4 ms·

Fraudulent is the word i would use.

by harry8 7y ago

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.
  - diggan 7y ago
    Eh, haven't large companies leaked private details from their customers time and time again, in basic ways like forgetting that they have backups on S3 buckets with zero protection? Being incompetent has nothing to do with the size or prominence of the company. Big/prominent companies fuck up/are sloppy all the time.
    - welfare 7y ago
      This is not a fuck up or negligence, Zoom deliberately used "end-to-end" with a completely different meaning than the rest of the world. I can't describe this as anything else than malicious and fraudulent. Their intention was to deceive users that the communication was encrypted, when in reality it wasn't.
      - diggan 7y ago
        I guess you don't have experience working in a company with a marketing team that feel they can buzzword things in without checking with IT teams then. I'm in no way saying it's impossible that Zoom did say E2E encryption while knowing that's not true, but I could imagine a scenario where a security person says "Yeah, we're encrypting connections to our backend" and a marketing person researching E2E and then saying to themselves "Yeah, sounds like we're doing E2E, let's write that", because this stuff happens all the time in the industry. > Their intention was to deceive users You sound so sure about their intentions, do you have any actual proof of this that others are missing? Again, I'm not saying it's impossible that their intention was to deceive users, but as an engineer, I always favor proof over guessing.
- trickstra 7y ago
  The IT guys in the industry know very well what constitutes an E2E encryption. Those two ends must be "trusted" which means it's either you yourself - your computer, or the other party which you want to talk to. Everything in between is third party and must get only encrypted data. If they redefine one of the "ends" as Zoom server, that's definitely intentional, blatant, and therefore fraudulent.
  - diggan 7y ago
    I'm not disagreeing that they are using E2E wrong, I fully agree with you there. But just because someone uses a word wrong doesn't give you any proof about their intentions. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767447 for further elaboration on that point. Again, it's harmful to use words incorrectly, _especially_ when it comes to E2E, so they should rightly get flak for getting it wrong. You all seem to be so sure that it was intentional though, while I've seen the same problem so many times before in the industry without it being intentional. If you do have proof it's intentional, please share it with the rest of us so we can be on the same page.
goatinaboat 7y ago
It’s akin to VW putting claims to be emissions compliant in their ads.

Fraudulent is the word i would use.

by harry8 7y ago

Fraudulent is the word i would use.

"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.
- diggan 7y ago
  Eh, haven't large companies leaked private details from their customers time and time again, in basic ways like forgetting that they have backups on S3 buckets with zero protection? Being incompetent has nothing to do with the size or prominence of the company. Big/prominent companies fuck up/are sloppy all the time.
  - welfare 7y ago
    This is not a fuck up or negligence, Zoom deliberately used "end-to-end" with a completely different meaning than the rest of the world. I can't describe this as anything else than malicious and fraudulent. Their intention was to deceive users that the communication was encrypted, when in reality it wasn't.
    - diggan 7y ago
      I guess you don't have experience working in a company with a marketing team that feel they can buzzword things in without checking with IT teams then. I'm in no way saying it's impossible that Zoom did say E2E encryption while knowing that's not true, but I could imagine a scenario where a security person says "Yeah, we're encrypting connections to our backend" and a marketing person researching E2E and then saying to themselves "Yeah, sounds like we're doing E2E, let's write that", because this stuff happens all the time in the industry. > Their intention was to deceive users You sound so sure about their intentions, do you have any actual proof of this that others are missing? Again, I'm not saying it's impossible that their intention was to deceive users, but as an engineer, I always favor proof over guessing.
trickstra 7y ago
The IT guys in the industry know very well what constitutes an E2E encryption. Those two ends must be "trusted" which means it's either you yourself - your computer, or the other party which you want to talk to. Everything in between is third party and must get only encrypted data. If they redefine one of the "ends" as Zoom server, that's definitely intentional, blatant, and therefore fraudulent.
- diggan 7y ago
  I'm not disagreeing that they are using E2E wrong, I fully agree with you there. But just because someone uses a word wrong doesn't give you any proof about their intentions. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767447 for further elaboration on that point. Again, it's harmful to use words incorrectly, _especially_ when it comes to E2E, so they should rightly get flak for getting it wrong. You all seem to be so sure that it was intentional though, while I've seen the same problem so many times before in the industry without it being intentional. If you do have proof it's intentional, please share it with the rest of us so we can be on the same page.

goatinaboat 7y ago

It’s akin to VW putting claims to be emissions compliant in their ads.