem is the required bandwidth, if you send all streams to all participients. If you do that, you can do end-to-end encryption, but you have to send all streams at the maximum resolution you want to support. If the server handles the mixing, each client only needs to be send one full-resolution stream.
mdavidn 7y ago
No. "End-to-end encryption" does not protect metadata necessary to route the data over a network, just the contents of the communication. The clients could negotiate keys to protect the contents of a meeting end-to-end. In other words, Zoom servers could deduce who was speaking, when they spoke, and for how long, but not what they said. Your internet service provider can deduce the same about your HTTPS connections.

garyclarke27 7y ago

I use MS Teams in my company, seems to work very well, great quality video, I’m don’t fully understand the security issues with Zoom, so I’m curious, does anyone know how MS Teams compares to Zoom?? The school my kids go to (in Portugal) also use Teams, for online learning, seems to be working well for them now. (Europe had issues a few weeks ago with Teams, when most of the schools first closed)

LatteLazy 7y ago
I believe... MS Teams is better but you have to pay for it (and maybe it's complex to implement too). Zoom is free (and supports large numbers of participants which other free alternatives don't). Also meetings can be setup with about 4 mouse clicks by the user himself with no other kit than a browser in Zoom. Getting your art department home workers to correctly It has been weird watching people insist we use zoom because it supports so many users, when there are only three of us actually in a meeting. So the cynic in my suspects it's being used by (say) schools and universities (as the Skype limit was 32 people, now 50). And other people have assumed it's better since Harvard\Cambridge use it, so now they use it for 4 people...
- garyclarke27 7y ago
  Thanks - Teams is surprisingly easy (for a Microsoft product) to set up a glitch free video conference call. I was curious how secure it is? Its free with an Office 365 subscription and they are quite cheap, office is pretty much essential for most businesses, I think schools get it very cheap or even for free.
gnud 7y ago
The issue with Teams is the issue all modern Microsoft services have: Their account systems are really confusing, and they actively make it worse in the UI. I have 4 different accounts that have access to different Teams instances. They all have my full name, and therefore the same initials. There is no way to tell which account you are logged in as, in the UI. A couple of months ago, they finally fixed the "log out and log in as a different user" flow so it actually did something for me. Before that, it would log out, and then just automatically log back in as the same user. You can't (as far as I can tell) run two instances as different users at the same time. I join most Teams meetings as "guest" on my phone. That works OK, but it doesn't really say much good about the Windows app.

fbnlsr 7y ago

I'm completely out of the loop with Zoom. What's so great about this compared to Google Meet for instance?

zkid18 7y ago

Why ppl are so obsessed with e2e as a de-facto synonym for security? Another question, why ppl who so care about security keep relying marketing stuff rather than using open-source solution?

tmoravec 7y ago

So what video conferencing solution do they use instead?