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Zoom is not a Chinese company. The founder merely was born in China. He is US citizen. I am very put off by this anti-China rhetoric. Everything that even has

Zoom is not a Chinese company. The founder merely was born in China. He is US citizen. I am very put off by this anti-China rhetoric. Everything that even has a remote connection to China is now under suspicion. This is madness.

dasil003 6y ago
Agreed, this is a huge distraction that gives cover to bad domestic policy and surveillance over-reach.
imglorp 6y ago
Maybe not a Chinese company, but there's a lot of smoke around the question of control. Enough smoke to indicate fire? Eg smoke: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto-a-quick-look-at-the-confidentiality-of-zoom-meetings/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto...
atonse 6y ago
Errr what? Their development team is entirely based out of China. Please, spare me the rubbish about anti-China rhetoric. This has nothing to do with the Chinese people or culture. I clarified that this is for local _government_ clients. It absolutely matters, whether you get offended or not. I also mentioned that my company is a Zoom customer and this move generally has me happy. We had the same conversation about Russian owned antivirus companies months ago as well. I understand there is legitimate concern about anti-Asian rhetoric. I just wanted to clarify that it's not where I'm coming from. As someone who introduced Keybase to these clients, these questions are going to come to me. And I want to have an answer for my government clients for this legitimate concern.
- oefrha 6y ago
  This “development team entirely based out of China” bullshit is so easily debunked it’s not even funny. A simple glance at the list of open positions could tell you it’s false. https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Zoom https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Zoom
  - richardwhiuk 6y ago
    Unless they've made a major shift, it's definitely true: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead-of-ipo-engineers-in-china.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead...
    - oefrha 6y ago
      It’s pretty hard to argue with someone who can’t see the difference between largely and entirely.
      - samatman 6y ago
        If you have reason to be concerned about the CCP undermining your communications infrastructure, it's a distinction without a difference. Like yes, you're correct, the person you're replying to is wrong. But the reason they brought it up remains valid with the correction.
        oefrha 6y ago
        If someone first makes a false accusation, then post a “correction” only to double down on a lesser yet still false accusation, I’d say it’s reason enough to conclude that they’re arguing in bad faith and attempting to slander. You don’t need to spread false information to make a possibly valid point. People also increasingly use this sort of “yeah, they play fast and loose with facts but they have a point so cheers” to defend garbage journalism and I’m not a fan at all.
        atonse 6y ago
        If you're getting hung up about the difference of me saying "entirely" and "largely" – yeah ok you're right. Mathematically, for the word "entirely" to be true, it would have to be every single breathing soul at zoom that ever touches any tech. I actually did mis-read from an older article that all their development is done in China (the language is that their R&D and tech teams are concentrated in China). Hence I said entirely. But yes let's go with largely. This is an argument about who has jurisdiction to force the altering of parts of their tech stack. Entirely vs Largely: Does that do _anything_ to alter my concerns? Nope.
- dang 6y ago
  If you want to clarify that that's not where you're coming from, aggressive swipes like "please spare me the rubbish" have to go. It's against the HN guidelines to post like that, so please edit it out in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
msla 6y ago
> I am very put off by this anti-China rhetoric. It isn't anti-China, it's anti-PRC. The difference is obvious.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  China is an authoritarian one-party state. There might be a difference, but it's pretty slim.
  - msla 6y ago
    > China is an authoritarian one-party state. There might be a difference, but it's pretty slim. China is a culture with a very long history, like all cultures, and a diasporic population, not to mention all of the Chinese people under the rule of the Republic of China on Taiwan. Confusing the PRC with the entirety of Chinese people, Chinese culture, and China as a whole is rather similar to refusing to distinguish between Nazis and Germans, and only serves to either make criticism of the PRC impossible, since one can always accuse the critic of racism, or make defense of the Chinese people and culture impossible, since it will be taken as burnishing the PRC.
    - rimjongun 6y ago
      Nobody is confusing Chinese people with the PRC. Stop muddying the waters of an important and policy impacting conversation.
      - msla 6y ago
        Someone in this very thread is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23111557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23111557
        FooBarWidget 6y ago
        I am not confusing CCP with the entirety of Chinese people, culture and history, as I have already explained elsewhere. I am, however, claiming that the CCP is massively intertwined with mainland Chinese people. See this article that explains this in more detail: https://oxfordpoliticalreview.com/amp/2020/04/24/china-series-1/ https://oxfordpoliticalreview.com/amp/2020/04/24/china-serie... So if you say "I am against CCP, not the Chinese people", then that statement only makes sense if you exclude "many many mainlanders" from the definition of "Chinese people". Which makes the statement rather weak, or even nonsensical. You say that if we accept this intertwine, it makes criticism impossible. Not so. You can still criticize the CCP, but you need to be more nuanced with your criticism, do more due diligence instead of merely rehashing western narratives, and realize that you're criticizing the CCP and the people at the same time (which could be entirely legit). I therefore argue that recognizing the CCP - mainland people intertwine is a good thing, as it makes criticism more honest, more accurate, and possibly more helpful/constructive. No longer can you put all the blame on "just the bad guys" -- all of us mainlanders are complicit in some sense. We all own the problem, so we can't stop at just blaming, and have to actually find a solution.
vikramkr 6y ago
Yeah, Zoom is a US based company. Yes, they have a development team in China. It is valid to be concerned about the Chinese government exercising control of some sort over the local development team to put in a backdoor, just as our government seems to want to do to US developed products. No politicians really seem to like encryption very much. This is an overall geopolitical risk not unique to Zoom. But Zoom is not a Chinese company, it falls under US jurisdiction. And sovereign security risks are not unique to Chinese companies. Just saying that Zoom needs to be treated with caution because it is a "Chinese company" is lazy and inaccurate, and incorrectly characterizes both Zoom and where that risk originates.
- atonse 6y ago
  Yes, and I've clarified and fixed my originally badly described wording. I'll let Zoom describe this themselves. From Zoom's S-1 [1]: "In addition, we have a high concentration of research and development personnel in China, which could expose us to market scrutiny regarding the integrity of our solution or data security features. Any security compromise in our industry, whether actual or perceived, could harm our reputation, erode confidence in the effectiveness of our security measures, negatively affect our ability to attract new customers and hosts, cause existing customers to elect not to renew their subscriptions or subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines or other action or liability, which could harm our business." [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1585521/000119312519083351/d642624ds1.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1585521/000119312519...
  - vikramkr 6y ago
    Thanks for clarifying that, and yes, Zoom's s-1 writers did a good job of laying it out. The risks are real, and presenting them in an incorrect way makes it easy for people to dismiss the risks when they shouldn't. If the times comes because they're a Chinese company, and you check and see that they're a delaware c corp founded by a US citizen headquartered in the US, that would lead you to discount that risk. Clarifying that the risk comes from the development team being in a country where the government is in a contentious trade relationship with the US with an authoritarian regime (especially if the dev team isn't in one of the special economic zones) helps highlight what the risk is and confirm that it is a real threat.
kordlessagain 6y ago
As others have pointed out, without rhetoric, over 700 Chinese nationals work for a couple of companies Zoom owns. Legal entities based in China. So, it's a China company and a US company. My wife works for an Indian/US company. It happens, and it's a thing. The "rhetoric" of public opinion isn't always backed by logic, but it usually is backed by some good reason to be upset or irritated by the thing they (us in mass) are judging. In this case, it's pretty clear that the Chinese government is acting divisively and is doing that either to protect itself (the leaders/their control) or the people (which is then implied they can't care for themselves or know better). Either way, the route China (the govt.) has taken with business, politics, history, culture or whatever, is viewed less than desirable by Western culture. If you don't like the judgement, you can bitch about it or forget about it. Not my horse, not my wagon. We've got bigger, oranger problems here.
carapace 6y ago
C'mon: Hong Kong, persecution of Uighurs and Falun Gong and political prisoners and artists and journalists and anyone who talks about Taiwan or the Tienanmen Square Massacre, IP theft, cyber attacks, political aggression in the South China Sea ("Nine-Dash Line"), not to mention trying to expend their censorship apparatus internationally! I like China but the CCP is a problem.
- mst 6y ago
  Meanwhile, anti-anti-China people are ... often well meaning but a bit daft. One managed to mishear "Uighur Muslims" (yes, there are anti-anti-China people who don't know who they are, and yes, they misheard "Uighur" as a word starting with "N") and it took me quite some annoyance to get that straightened out and everybody on the "Chinese people pretty cool, Xi really not so much" page.
  - msla 6y ago
    > it took me quite some annoyance to get that straightened out and everybody on the "Chinese people pretty cool, Xi really not so much" page. This shouldn't be hard to get across, except the CCP is very interested in ensuring people don't distinguish between the government of the People's Republic of China and Chinese people as a whole. Which leads to criticism of the CCP/PRC being seen as racist, which adds lots of heat to the discussion but absolutely no light. Precisely what the CCP would want, were it to attempt to influence online discussions. But I'm sure the CCP doesn't try to influence online discussions.... right?
    - FooBarWidget 6y ago
      Oh man, you really overestimate the CCP's media competence. Take a look at the state media and propaganda in China. It's all very traditional, very straightforward, mostly fact based (even if cherry-picked). Even the infamous 50 cents army is pretty stupid, and not what you think it is: https://www.quora.com/Does-the-50-cent-army-really-exist-and-if-so-whats-the-point-It-seems-like-its-only-worsened-Chinas-international-image/answer/Truever-Zhang https://www.quora.com/Does-the-50-cent-army-really-exist-and... CCP influencing online discussions in the west? Hahahaha! As someone who's neutral (not even supportive) about the CCP, I can only hope that they become that competent within a decade. Those idiots still have no idea how sophisticated communication with western audiences needs to be. In the mean time, western media walks all over them, even with stories that are easily debunked.
bsder 6y ago
> I am very put off by this anti-China rhetoric. Everything that even has a remote connection to China is now under suspicion. This is madness. Personally, I don't want companies even having development groups in China simply because I don't want China deriving any benefit from the outside world given their behavior over many things (Great Firewall, Hong Kong, Uyghurs, general human rights, covering up Covid-19 to start, etc.). We are well past the point that "giving to China" will normalize them. Evidence shows that attitude has failed. It's time to treat them like the persona non grata that they deserve to be. That's beside the security implications.
ekianjo 6y ago
> Zoom is not a Chinese company So how do you call a company whose operations are more than 90% in China, employing Chinese engineers, under the supervision of the CCP? You may be technically right, on paper it's a "US company", but come on...
msla 6y ago
C'mon: Hong Kong, persecution of Uighurs and Falun Gong and political prisoners and artists and journalists and anyone who talks about Taiwan or the Tienanmen Square Massacre, IP theft, cyber attacks, political aggression in the South China Sea ("Nine-Dash Line"), not to mention trying to expend their censorship apparatus internationally!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

dasil003 6y ago

Agreed, this is a huge distraction that gives cover to bad domestic policy and surveillance over-reach.

imglorp 6y ago

Maybe not a Chinese company, but there's a lot of smoke around the question of control. Enough smoke to indicate fire? Eg smoke: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto-a-quick-look-at-the-confidentiality-of-zoom-meetings/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto...

atonse 6y ago

Errr what? Their development team is entirely based out of China. Please, spare me the rubbish about anti-China rhetoric. This has nothing to do with the Chinese people or culture. I clarified that this is for local _government_ clients. It absolutely matters, whether you get offended or not. I also mentioned that my company is a Zoom customer and this move generally has me happy. We had the same conversation about Russian owned antivirus companies months ago as well. I understand there is legitimate concern about anti-Asian rhetoric. I just wanted to clarify that it's not where I'm coming from. As someone who introduced Keybase to these clients, these questions are going to come to me. And I want to have an answer for my government clients for this legitimate concern.

oefrha 6y ago
This “development team entirely based out of China” bullshit is so easily debunked it’s not even funny. A simple glance at the list of open positions could tell you it’s false. https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Zoom https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Zoom
- richardwhiuk 6y ago
  Unless they've made a major shift, it's definitely true: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead-of-ipo-engineers-in-china.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead...
  - oefrha 6y ago
    It’s pretty hard to argue with someone who can’t see the difference between largely and entirely.
    - samatman 6y ago
      If you have reason to be concerned about the CCP undermining your communications infrastructure, it's a distinction without a difference. Like yes, you're correct, the person you're replying to is wrong. But the reason they brought it up remains valid with the correction.
      - oefrha 6y ago
        If someone first makes a false accusation, then post a “correction” only to double down on a lesser yet still false accusation, I’d say it’s reason enough to conclude that they’re arguing in bad faith and attempting to slander. You don’t need to spread false information to make a possibly valid point. People also increasingly use this sort of “yeah, they play fast and loose with facts but they have a point so cheers” to defend garbage journalism and I’m not a fan at all.
        atonse 6y ago
        If you're getting hung up about the difference of me saying "entirely" and "largely" – yeah ok you're right. Mathematically, for the word "entirely" to be true, it would have to be every single breathing soul at zoom that ever touches any tech. I actually did mis-read from an older article that all their development is done in China (the language is that their R&D and tech teams are concentrated in China). Hence I said entirely. But yes let's go with largely. This is an argument about who has jurisdiction to force the altering of parts of their tech stack. Entirely vs Largely: Does that do _anything_ to alter my concerns? Nope.
dang 6y ago
If you want to clarify that that's not where you're coming from, aggressive swipes like "please spare me the rubbish" have to go. It's against the HN guidelines to post like that, so please edit it out in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

msla 6y ago

> I am very put off by this anti-China rhetoric. It isn't anti-China, it's anti-PRC. The difference is obvious.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
China is an authoritarian one-party state. There might be a difference, but it's pretty slim.
- msla 6y ago
  > China is an authoritarian one-party state. There might be a difference, but it's pretty slim. China is a culture with a very long history, like all cultures, and a diasporic population, not to mention all of the Chinese people under the rule of the Republic of China on Taiwan. Confusing the PRC with the entirety of Chinese people, Chinese culture, and China as a whole is rather similar to refusing to distinguish between Nazis and Germans, and only serves to either make criticism of the PRC impossible, since one can always accuse the critic of racism, or make defense of the Chinese people and culture impossible, since it will be taken as burnishing the PRC.
  - rimjongun 6y ago
    Nobody is confusing Chinese people with the PRC. Stop muddying the waters of an important and policy impacting conversation.
    - msla 6y ago
      Someone in this very thread is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23111557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23111557
      - FooBarWidget 6y ago
        I am not confusing CCP with the entirety of Chinese people, culture and history, as I have already explained elsewhere. I am, however, claiming that the CCP is massively intertwined with mainland Chinese people. See this article that explains this in more detail: https://oxfordpoliticalreview.com/amp/2020/04/24/china-series-1/ https://oxfordpoliticalreview.com/amp/2020/04/24/china-serie... So if you say "I am against CCP, not the Chinese people", then that statement only makes sense if you exclude "many many mainlanders" from the definition of "Chinese people". Which makes the statement rather weak, or even nonsensical. You say that if we accept this intertwine, it makes criticism impossible. Not so. You can still criticize the CCP, but you need to be more nuanced with your criticism, do more due diligence instead of merely rehashing western narratives, and realize that you're criticizing the CCP and the people at the same time (which could be entirely legit). I therefore argue that recognizing the CCP - mainland people intertwine is a good thing, as it makes criticism more honest, more accurate, and possibly more helpful/constructive. No longer can you put all the blame on "just the bad guys" -- all of us mainlanders are complicit in some sense. We all own the problem, so we can't stop at just blaming, and have to actually find a solution.

vikramkr 6y ago

Yeah, Zoom is a US based company. Yes, they have a development team in China. It is valid to be concerned about the Chinese government exercising control of some sort over the local development team to put in a backdoor, just as our government seems to want to do to US developed products. No politicians really seem to like encryption very much. This is an overall geopolitical risk not unique to Zoom. But Zoom is not a Chinese company, it falls under US jurisdiction. And sovereign security risks are not unique to Chinese companies. Just saying that Zoom needs to be treated with caution because it is a "Chinese company" is lazy and inaccurate, and incorrectly characterizes both Zoom and where that risk originates.

atonse 6y ago
Yes, and I've clarified and fixed my originally badly described wording. I'll let Zoom describe this themselves. From Zoom's S-1 [1]: "In addition, we have a high concentration of research and development personnel in China, which could expose us to market scrutiny regarding the integrity of our solution or data security features. Any security compromise in our industry, whether actual or perceived, could harm our reputation, erode confidence in the effectiveness of our security measures, negatively affect our ability to attract new customers and hosts, cause existing customers to elect not to renew their subscriptions or subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines or other action or liability, which could harm our business." [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1585521/000119312519083351/d642624ds1.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1585521/000119312519...
- vikramkr 6y ago
  Thanks for clarifying that, and yes, Zoom's s-1 writers did a good job of laying it out. The risks are real, and presenting them in an incorrect way makes it easy for people to dismiss the risks when they shouldn't. If the times comes because they're a Chinese company, and you check and see that they're a delaware c corp founded by a US citizen headquartered in the US, that would lead you to discount that risk. Clarifying that the risk comes from the development team being in a country where the government is in a contentious trade relationship with the US with an authoritarian regime (especially if the dev team isn't in one of the special economic zones) helps highlight what the risk is and confirm that it is a real threat.

kordlessagain 6y ago

As others have pointed out, without rhetoric, over 700 Chinese nationals work for a couple of companies Zoom owns. Legal entities based in China. So, it's a China company and a US company. My wife works for an Indian/US company. It happens, and it's a thing. The "rhetoric" of public opinion isn't always backed by logic, but it usually is backed by some good reason to be upset or irritated by the thing they (us in mass) are judging. In this case, it's pretty clear that the Chinese government is acting divisively and is doing that either to protect itself (the leaders/their control) or the people (which is then implied they can't care for themselves or know better). Either way, the route China (the govt.) has taken with business, politics, history, culture or whatever, is viewed less than desirable by Western culture. If you don't like the judgement, you can bitch about it or forget about it. Not my horse, not my wagon. We've got bigger, oranger problems here.

carapace 6y ago

C'mon: Hong Kong, persecution of Uighurs and Falun Gong and political prisoners and artists and journalists and anyone who talks about Taiwan or the Tienanmen Square Massacre, IP theft, cyber attacks, political aggression in the South China Sea ("Nine-Dash Line"), not to mention trying to expend their censorship apparatus internationally! I like China but the CCP is a problem.

mst 6y ago
Meanwhile, anti-anti-China people are ... often well meaning but a bit daft. One managed to mishear "Uighur Muslims" (yes, there are anti-anti-China people who don't know who they are, and yes, they misheard "Uighur" as a word starting with "N") and it took me quite some annoyance to get that straightened out and everybody on the "Chinese people pretty cool, Xi really not so much" page.
- msla 6y ago
  > it took me quite some annoyance to get that straightened out and everybody on the "Chinese people pretty cool, Xi really not so much" page. This shouldn't be hard to get across, except the CCP is very interested in ensuring people don't distinguish between the government of the People's Republic of China and Chinese people as a whole. Which leads to criticism of the CCP/PRC being seen as racist, which adds lots of heat to the discussion but absolutely no light. Precisely what the CCP would want, were it to attempt to influence online discussions. But I'm sure the CCP doesn't try to influence online discussions.... right?
  - FooBarWidget 6y ago
    Oh man, you really overestimate the CCP's media competence. Take a look at the state media and propaganda in China. It's all very traditional, very straightforward, mostly fact based (even if cherry-picked). Even the infamous 50 cents army is pretty stupid, and not what you think it is: https://www.quora.com/Does-the-50-cent-army-really-exist-and-if-so-whats-the-point-It-seems-like-its-only-worsened-Chinas-international-image/answer/Truever-Zhang https://www.quora.com/Does-the-50-cent-army-really-exist-and... CCP influencing online discussions in the west? Hahahaha! As someone who's neutral (not even supportive) about the CCP, I can only hope that they become that competent within a decade. Those idiots still have no idea how sophisticated communication with western audiences needs to be. In the mean time, western media walks all over them, even with stories that are easily debunked.

bsder 6y ago

> I am very put off by this anti-China rhetoric. Everything that even has a remote connection to China is now under suspicion. This is madness. Personally, I don't want companies even having development groups in China simply because I don't want China deriving any benefit from the outside world given their behavior over many things (Great Firewall, Hong Kong, Uyghurs, general human rights, covering up Covid-19 to start, etc.). We are well past the point that "giving to China" will normalize them. Evidence shows that attitude has failed. It's time to treat them like the persona non grata that they deserve to be. That's beside the security implications.

ekianjo 6y ago

> Zoom is not a Chinese company So how do you call a company whose operations are more than 90% in China, employing Chinese engineers, under the supervision of the CCP? You may be technically right, on paper it's a "US company", but come on...

msla 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]