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This series of tweets from Alex Stamos has more specific information and tradeoffs being considered: https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408?s

by vjeux 6y ago

This series of tweets from Alex Stamos has more specific information and tradeoffs being considered: https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408?s=21 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408?s=...

culturestate 6y ago
This was really interesting, thanks for linking it. When he puts it in the context of their typical abuse pattern - anonymous emails, VPNs, and just a few meetings - this decision makes much more sense. I hope they expand on their thought process in a blog post at some point, I'd love to read more.
skbly7 6y ago
I like the explanation and seems fair trade off to me for complying with laws. Meanwhile, I think Zoom sucks big time with their PR team unlike Google, Microsoft, due to which they are being pushed again and again on privacy issues.
lilyball 6y ago
That was a good thread, thanks. The relevant bits I got from it were that there are a bunch of bad actors who create new Zoom identities and host meetings a few times before moving on, and Zoom needs a means by which they “can, if they have a strong belief that the meeting is abusive, enter the meeting visibly and report it if necessary.” Their E2EE design will make it impossible for Zoom employees to enter E2EE meetings without permission, so giving E2EE to the free tier will enable people to use Zoom meetings to facilitate abuse.
- lilyball 6y ago
  Looking back on this comment now I realize it can be construed as condoning Zoom’s decision here. I was not intending to pass judgement with that comment, but perhaps I should: I think Zoom is wrong. End-to-end encryption should be available to everybody no matter who they are. This means making it available to bad actors too. Expanding the scope of human communication should not be used to justify state surveillance. Privacy is a fundamental human right and one we should not be forced into giving up because it annoys the government.
  - rpastuszak 6y ago
    Yup, I was a bit confused about what you were trying to say. Thanks for clarifying.
  - Blackstone4 6y ago
    Speaking more broadly, surely there is a point between zero privacy and 100% surveillance that we can all move to. If we take the encrypt (E2EE) approach to everything and all aspects of our lives, i.e. we should be able to protect our faces from video recording when walking into banks, then surely the system would be more open to abuse by bad actors. Accountability in society is what drives good behavior....if we take that away then chaos reigns. Therefore there must be a balance which is why the whole 'let's encrypt everything and protect everyone' feels like sometimes it goes too far and borders on zealotry...Yes I feel that personal freedoms are important but so is the state in mantaining peace.
    - pydry 6y ago
      It'll stop feeling like zealotry as governments develop more and more stasi-like tendencies. The trouble is, by the time they do (and they will, China is halfway there), it will be too late to protest.
      - Blackstone4 6y ago
        Fair point with regards to government overeach. I feel like this is both a practical and political question we would need to answer as a society. What level of surveillance would be acceptable? Zero? Some? Maybe when for temporary accounts with no identity attached? Inheritly in society, there was always some form of surveillance. When we left our homes, people around us could see and hear what we are doing and there in report suspicious behavor. Now we are adjusting to a new way of life with new forms of surveillance which are harder to detect. I completely get it and I more for encryption then for not. I guess I am also challenging myself to see both sides and think about a middle ground. While Western governments could be better behaved, I'm feel like comparisons with the stasi are somewhat extreme and out of wack. I live in the UK and generally speaking I'm happy with the government here when it comes to surveillance. Maybe the US has a greater focus on security but they are a long way from stasi.
- gruez 6y ago
  I don't get it. So they're fine with abuse, as long as you're paying them for it? Or do they have some sort of E2EE backdoor (probably, since they manage the keys), that they want to selectively apply, but can't do so if people are constantly using burner accounts, and thus want E2EE users to be somewhat anchored to their payment information?
  - sukilot 6y ago
    Specifically, Zoom is selling Abetting as a Service. For a fee, Zoom will take active steps to shield criminal activity from law enforcement.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  I'm having trouble reading between these lines. What a few good examples of "abusive" meetings?
  - rolph 6y ago
    dick flashers for one thing, and the pattern of connections or attempted connections should be a partial indicator of this sort of abuse, perhaps there should be somesort of flag that could be set on such an account for inappropriate behaviour, or even liberally thinking there should be an adults only adult activity flag to set. this is a hydra that shows up every time someone creates a video chat there is a problem with sausage parties and sextual blackmail that needs work arounds
    - darkarmani 6y ago
      > dick flashers for one thing How are these people invited to meetings and why aren't they kicked from the meeting? How would anyone handle this in a real world meeting?
      - rolph 6y ago
        luring people to invite them as per clickbait methods, using obfusication so they are accidentally invited, straight up blackhat hacking to manipulate the system, early on the public meetings were getting bombed by flashers these types are handled by identifying and outing them, or chasing them away, internet has to go beyond the "your ip number is" thing and demonstrate that there is a real knowledge of who they are, and that they are bothering people and it isnt going unnoticed.
        st1ck 6y ago
        Even if identifying dickflashers is their primary concern, situation can be helped by improving security, not decreasing it. Non-guessable meeting IDs, passwords, maybe unique invite links so it's possible for meeting orgs to identify who invited the flasher. If someone sends clickbait invites to abusive meeting, then victims can trivially report it, possibly with screenshots.
- m-p-3 6y ago
  > Their E2EE design will make it impossible for Zoom employees to enter E2EE meetings without permission If this is acceptable to view a meeting without permission under abuse pretense, then it's also possible to do so even if someone's doing nothing wrong. Even worse, if their system is compromised, a bad actor could monitor free users' meetings without any protections. And what is stopping those bad actors from getting a paid subscription, or maliciously gaining access to a paid account? Or these bad actors could use another system that doesn't compromise (Signal) or host their own. Security comes in layers and logs. A system without these layers and accountability isn't secure. Zoom isn't secure, and is using law enforcement as a scapegoat and pretense to keep their security low.
  - damanamathos 6y ago
    Zoom has said that employees can enter a meeting, but there's no way to do that without being seen on the participant list and there is no way to record a meeting secretly. They've also said they wouldn't build these things. https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/05/07/zoom-acquires-keybase-and-announces-goal-of-developing-the-most-broadly-used-enterprise-end-to-end-encryption-offering/ https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/05/07/zoom-acquires-keyb... >We also do not have a means to insert our employees or others into meetings without being reflected in the participant list. We will not build any cryptographic backdoors to allow for the secret monitoring of meetings.
- ajani 6y ago
  Also I could pay for the service and still be abusive.
enitihas 6y ago
The thread is very good and offers some reasonable points putting their decision in perspective.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
That's a significantly better explanation, and they're really between a rock and a hard place. They get to pick between headlines like the current one, and claims that they support child porn rings (he isn't saying it explicitly, but everything I saw looks like that is the problem they're trying to fight).
- kjaftaedi 6y ago
  Personally I think the whole topic could just have been avoided by not saying anything at all. Zoom needs a business model and saying "if you want encryption you need to pay for it", to me sounds like a reasonable approach to making money. Once you start dragging other reasons into it, you need to start defending them.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    I think it's perfectly reasonable to have multiple reasons for doing something. Making money and deterring malicious users are both valid reasons. Some forums have paid fees for the purpose of deterring unwanted users (MetaFilter, Something Awful, Bitcoin Wiki in the past), so it's certainly a strategy with a precedent.
    - kjaftaedi 6y ago
      Yes, you can have as many reasons as you want, but the more you list them off to the public, the more time you have to spend defending them individually.. was the point that I was making.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    There is a damn good reason why good PR people often refuse to comment. People remember stupid responses, but forget that “Zoom declined to comment to this article” very quickly.
- Thorrez 6y ago
  > child porn rings (he isn't saying it explicitly Well he didn't use the word "rings" but he did says CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material).
rpastuszak 6y ago
I feel like "we need to protect the children" is the new reductio ad hitlerum. This is such an easy way to shut down a conversation. Do you want to: a) accept lack of E2EE or b) do you hate children? Pick one. Hurry up, your precious internet points™ are at stake here.
- endgame 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
  - csharptwdec19 6y ago
    I thought it was the Four Chans of the Infopocalypse? shrug
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    I didn't know there was a specific term for this concept. Thanks!
  - rpastuszak 6y ago
    Nice, the upside of posting a comment with >10 upvotes (not a common occurence in my case) is that: 1. you end up getting more responses 2. more responses === a higher probability of seeing gems like this wikipedia wormhole I'm about to get sucked into:) I had no idea about the horsemen/chans or that May identified the reason behind the alpha particle problem. Cheers.
- moron4hire 6y ago
  Uhm, it's definitely way older than Hitler even being a person.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Not clear from history.
- voldacar 6y ago
contravariant 6y ago
I'm not sure I understand the trade off w.r.t. possible abuse. For harassment / offensive content, if anything E2EE will make it easier to prove where offensive content came from. You've got a cryptographic chain leading to the source after all. All you need is a button to record and report things (which admittedly seems to be exactly what they intent to build). The E2EE aspect doesn't really change things, except that Zoom can't record things themselves, which they claim they didn't do in the first place (although they might have relied on the small server side buffer they had, but that's an iffy solution at best). Also not sure what to think of Zoom's Trust and Safety team breaking into a private conversation when they think some kind of abuse is going on. Yes E2EE would make it impossible, but why on earth would Zoom want that kind of role?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by vjeux 6y ago

culturestate 6y ago

This was really interesting, thanks for linking it. When he puts it in the context of their typical abuse pattern - anonymous emails, VPNs, and just a few meetings - this decision makes much more sense. I hope they expand on their thought process in a blog post at some point, I'd love to read more.

skbly7 6y ago

I like the explanation and seems fair trade off to me for complying with laws. Meanwhile, I think Zoom sucks big time with their PR team unlike Google, Microsoft, due to which they are being pushed again and again on privacy issues.

lilyball 6y ago

That was a good thread, thanks. The relevant bits I got from it were that there are a bunch of bad actors who create new Zoom identities and host meetings a few times before moving on, and Zoom needs a means by which they “can, if they have a strong belief that the meeting is abusive, enter the meeting visibly and report it if necessary.” Their E2EE design will make it impossible for Zoom employees to enter E2EE meetings without permission, so giving E2EE to the free tier will enable people to use Zoom meetings to facilitate abuse.

lilyball 6y ago
Looking back on this comment now I realize it can be construed as condoning Zoom’s decision here. I was not intending to pass judgement with that comment, but perhaps I should: I think Zoom is wrong. End-to-end encryption should be available to everybody no matter who they are. This means making it available to bad actors too. Expanding the scope of human communication should not be used to justify state surveillance. Privacy is a fundamental human right and one we should not be forced into giving up because it annoys the government.
- rpastuszak 6y ago
  Yup, I was a bit confused about what you were trying to say. Thanks for clarifying.
- Blackstone4 6y ago
  Speaking more broadly, surely there is a point between zero privacy and 100% surveillance that we can all move to. If we take the encrypt (E2EE) approach to everything and all aspects of our lives, i.e. we should be able to protect our faces from video recording when walking into banks, then surely the system would be more open to abuse by bad actors. Accountability in society is what drives good behavior....if we take that away then chaos reigns. Therefore there must be a balance which is why the whole 'let's encrypt everything and protect everyone' feels like sometimes it goes too far and borders on zealotry...Yes I feel that personal freedoms are important but so is the state in mantaining peace.
  - pydry 6y ago
    It'll stop feeling like zealotry as governments develop more and more stasi-like tendencies. The trouble is, by the time they do (and they will, China is halfway there), it will be too late to protest.
    - Blackstone4 6y ago
      Fair point with regards to government overeach. I feel like this is both a practical and political question we would need to answer as a society. What level of surveillance would be acceptable? Zero? Some? Maybe when for temporary accounts with no identity attached? Inheritly in society, there was always some form of surveillance. When we left our homes, people around us could see and hear what we are doing and there in report suspicious behavor. Now we are adjusting to a new way of life with new forms of surveillance which are harder to detect. I completely get it and I more for encryption then for not. I guess I am also challenging myself to see both sides and think about a middle ground. While Western governments could be better behaved, I'm feel like comparisons with the stasi are somewhat extreme and out of wack. I live in the UK and generally speaking I'm happy with the government here when it comes to surveillance. Maybe the US has a greater focus on security but they are a long way from stasi.
gruez 6y ago
I don't get it. So they're fine with abuse, as long as you're paying them for it? Or do they have some sort of E2EE backdoor (probably, since they manage the keys), that they want to selectively apply, but can't do so if people are constantly using burner accounts, and thus want E2EE users to be somewhat anchored to their payment information?
- sukilot 6y ago
  Specifically, Zoom is selling Abetting as a Service. For a fee, Zoom will take active steps to shield criminal activity from law enforcement.
BurningFrog 6y ago
I'm having trouble reading between these lines. What a few good examples of "abusive" meetings?
- rolph 6y ago
  dick flashers for one thing, and the pattern of connections or attempted connections should be a partial indicator of this sort of abuse, perhaps there should be somesort of flag that could be set on such an account for inappropriate behaviour, or even liberally thinking there should be an adults only adult activity flag to set. this is a hydra that shows up every time someone creates a video chat there is a problem with sausage parties and sextual blackmail that needs work arounds
  - darkarmani 6y ago
    > dick flashers for one thing How are these people invited to meetings and why aren't they kicked from the meeting? How would anyone handle this in a real world meeting?
    - rolph 6y ago
      luring people to invite them as per clickbait methods, using obfusication so they are accidentally invited, straight up blackhat hacking to manipulate the system, early on the public meetings were getting bombed by flashers these types are handled by identifying and outing them, or chasing them away, internet has to go beyond the "your ip number is" thing and demonstrate that there is a real knowledge of who they are, and that they are bothering people and it isnt going unnoticed.
      - st1ck 6y ago
        Even if identifying dickflashers is their primary concern, situation can be helped by improving security, not decreasing it. Non-guessable meeting IDs, passwords, maybe unique invite links so it's possible for meeting orgs to identify who invited the flasher. If someone sends clickbait invites to abusive meeting, then victims can trivially report it, possibly with screenshots.
m-p-3 6y ago
> Their E2EE design will make it impossible for Zoom employees to enter E2EE meetings without permission If this is acceptable to view a meeting without permission under abuse pretense, then it's also possible to do so even if someone's doing nothing wrong. Even worse, if their system is compromised, a bad actor could monitor free users' meetings without any protections. And what is stopping those bad actors from getting a paid subscription, or maliciously gaining access to a paid account? Or these bad actors could use another system that doesn't compromise (Signal) or host their own. Security comes in layers and logs. A system without these layers and accountability isn't secure. Zoom isn't secure, and is using law enforcement as a scapegoat and pretense to keep their security low.
- damanamathos 6y ago
  Zoom has said that employees can enter a meeting, but there's no way to do that without being seen on the participant list and there is no way to record a meeting secretly. They've also said they wouldn't build these things. https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/05/07/zoom-acquires-keybase-and-announces-goal-of-developing-the-most-broadly-used-enterprise-end-to-end-encryption-offering/ https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/05/07/zoom-acquires-keyb... >We also do not have a means to insert our employees or others into meetings without being reflected in the participant list. We will not build any cryptographic backdoors to allow for the secret monitoring of meetings.
ajani 6y ago
Also I could pay for the service and still be abusive.

enitihas 6y ago

The thread is very good and offers some reasonable points putting their decision in perspective.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago

That's a significantly better explanation, and they're really between a rock and a hard place. They get to pick between headlines like the current one, and claims that they support child porn rings (he isn't saying it explicitly, but everything I saw looks like that is the problem they're trying to fight).

kjaftaedi 6y ago
Personally I think the whole topic could just have been avoided by not saying anything at all. Zoom needs a business model and saying "if you want encryption you need to pay for it", to me sounds like a reasonable approach to making money. Once you start dragging other reasons into it, you need to start defending them.
- Thorrez 6y ago
  I think it's perfectly reasonable to have multiple reasons for doing something. Making money and deterring malicious users are both valid reasons. Some forums have paid fees for the purpose of deterring unwanted users (MetaFilter, Something Awful, Bitcoin Wiki in the past), so it's certainly a strategy with a precedent.
  - kjaftaedi 6y ago
    Yes, you can have as many reasons as you want, but the more you list them off to the public, the more time you have to spend defending them individually.. was the point that I was making.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  There is a damn good reason why good PR people often refuse to comment. People remember stupid responses, but forget that “Zoom declined to comment to this article” very quickly.
Thorrez 6y ago
> child porn rings (he isn't saying it explicitly Well he didn't use the word "rings" but he did says CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material).

rpastuszak 6y ago

I feel like "we need to protect the children" is the new reductio ad hitlerum. This is such an easy way to shut down a conversation. Do you want to: a) accept lack of E2EE or b) do you hate children? Pick one. Hurry up, your precious internet points™ are at stake here.

endgame 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
- csharptwdec19 6y ago
  I thought it was the Four Chans of the Infopocalypse? shrug
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  I didn't know there was a specific term for this concept. Thanks!
- rpastuszak 6y ago
  Nice, the upside of posting a comment with >10 upvotes (not a common occurence in my case) is that: 1. you end up getting more responses 2. more responses === a higher probability of seeing gems like this wikipedia wormhole I'm about to get sucked into:) I had no idea about the horsemen/chans or that May identified the reason behind the alpha particle problem. Cheers.
moron4hire 6y ago
Uhm, it's definitely way older than Hitler even being a person.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Not clear from history.
voldacar 6y ago

contravariant 6y ago

I'm not sure I understand the trade off w.r.t. possible abuse. For harassment / offensive content, if anything E2EE will make it easier to prove where offensive content came from. You've got a cryptographic chain leading to the source after all. All you need is a button to record and report things (which admittedly seems to be exactly what they intent to build). The E2EE aspect doesn't really change things, except that Zoom can't record things themselves, which they claim they didn't do in the first place (although they might have relied on the small server side buffer they had, but that's an iffy solution at best). Also not sure what to think of Zoom's Trust and Safety team breaking into a private conversation when they think some kind of abuse is going on. Yes E2EE would make it impossible, but why on earth would Zoom want that kind of role?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]