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I feel like the good faith presumption for this company has to have shifted by now. Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling

I feel like the good faith presumption for this company has to have shifted by now. Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Documenting participants (face, voice, language, location, etc.), recording content, etc. We're talking about the data of 200M+ users. I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time. >The company has acknowledged that much of its product development has been based in China, and that some Zoom calls were accidentally routed through Chinese servers. >The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said it found serious concerns over Zoom's security protocols, and said the company's large workforce in China left it "responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities." >The government of Taiwan banned official use of Zoom due to security concerns, as have New York State schools, the U.S. Senate, and the German ministry of foreign affairs. >Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in early June that the company has chosen not to encrypt free calls in order to cooperate with law enforcement.

nvahalik 6y ago
Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution. However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.
- mushufasa 6y ago
  I've tried Google Meet, Jitsi, and some other things, but Zoom is the only service that my 6+ year old laptop can handle for more than 5 min without nosediving into 100% CPU usage and freezing up. Does anyone have other suggestions? Either for other services or for troubleshooting Jitsi?
  - 11235813213455 6y ago
    agreed that google meet is a CPU killer
  - gnud 6y ago
    You could give Whereby [1] a try. I really liked it when it was named "appear.in" (that's now a completely different company), and used it for a bit, until my work switched to Teams. Whereby is, as far as I can tell, completely owned by a Norwegian registered company. 1: https://whereby.com https://whereby.com
    - tlear 6y ago
      I really liked it, then they broke it on Safari. I still use it on Firefox, but it is annoying to switch just for using it
      - odinho 6y ago
        We have used a lot of time making it work on Safari. And we continue to use quite substantial resources on it. Their webrtc implementation is quite new, and not as stable as Chrome and Firefox. And with new code comes new bugs. There is currently a bug with audio, where it'll crash in Safari, -- and we have had some issues reconnects that was more our fault (though Firefox and Chrome is much more forgiving). We have a workaround for the first, and will be doing a fix for the second once we're reasonably sure it won't regress other browsers. Is it any of those issues you talk about? Or is it something else? (I'm not personally familiar with the Safari issues, btw, since I'm a Linux user, but I keep an eye on Firefox and Chromium-based browsers)
        tlear 6y ago
        Safari does not crash, but audio is not working. I will play with it today and send bug report. Might help you guys out, I really like it otherwise
        azinman2 6y ago
        If you have a good repro please send to https://bugreport.apple.com https://bugreport.apple.com or contact Apple Developer Support.
    - odinho 6y ago
      A Whereby-developer here. It's awesome you recommend us. <3 But we'll also kill your CPU ^_^ You can turn on "mobile mode" in advanced device settings, and it should be a bit better. But we're a bit limited in how CPU-friendly we really can be, living in the browser. Not that we can't improve, there's certainly extra tricks we could try - but not easily without also lowering fps and resolution. I don't think "low resource use" is a big selling-argument for our product. Video can be quite heavy.
  - solinent 6y ago
    With Jitsi the main thing is the browser, you should try different versions of Firefox & Chrome.
  - spsrich2 6y ago
    I've been using Whereby.com. It's clean, simple and 'just works'. No permissions popups or anything like that.
  - belval 6y ago
    It's not free but I've had a lot of success with Amazon Chime which handles calls very well and support people "calling-in". Full disclosure: I am doing an internship at Amazon, but my experience predates me working there.
    - rubyfan 6y ago
      Chime doesn’t work on a lot of corporate networks
      - belval 6y ago
        TIL thanks
    - 40four 6y ago
      Due to the god awful state of Microsoft Teams conferencing, we recently started trying Chime at my new job. There are still some hiccups, but I can vouch that the quality of both audio and video is very good on Chime. We have also used GoToMeeting with a good amount of success. Anything but Teams, haha.
  - drdeadringer 6y ago
    My laptop is at least that old and Jitsi is fine for me. Linux Mint OS, Firefox browser, both up to date.
    - mushufasa 6y ago
      are you using it on the browser, or are you using the jitsi desktop version (which seems to be distinct and not cross-compatible)? Are there settings you adjusted? Are you just doing one-on-one meetings (that works fine for me too) or group calls of 3+ (which is what I need to do everyday where it immediately becomes unusable)? I'm also using a linux distro based off ubuntu/debian.
      - drdeadringer 6y ago
        > are you using it on the browser, or are you using the jitsi desktop version I am using Jitsi in//on the browser [for me, Firefox]. I don't know if I have a preference as I have only "just started using" the past few months via being given a link I click on whilst I am on my laptop... so unfortunately I cannot speak about Jitsi via Desktop Version at this time. > Are there settings you adjusted? Besides simple sound volume off of my OS//headphones, I use whatever the default settings are. > 1-1 meetings or 3+ group calls? Group calls, each time would be roughly 5-12 people. For other info just for giggles: The laptop I do this on is connected wirelessly to my home wireless network, about 6 feet away from my wireless router; my wireless router may have multiple people using it at a given time since I share. I'm in US-California-Silicon_Valley on Comcast.
        feanaro 6y ago
        Jitsi Meet had some troubles in Firefox due to some WebRTC implementation differences. It is being worked on and the situation has improved, but I'm not sure whether all outstanding issues have been resolved. You could try Chromium and see if it gets any better.
  - easytiger 6y ago
    There is a bug in meet where it suddenly decides to burn CPU like crazy. Can work fine for hours then fail
  - tppiotrowski 6y ago
    Are you trying to do one-on-one of many-to-many calls? If you're doing just one-on-one there is very basic webrtc in web browser service[1]. I've also made my own for quickly connecting with people online[2], not sure if it's your use case though... [1] https://peercalls.com/ https://peercalls.com/ [2] https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/moonlite https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/moonlite
    - mushufasa 6y ago
      It's for group calls. Jitsi worked fine one-on-one but as soon as a third person joined it became unusable.
      - freeopinion 6y ago
        Are any of the participants using Firefox? There's a known problem with Firefox's WebRTC and Jitsi wherein even a single Firefox participant can create performance issues for everyone.
        mushufasa 6y ago
        I was using firefox. That's probably it. Does only Chrome work? Seems to defeat the point of FOSS...
        ernesth 6y ago
        It is due to a bug in firefox (some kind of feature in webrtc not being enabled in Firefox). It however works in FOSS browsers such as chromium. It may be resolved now: the bugzilla entry mentions a patch: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606823 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606823
  - andoma 6y ago
    https://goteam.video/ https://goteam.video/ (Disclaimer/Plug: I work for the company that built this). It's WebRTC based but should work fine in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and latest Edge (ie the Chrome variant). We've just added optional end-to-end encryption for multiparty sessions based on the recent "Insertable Streams" feature available in Chrome M83+.
  - rewgs 6y ago
    Has everyone forgotten about Skype? My D&D group switched from Zoom to Skype and the performance/quality is noticeably better. There's 5 of us and it's great. Free, no time limits, etc.
    - deadbunny 6y ago
      My group (6 of us) did the oposite. We used to use Skype till we had continual problems of people getting infinite "loading" screens, we switched to Zoom the last 3 or 4 games because of it. I have to say the video quality is much better and the DM being able to screen share while we can still see each other is great. Also the "Brady Bunch" view is great, being able to see everyone at once is awesome. I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product.
      - tkgally 6y ago
        > I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product. That's my position, too. I teach at a large public university in Japan, where the school year begins in April. At the beginning of March, we were expecting to start classes in person as normal a month later. By around March 20, we had decided to teach most of our classes online; a week later, "most" had become "all." Teachers and students had little to no prior experience with online education, and their level of general digital literacy varied widely. From the plethora of tools available, we had to choose software that everyone could use and that would be reliable and scalable. Despite concerns about security issues, Zoom was chosen as our videoconferencing platform. That seems to have turned out to be a good choice, as it is stable, can handle large groups, and offers features (breakout rooms, video and audio recording, attendance reports, etc.) that are useful for university classes. That fact that it hasn't (yet) been blocked in China was also a factor in choosing it, as we have students stuck overseas who need to take part in classes. Anecdotal reports from colleagues who teach at other universities in Japan suggest that the non-Zoom platforms have not performed as well. Now that teachers and students are used to online classes, I hope we can also try other tools in the future. But considering how well Zoom performed during our hectic ramp-up to online teaching, I give it my grudging support for the time being.
  - kyuudou 6y ago
    HighFive seems to be popular where I'm at. I like, it works. I have a couple of minor UI complaints but overall it's fine. I haven't seen it in use with large (say, >20 people) meetings, though.
  - thePunisher 6y ago
    My laptop is almost 10 years old an works fine with Jitsi and Linux Mint on Firefox.
  - driverdan 6y ago
    My 8 year old Macbook Pro works fine for all video conference services. It uses a lot of CPU and the fans go crazy but it works.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  > find another solution Have you tried Jitsi?
  - einpoklum 6y ago
    It's a bit difficult to understand what exactly that means. There's Jitsi Meet, Jitsi Desktop, there's a browser extension, a server-which-isn't-just-a-server etc. It's a bit confusing.
    - compuguy 6y ago
      I think @hanniabu is referring to Jitsi Meet in this case...
    - nthnclrk 6y ago
      Why is it difficult? Is there not enough context given the conversation is specifically focused on video conference software. One could say the same of Zoom... There's Zoom Meetings Client, Zoom Rooms, a desktop app, mobile app, Outlook Plug-in, Browser extension, etc.
    - ViViDboarder 6y ago
      I think you’re overstating the complexity a bit. When people mention Zoom I don’t fuss over whether it’s desktop, web (do they even offer it?), mobile, or whatever.
      - aendruk 6y ago
        > do they even offer it? Just to answer this—technically yes, but they use dark patterns to dissuade people from learning about it.
  - paulgb 6y ago
    I've wanted to like Jitsi, but the quality difference with Zoom is noticeable. Same with Google Meet and anything I've seen that uses WebRTC. They remind me of RealPlayer back in the early 2000s in terms of blockyness. I would love to know about any Zoom competitors, free or paid, with comparable quality.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  > Zoom is a company I have loved so far Do you love the company, its leadership, its product, or its pricing?
  - amrrs 6y ago
    Not OP, I love the company's leadership and the product (not the privacy issue part). It's awesome to see Eric leaving Webex and building a product that seems and sells superior to Webex. It's not that easy to beat yourself at your own game and he's proved. That is one thing I like about Zoom
    - buran77 6y ago
      > not the privacy issue part But that's an integral part of the product. There is a lot of reason for suspicion floating around the company and the product itself, and the long string of security screwups and misdirection confirms every bit of that. What's the point of having even good functionality if it comes attached to such concerns? Most products have a good side but choosing one is always about picking what's the worst problem that you can live with rather than the best feature.
      - neuronic 6y ago
        No, for the majority of people that is a part of the product they do not care about. That's educated tech people at Google, which had to forbid the use of Zoom, and high school teachers alike. Subtle yet severe privacy invasions do not matter to the glaring majority of people because they cannot associate it with direct consequences. If I have been using Zoom and the Chinese government now has 200 hours of my facial and speech data, at first it doesn't impact me. I don't see the impact, I don't feel it aside from some people yelling on HN. The consequences are either subtle and easily dismissed (e.g. ad tech/marketing when Instagram secretly listens to the phone mic and suddenly you see products that were part of the conversation) or severe and too far out to relate it to a Zoom call 23 months ago (e.g. border control when entering China for tourism). If you're not an activist then chances are you do not care about online privacy.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I will say Google Meet has gotten much better since the pandemic started, e.g. support for many more participants in its grid view.
  - longtom 6y ago
    Is Google really any better? They may simply be better at hiding their surveillance apparatus. We need to decentralize, i.e. destroy large non-decentralized organizations.
    - ilikehurdles 6y ago
      No it is not. I'm planning on switching to jitsi for my personal and non-profit projects, and I guess I'll advocate for it at work. Switching from Zoom to Google/Microsoft/Cisco anything is like switching from Evian to Aquafina.
    - jentist_retol 6y ago
      US citizens have a significant better chance at fighting a warrant. Personally, we've been using Jitsi for video. It's not amazing, but it is free in many senses of the word.
      - longtom 6y ago
        Two comments recommending Jitsi. Suspicious.
        jentist_retol 6y ago
        If you find a better one that is not absolutely arcane and frustrating to use, let me know. Until then, Jitsi is "good enough", even if it's still pretty rough in certain parts.
        nix23 6y ago
        I love Jitsy for Video, but for schooling i prefer BigBlueButton it's also FOSS, but yes it's really not the same 'product-category': https://bigbluebutton.org/ https://bigbluebutton.org/
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  After evaluating a number of solutions, we chose uberconference (no relation to uber). I really like it, especially that the conference is just a phone number.
- Jab456 6y ago
  I agree with you on this point.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Doesn't the Chinese government have transparency in their surveillance?
- seppin 6y ago
  Is that a joke? We know nothing about what data they collect for what purposes. Just that they do.
sp332 6y ago
> Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in early June that the company has chosen not to encrypt free calls in order to cooperate with law enforcement. This is incorrect. They don't offer end-to-end encryption, but it is encrypted between each client and the Zoom servers, and they have promised there's no way for a Zoom employee to spy on a conversation without visibly joining the meeting. https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408
- Ntrails 6y ago
  Either it is E2E encrypted, or it is unencrypted on zoom servers and the only claim that they can reasonably make is that they haven't provided their employees with the tools to observe a call invisibly.
  - virgilp 6y ago
    This is addressed in the Alex Stamos twitter thread. It _is_ E2E encrypted. And from what I understand the "promise" is a technological promise, not a process promise; you can check the exact terms of the promise in the paper.
    - brians 6y ago
      The paper’s ideas are not yet implemented. Right now, it’s encrypted to whatever keys Zoom likes, including the PRC’s. Same system as Apple’s or Google’s
      - virgilp 6y ago
        OK, but if we were to take this stance it than literally the whole thread is pointless debate, right? It started with this: > Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in early June that the company has chosen not to encrypt free calls in order to cooperate with law enforcement. The entire debate is about the not-yet-implemented E2E encryption (that's where Zoom "does not encrypt free calls"). And the Alex Stamos thread explains very well both why that is a sensible choice, and how they will implement E2E encryption& what are the limitations. If we're discussing about current implementation, it doesn't make sense to be outraged that "Zoom doesn't offer encryption for free calls" - if we talk about E2E encryption, it doesn't offer it for anyone; and if we talk just about HTTPS, it offers it to everyone. So in fact we must've been discussing the future implementation not the current one - right?
chrisseaton 6y ago
> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Always assume your calls on the public internet are being surveilled by all parties, no matter which service you're using. But beside that... if they were surveilling them... why would they close them? Why would you shut down your intelligence source?
- toyg 6y ago
  Some comms you want to monitor, some you want to disrupt... And Chinese authorities like big gestures, sending messages, "we know who you are and what you do, we can get you anytime, you are not safe anywhere".
- feanaro 6y ago
  Why would I necessarily assume my end-to-end encrypted calls with a trusted party are being surveilled?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    Because your software may be compromised. Because your hardware may be compromised. Because their software may be compromised. Because their hardware may be compromised. Because the cryptographic algorithm you're using may be compromised. Because your 'trusted party' may be compromised. Because there may be a camera in your room. Because there may be a camera in their room. Lots of threat vectors, lots of reasons to assume surveillance.
    - feanaro 6y ago
      Yes, and we may all be disembodied brains living in vats inside a teapot. This is why I don't find such arguments very compelling for showing we should necessarily assume we are being surveilled. The same argument can be applied to situations that have nothing to do with the internet too. Those are certainly possible ways in which the surveillance could still be happening, because nothing is certain. But the argument is necessarily probabilistic (in the Bayesian sense) and not binary. So yes, I have to take this into account to determine my final risk, but there is no point in necessarily assuming I am being surveilled because then I might never do anything at all.
stevespang 6y ago
That's it, dumping Zoom, not going to be surveilled by Chinese authoroties - - not going to support a company that practices censorship.
yandrypozo 6y ago
That's right, let's boycott Zoom!
_b3dj 6y ago
>The government of Taiwan banned official use of Zoom due to security concerns, as have New York State schools, the U.S. Senate, and the German ministry of foreign affairs. This is good enough reason to not use it. Also I stopped using zoom and trying to avoiding it as much as possible after the very first vulnerability scandal[0] came about [0] https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-webcams-maybe-an-rce-just-get-them-to-visit-your-website-ac75c83f4ef5 https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-...
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  Iirc google also banned the installation of the zoom client on work devices.
  - angott 6y ago
    To be honest, that's also because they probably want their employees to use one of their 37 different video-conferencing apps.
    - inetsee 6y ago
      China has been accused a number of times of engaging in industrial espionage. As a company developing a lot of high technology products, I think Google is entirely justified in keep Zoom out of its technology infrastructure.
      - angott 6y ago
        If it wasn't clear, I was just being sarcastic about Google's huge number of messaging products... I fully agree with your statement, their move totally makes sense from an IP protection standpoint.
        dhimes 6y ago
        It's three products but it has 27 different names.
Redoubts 6y ago
> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Why does this event move the needle one way or another? The group had a paid account so Zoom knows who they are, and this was a publicized event. All the Chinese government needed to know was an event they don't like was happening, with the services of a company they can exercise soft power over.
- yeahforsureman 6y ago
  That's weird use of the term "soft power".
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Presumably several voice messages were left before they broke out the rubber hoses and jumper cables.
ljm 6y ago
In my workplace and from my perspective, I don't know how Zoom became trustworthy in the first place except through growth hacking and selling iPads with their software on it under the 'Zoom Rooms' name. Besides that, why defend a company or a corporation in the first place? It's a damn shame that people are more enervated by corporate strife than by the suffering of our fellow beings.
- bigyikes 6y ago
  Aw man, I didn’t know those iPads were a Zoom product. For some stupid reason I was under the illusion that my company made a home-grown Zoom meeting room solution.
  - ljm 6y ago
    It never really worked properly for us, but what worked a little too perfectly was the camera control. I had so much fun pointing the camera towards the open door and zooming in so far that we could all lip-read a conversation happening across the office. Or, due to a lack of forethought, creating the official CrotchCam(tm) by letting the camera auto-focus and then zooming in to the unfortunate victim's midriff.
- pfarnsworth 6y ago
  To be fair, Zoom is the best video conference software I've ever used. It's so much better than Skype or anything created by Google, Facebook, etc. When I first started using it at work 5 years ago, I was blown away at how stable it was, and how many people could connect at the same time. It just worked.
  - RussianCow 6y ago
    You're getting downvoted, but they really do have a solid product. A lot of their growth does come from their aggressive sales and marketing, but their video conferencing solution is by far the best I have used—it Just Works™ in a way that none of their competition seem to be able to match. (And I've used most of their competitors.) Which is a shame given issues like the OP and all of the security/privacy problems they have had recently.
pfarnsworth 6y ago
If they have a workforce in China, there are 100% spies working there. Putting it another way, China would be foolish not to have spies working at Zoom, just like it would be foolish to not have spies working at Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. You should assume all of those companies have been infiltrated by the major countries of the world, or they are working with them. To believe otherwise would be extremely naive.
Aunche 6y ago
> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? It makes perfect sense to boycott Zoom based on their security issues, but does the presumption of innocence mean nothing anymore? It shouldn't be difficult to prove that Zoom is actively trying to block Chinese activists. China banned Zoom during the trade war. Are you going to treat that as evidence that Zoom isn't colluding with the CCP? Why is Zoom not embracing end-to-end encryption to free users evidence that they are beholden to China, but Zoom committing to end-to-end encryption for paid users not evidence of the contrary? This type of circumstantial cherry picking is how conspiracy theories sprout.
- fiblye 6y ago
  Is it often that China unblocks a communication platform without them fully complying with the CCP’s desire to monitor and censor everything? I can’t think of any major platforms that got banned and reinstated with zero changes. I’m treating that as evidence that they are colluding.
  - Aunche 6y ago
    For some reason, China periodically bans and unbans websites before banning it completely. Reddit is one example of this. It looks like Zoom is moving away from the Chinese market altogether: https://technode.com/2020/05/15/zoom-suspends-chinese-individuals-users-from-hosting-meetings-due-to-regulatory-demand/ https://technode.com/2020/05/15/zoom-suspends-chinese-indivi...
- reaperducer 6y ago
  does the presumption of innocence mean nothing anymore In a court of law, yes. In the court of public opinion, it has never been that way. I don't blame people for being suspicious of Zoom. Why wait until the harm has already been done to move to something else? Zoom knows it has a credibility problem. If Zoom really cared, it would do something to distance itself from China and the Chinese government. But it doesn't.
  - Aunche 6y ago
sjg007 6y ago
Yep.. zoom is done.
knolax 6y ago
> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? The burden of proof lies on you to prove they are.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  How on earth could a user "prove" this? Mention some secret on a call and then watch for the Chinese government to act on that secret? Give us a break. It's much safer to assume surveillance and protect oneself accordingly.
  - knolax 6y ago
    We have definite proof of surveillance by the Five-Eyes, why would China would be better at hiding evidence of surveillance. Claiming that something can't be measured at all doesn't help your argument either. That type of reasoning is only acceptable in theology.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      The Chinese Edward Snowden is not currently living in Moscow. "I see no reason" is not a good way to start fallacy-measuring.
      - knolax 6y ago
        There are plenty of Chinese dissidents, including the the activist that is the subject of TFA. The default assumption is to assume noncorrelation between things until proven otherwise. That's a defensible position, yours isn't.
        jessaustin 6y ago
        I only said that it is safer to assume surveillance. I didn't say it was more fair or more "defensible" or whatever. In reply you've offered "default assumptions" and "burdens of proof" and "theology". Whom do you attempt to convince with this [EDIT:] sophistry? Oh and nice job implying that Chinese dissidents have the duty of "proving" to the world that the Chinese government surveils them. Snowden is not a dissident, he is a whistleblower. Also, in general, telling people who suffer that they ought to educate the rest of us about the particular details of their suffering is not cool.
HenryBemis 6y ago
> surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Documenting participants (face, voice, language, location, etc.), The first time I read that Zoom is the shell (in the USA) while the majority of work is being done in China, I thought the exact same thing. That China has everyone's face 3D scanned by now (multiple photos from multiple angles), everyone's voiceprint, everyone's IP, transcripts of what was said and by who... Now they are trying to rebuild their shattered rep, while still handing anything and everything to their patrons.
- vectorrain 6y ago
  "That China has everyone's face 3D scanned by now (multiple photos from multiple angles), everyone's voiceprint, everyone's IP, transcripts of what was said and by who" As a native Chinese, I haven't been scanned by 3D scanner. How do you get this conclusion?
  - mathieuh 6y ago
    Presumably they mean that if you use your web cam with zoom they would be able to construct a 3D model of your face from the camera feed as you move your head around.
  - nix23 6y ago
    You don't need a 3D-Scanner for that, just a moving head and some minutes/seconds of video-material.
est 6y ago
> I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time. > its product development has been based in China, and that some Zoom calls were accidentally routed through Chinese servers. Curious, did you background check every employee/contractor to make sure they are Chinese race free? Did you do every byte of your network traffic audit to make sure they are not Chinese IP routable? How often do you update your firewall rules? Because if you don't do either of these, if you run a successful company, someone will write an article to complain you have employed a Chinese developer and routed traffic to China.
- johncolanduoni 6y ago
  There’s a big difference between routing an encrypted packet through China and decrypting that packet on a server located in China. Likewise, there’s a big difference between employing a Chinese national in the US and having a large part of you engineering organization operate from within China.
  - est 6y ago
    > having a large part of you engineering organization operate from within China Shockingly, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, IBM, Redhat, Cisco all have engineering team in mainland China. Do a job list search please. > decrypting that packet on a server located in China In your infrastructure setup, for hostnames in a cluster, how do you separate China servers and non-China servers? Do you put a subdomain or something? And how do you link user's nationality to which server they are supposed to connect to? What if there's a US hosted meeting, a mainland Chinese user joins the meeting? Is it an ethical thing to happen? Should the packet decrypting happen in a US server? China server? or server located in a third neutral country instead? What if a US citizen joins a mainland Chinese hosted meeting? Is it wrong for Zoom to decrypt packets in China?
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      > In your infrastructure setup, for hostnames in a cluster, how do you separate China servers and non-China servers? Do you put a subdomain or something? Yes, these are exactly the sorts of things one does. The PRC is so distinct in terms of legal norms that servers hosted there need to be treated differently. If PRC would adhere to the legal norms of most of the rest of the world, and stop trying to start a cold war with the U.S, this would not be necessary. > And how do you link user's nationality to which server they are supposed to connect to? It's not so much about nationality, but about jurisdiction. For calls where no participants' connections originate from a PRC IP block, don't use the PRC infrastructure. For calls where at least one connection originates from the PRC, terminate the call wherever meets the legal requirements (that PRC participant may have special obligations to their government) and is technically convenient. It's not really that hard. > What if a US citizen joins a mainland Chinese hosted meeting? Is it wrong for Zoom to decrypt packets in China? Again, it is not a matter of citizenship, but of jurisdiction. If the call is hosted in PRC, that's not even a question; if PLA asks, you must decrypt the packets on the host, or at least provide keys. In each case, you bring up nationality or citizenship, but when it comes to these scenarios, these are not relevant. Chinese nationals legally present in U.S. jurisdiction have most of the same rights as U.S. citizens, and all of the same legal obligations. In terms of obligations, the same is true in PRC: if you are present in PRC, you are obligated to follow the PRC's law, whether or not you are a national.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> I feel like the good faith presumption for this company When you place faith in a dictator, like the CCP, this is always the result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
microcolonel 6y ago
I think Zoom is probably best used for hangouts-on-air type things, where you are literally publishing the contents of the call to the world in realtime anyway; for anything else it's off my list.
ct520 6y ago
“I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time.” I get the vibe with anything China related. Like it takes an over abundance of facts not to be attacked. Zoom fiasco is interesting though. I don’t do anything I don’t mind be monitored on there so sort of careless for now
mtgx 6y ago
Now it makes so much sense that they said the free calls wouldn't be encrypted end-to-end. But most people here bought the child porn excuse, so it is no wonder that it gets used to often when companies or governments abuse your rights.
thePunisher 6y ago
I truly question whether Zoom is a U.S. company at all if a large number of its developers and servers are located in China. Its founder is also ethnically Chinese (although he also holds American citizenship). This company seems to be largely influenced by China, either through its founder or other means.
JackPoach 6y ago
You are oversimplifying the issue, in my opinion. Zoom has R&D office in China. If Chinese authorities come to Zoom with a violation of local law, Zoom has two options. First ignore the request and this means that the company is likely to be banned in China or comply with the request and get blowback in US. This issue is not unique to Zoom and each company makes its own decision. For instance, Google and Facebook fail to comply and are banned in China. But Apple does comply with Chinese laws and there are number of apps that are simply not available in China but are available in US. However, I wouldn't make a judgement that Google is good, but Apple is bad. Nor is this issue limited in China. Same thing applies to EU. EU has passed GDPR laws that all US companies have to comply with if they want to do business in EU. Again, some decided to comply with GDPR, others exited the market. Even in US this issue exists. When the government tells Google that they can't offer their services to Iran or sell to Huawei. Google chose to apply. You can try to make an argument that complying with US government orders is good, but complying with other government orders (EU, China, Brazil) is bad. This may work for you if you are an American, but the rest of the world knows about the Patriot Act, Edward Snowden and NSA. You could also make an argument that complying with any government is bad and the way PRISM is enabled by US tech is terrible. But if US companies start ignoring US laws, no matter how terrible they are, the only right thing to do is to shut the company down. It's called a rule of law. I am writing this not to say that Zoom is good or bad, but to prevent oversimplifying the issue or vilifying specific companies, countries or governments.
ipiz0618 6y ago
There is really no excuse for "accidentally" routing through Chinese servers for a service. To me the reasons are as shallow as Google's "error in algorithm". Just recently YouTube "accidentally" deleted the account of a pro-democracy channel in Hong Kong with more than 600k subscribers [1]. Incidentally, this has never happened to pro-Chinese channels. [1] (only sources in Chinese are available) - https://inews.hket.com/article/2664703/%E3%80%90YouTube%E5%B0%81%E6%AE%BA%EF%BC%9F%E3%80%91%E8%95%AD%E8%8B%A5%E5%85%83%E5%8F%8A%E5%A4%9A%E5%80%8B%E9%A0%BB%E9%81%93%E5%BD%B1%E7%89%87%E6%B6%88%E5%A4%B1%E3%80%80%E7%B6%B2%E6%B0%91%EF%BC%9A%E8%95%AD%E8%8B%A5%E5%85%83%E5%87%BA%E4%BA%8B%EF%BC%9F%C2%A0 https://inews.hket.com/article/2664703/%E3%80%90YouTube%E5%B...
celticninja 6y ago
Our organisation has just reversed course on zoom and it is no longer our go to video conferencing tool.
guilamu 6y ago
I totally agree with you, there's a very high probability that the Chinese gov is recording everything. But is that any better than being 100 % sure that the US gov is doing it? I mean, what is the point of "the Chinese may be listening this is horrible!" when we know for a fact that the US are listening and most probably multiple european countries. Nowadays, you must assume that whatever you do online is recorded by multiple states and may be used against you one day.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  I am more worried about dictatorships recording everything than other regimes. Does not excuse recording at all, just an appreciation of the level of risk.
  - guilamu 6y ago
    Thanks for your reply, but I fail to see how a dictatorship would do worst things with these recordings than a democracy, say like the USA, UK or France, where intelligence services operate outside the law as Snowden (and many others) have shown over the last decade. Also, I see that I'm being downvoted and I would be really interested to know why I'm wrong. I mean it, I love the level of discussion here and I really like constructive criticsm.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      Intelligence services may operate outside of the Law in pretty much all countries but the difference is that democracies typically have a Rule of Law as to how the data can be used against you. Not a perfect safeguard but way better than dictatorships where power has a blank check to do anything to you, anytime.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
daffy 6y ago
> recording content, etc. Would it be technically feasible to record everything?

nvahalik 6y ago

Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution. However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.

mushufasa 6y ago
I've tried Google Meet, Jitsi, and some other things, but Zoom is the only service that my 6+ year old laptop can handle for more than 5 min without nosediving into 100% CPU usage and freezing up. Does anyone have other suggestions? Either for other services or for troubleshooting Jitsi?
- 11235813213455 6y ago
  agreed that google meet is a CPU killer
- gnud 6y ago
  You could give Whereby [1] a try. I really liked it when it was named "appear.in" (that's now a completely different company), and used it for a bit, until my work switched to Teams. Whereby is, as far as I can tell, completely owned by a Norwegian registered company. 1: https://whereby.com https://whereby.com
  - tlear 6y ago
    I really liked it, then they broke it on Safari. I still use it on Firefox, but it is annoying to switch just for using it
    - odinho 6y ago
      We have used a lot of time making it work on Safari. And we continue to use quite substantial resources on it. Their webrtc implementation is quite new, and not as stable as Chrome and Firefox. And with new code comes new bugs. There is currently a bug with audio, where it'll crash in Safari, -- and we have had some issues reconnects that was more our fault (though Firefox and Chrome is much more forgiving). We have a workaround for the first, and will be doing a fix for the second once we're reasonably sure it won't regress other browsers. Is it any of those issues you talk about? Or is it something else? (I'm not personally familiar with the Safari issues, btw, since I'm a Linux user, but I keep an eye on Firefox and Chromium-based browsers)
      - tlear 6y ago
        Safari does not crash, but audio is not working. I will play with it today and send bug report. Might help you guys out, I really like it otherwise
      - azinman2 6y ago
        If you have a good repro please send to https://bugreport.apple.com https://bugreport.apple.com or contact Apple Developer Support.
  - odinho 6y ago
    A Whereby-developer here. It's awesome you recommend us. <3 But we'll also kill your CPU ^_^ You can turn on "mobile mode" in advanced device settings, and it should be a bit better. But we're a bit limited in how CPU-friendly we really can be, living in the browser. Not that we can't improve, there's certainly extra tricks we could try - but not easily without also lowering fps and resolution. I don't think "low resource use" is a big selling-argument for our product. Video can be quite heavy.
- solinent 6y ago
  With Jitsi the main thing is the browser, you should try different versions of Firefox & Chrome.
- spsrich2 6y ago
  I've been using Whereby.com. It's clean, simple and 'just works'. No permissions popups or anything like that.
- belval 6y ago
  It's not free but I've had a lot of success with Amazon Chime which handles calls very well and support people "calling-in". Full disclosure: I am doing an internship at Amazon, but my experience predates me working there.
  - rubyfan 6y ago
    Chime doesn’t work on a lot of corporate networks
    - belval 6y ago
      TIL thanks
  - 40four 6y ago
    Due to the god awful state of Microsoft Teams conferencing, we recently started trying Chime at my new job. There are still some hiccups, but I can vouch that the quality of both audio and video is very good on Chime. We have also used GoToMeeting with a good amount of success. Anything but Teams, haha.
- drdeadringer 6y ago
  My laptop is at least that old and Jitsi is fine for me. Linux Mint OS, Firefox browser, both up to date.
  - mushufasa 6y ago
    are you using it on the browser, or are you using the jitsi desktop version (which seems to be distinct and not cross-compatible)? Are there settings you adjusted? Are you just doing one-on-one meetings (that works fine for me too) or group calls of 3+ (which is what I need to do everyday where it immediately becomes unusable)? I'm also using a linux distro based off ubuntu/debian.
    - drdeadringer 6y ago
      > are you using it on the browser, or are you using the jitsi desktop version I am using Jitsi in//on the browser [for me, Firefox]. I don't know if I have a preference as I have only "just started using" the past few months via being given a link I click on whilst I am on my laptop... so unfortunately I cannot speak about Jitsi via Desktop Version at this time. > Are there settings you adjusted? Besides simple sound volume off of my OS//headphones, I use whatever the default settings are. > 1-1 meetings or 3+ group calls? Group calls, each time would be roughly 5-12 people. For other info just for giggles: The laptop I do this on is connected wirelessly to my home wireless network, about 6 feet away from my wireless router; my wireless router may have multiple people using it at a given time since I share. I'm in US-California-Silicon_Valley on Comcast.
      - feanaro 6y ago
        Jitsi Meet had some troubles in Firefox due to some WebRTC implementation differences. It is being worked on and the situation has improved, but I'm not sure whether all outstanding issues have been resolved. You could try Chromium and see if it gets any better.
- easytiger 6y ago
  There is a bug in meet where it suddenly decides to burn CPU like crazy. Can work fine for hours then fail
- tppiotrowski 6y ago
  Are you trying to do one-on-one of many-to-many calls? If you're doing just one-on-one there is very basic webrtc in web browser service[1]. I've also made my own for quickly connecting with people online[2], not sure if it's your use case though... [1] https://peercalls.com/ https://peercalls.com/ [2] https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/moonlite https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/moonlite
  - mushufasa 6y ago
    It's for group calls. Jitsi worked fine one-on-one but as soon as a third person joined it became unusable.
    - freeopinion 6y ago
      Are any of the participants using Firefox? There's a known problem with Firefox's WebRTC and Jitsi wherein even a single Firefox participant can create performance issues for everyone.
      - mushufasa 6y ago
        I was using firefox. That's probably it. Does only Chrome work? Seems to defeat the point of FOSS...
        ernesth 6y ago
        It is due to a bug in firefox (some kind of feature in webrtc not being enabled in Firefox). It however works in FOSS browsers such as chromium. It may be resolved now: the bugzilla entry mentions a patch: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606823 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606823
- andoma 6y ago
  https://goteam.video/ https://goteam.video/ (Disclaimer/Plug: I work for the company that built this). It's WebRTC based but should work fine in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and latest Edge (ie the Chrome variant). We've just added optional end-to-end encryption for multiparty sessions based on the recent "Insertable Streams" feature available in Chrome M83+.
- rewgs 6y ago
  Has everyone forgotten about Skype? My D&D group switched from Zoom to Skype and the performance/quality is noticeably better. There's 5 of us and it's great. Free, no time limits, etc.
  - deadbunny 6y ago
    My group (6 of us) did the oposite. We used to use Skype till we had continual problems of people getting infinite "loading" screens, we switched to Zoom the last 3 or 4 games because of it. I have to say the video quality is much better and the DM being able to screen share while we can still see each other is great. Also the "Brady Bunch" view is great, being able to see everyone at once is awesome. I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product.
    - tkgally 6y ago
      > I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product. That's my position, too. I teach at a large public university in Japan, where the school year begins in April. At the beginning of March, we were expecting to start classes in person as normal a month later. By around March 20, we had decided to teach most of our classes online; a week later, "most" had become "all." Teachers and students had little to no prior experience with online education, and their level of general digital literacy varied widely. From the plethora of tools available, we had to choose software that everyone could use and that would be reliable and scalable. Despite concerns about security issues, Zoom was chosen as our videoconferencing platform. That seems to have turned out to be a good choice, as it is stable, can handle large groups, and offers features (breakout rooms, video and audio recording, attendance reports, etc.) that are useful for university classes. That fact that it hasn't (yet) been blocked in China was also a factor in choosing it, as we have students stuck overseas who need to take part in classes. Anecdotal reports from colleagues who teach at other universities in Japan suggest that the non-Zoom platforms have not performed as well. Now that teachers and students are used to online classes, I hope we can also try other tools in the future. But considering how well Zoom performed during our hectic ramp-up to online teaching, I give it my grudging support for the time being.
- kyuudou 6y ago
  HighFive seems to be popular where I'm at. I like, it works. I have a couple of minor UI complaints but overall it's fine. I haven't seen it in use with large (say, >20 people) meetings, though.
- thePunisher 6y ago
  My laptop is almost 10 years old an works fine with Jitsi and Linux Mint on Firefox.
- driverdan 6y ago
  My 8 year old Macbook Pro works fine for all video conference services. It uses a lot of CPU and the fans go crazy but it works.
hanniabu 6y ago
> find another solution Have you tried Jitsi?
- einpoklum 6y ago
  It's a bit difficult to understand what exactly that means. There's Jitsi Meet, Jitsi Desktop, there's a browser extension, a server-which-isn't-just-a-server etc. It's a bit confusing.
  - compuguy 6y ago
    I think @hanniabu is referring to Jitsi Meet in this case...
  - nthnclrk 6y ago
    Why is it difficult? Is there not enough context given the conversation is specifically focused on video conference software. One could say the same of Zoom... There's Zoom Meetings Client, Zoom Rooms, a desktop app, mobile app, Outlook Plug-in, Browser extension, etc.
  - ViViDboarder 6y ago
    I think you’re overstating the complexity a bit. When people mention Zoom I don’t fuss over whether it’s desktop, web (do they even offer it?), mobile, or whatever.
    - aendruk 6y ago
      > do they even offer it? Just to answer this—technically yes, but they use dark patterns to dissuade people from learning about it.
- paulgb 6y ago
  I've wanted to like Jitsi, but the quality difference with Zoom is noticeable. Same with Google Meet and anything I've seen that uses WebRTC. They remind me of RealPlayer back in the early 2000s in terms of blockyness. I would love to know about any Zoom competitors, free or paid, with comparable quality.
tmpz22 6y ago
> Zoom is a company I have loved so far Do you love the company, its leadership, its product, or its pricing?
- amrrs 6y ago
  Not OP, I love the company's leadership and the product (not the privacy issue part). It's awesome to see Eric leaving Webex and building a product that seems and sells superior to Webex. It's not that easy to beat yourself at your own game and he's proved. That is one thing I like about Zoom
  - buran77 6y ago
    > not the privacy issue part But that's an integral part of the product. There is a lot of reason for suspicion floating around the company and the product itself, and the long string of security screwups and misdirection confirms every bit of that. What's the point of having even good functionality if it comes attached to such concerns? Most products have a good side but choosing one is always about picking what's the worst problem that you can live with rather than the best feature.
    - neuronic 6y ago
      No, for the majority of people that is a part of the product they do not care about. That's educated tech people at Google, which had to forbid the use of Zoom, and high school teachers alike. Subtle yet severe privacy invasions do not matter to the glaring majority of people because they cannot associate it with direct consequences. If I have been using Zoom and the Chinese government now has 200 hours of my facial and speech data, at first it doesn't impact me. I don't see the impact, I don't feel it aside from some people yelling on HN. The consequences are either subtle and easily dismissed (e.g. ad tech/marketing when Instagram secretly listens to the phone mic and suddenly you see products that were part of the conversation) or severe and too far out to relate it to a Zoom call 23 months ago (e.g. border control when entering China for tourism). If you're not an activist then chances are you do not care about online privacy.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I will say Google Meet has gotten much better since the pandemic started, e.g. support for many more participants in its grid view.
- longtom 6y ago
  Is Google really any better? They may simply be better at hiding their surveillance apparatus. We need to decentralize, i.e. destroy large non-decentralized organizations.
  - ilikehurdles 6y ago
    No it is not. I'm planning on switching to jitsi for my personal and non-profit projects, and I guess I'll advocate for it at work. Switching from Zoom to Google/Microsoft/Cisco anything is like switching from Evian to Aquafina.
  - jentist_retol 6y ago
    US citizens have a significant better chance at fighting a warrant. Personally, we've been using Jitsi for video. It's not amazing, but it is free in many senses of the word.
    - longtom 6y ago
      Two comments recommending Jitsi. Suspicious.
      - jentist_retol 6y ago
        If you find a better one that is not absolutely arcane and frustrating to use, let me know. Until then, Jitsi is "good enough", even if it's still pretty rough in certain parts.
        nix23 6y ago
        I love Jitsy for Video, but for schooling i prefer BigBlueButton it's also FOSS, but yes it's really not the same 'product-category': https://bigbluebutton.org/ https://bigbluebutton.org/
Hnrobert42 6y ago
After evaluating a number of solutions, we chose uberconference (no relation to uber). I really like it, especially that the conference is just a phone number.
Jab456 6y ago
I agree with you on this point.

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Doesn't the Chinese government have transparency in their surveillance?

seppin 6y ago
Is that a joke? We know nothing about what data they collect for what purposes. Just that they do.

sp332 6y ago

> Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in early June that the company has chosen not to encrypt free calls in order to cooperate with law enforcement. This is incorrect. They don't offer end-to-end encryption, but it is encrypted between each client and the Zoom servers, and they have promised there's no way for a Zoom employee to spy on a conversation without visibly joining the meeting. https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408

Ntrails 6y ago
Either it is E2E encrypted, or it is unencrypted on zoom servers and the only claim that they can reasonably make is that they haven't provided their employees with the tools to observe a call invisibly.
- virgilp 6y ago
  This is addressed in the Alex Stamos twitter thread. It _is_ E2E encrypted. And from what I understand the "promise" is a technological promise, not a process promise; you can check the exact terms of the promise in the paper.
  - brians 6y ago
    The paper’s ideas are not yet implemented. Right now, it’s encrypted to whatever keys Zoom likes, including the PRC’s. Same system as Apple’s or Google’s
    - virgilp 6y ago
      OK, but if we were to take this stance it than literally the whole thread is pointless debate, right? It started with this: > Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in early June that the company has chosen not to encrypt free calls in order to cooperate with law enforcement. The entire debate is about the not-yet-implemented E2E encryption (that's where Zoom "does not encrypt free calls"). And the Alex Stamos thread explains very well both why that is a sensible choice, and how they will implement E2E encryption& what are the limitations. If we're discussing about current implementation, it doesn't make sense to be outraged that "Zoom doesn't offer encryption for free calls" - if we talk about E2E encryption, it doesn't offer it for anyone; and if we talk just about HTTPS, it offers it to everyone. So in fact we must've been discussing the future implementation not the current one - right?

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Always assume your calls on the public internet are being surveilled by all parties, no matter which service you're using. But beside that... if they were surveilling them... why would they close them? Why would you shut down your intelligence source?

toyg 6y ago
Some comms you want to monitor, some you want to disrupt... And Chinese authorities like big gestures, sending messages, "we know who you are and what you do, we can get you anytime, you are not safe anywhere".
feanaro 6y ago
Why would I necessarily assume my end-to-end encrypted calls with a trusted party are being surveilled?
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  Because your software may be compromised. Because your hardware may be compromised. Because their software may be compromised. Because their hardware may be compromised. Because the cryptographic algorithm you're using may be compromised. Because your 'trusted party' may be compromised. Because there may be a camera in your room. Because there may be a camera in their room. Lots of threat vectors, lots of reasons to assume surveillance.
  - feanaro 6y ago
    Yes, and we may all be disembodied brains living in vats inside a teapot. This is why I don't find such arguments very compelling for showing we should necessarily assume we are being surveilled. The same argument can be applied to situations that have nothing to do with the internet too. Those are certainly possible ways in which the surveillance could still be happening, because nothing is certain. But the argument is necessarily probabilistic (in the Bayesian sense) and not binary. So yes, I have to take this into account to determine my final risk, but there is no point in necessarily assuming I am being surveilled because then I might never do anything at all.

stevespang 6y ago

That's it, dumping Zoom, not going to be surveilled by Chinese authoroties - - not going to support a company that practices censorship.

yandrypozo 6y ago

That's right, let's boycott Zoom!

_b3dj 6y ago

>The government of Taiwan banned official use of Zoom due to security concerns, as have New York State schools, the U.S. Senate, and the German ministry of foreign affairs. This is good enough reason to not use it. Also I stopped using zoom and trying to avoiding it as much as possible after the very first vulnerability scandal[0] came about [0] https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-webcams-maybe-an-rce-just-get-them-to-visit-your-website-ac75c83f4ef5 https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-...

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
Iirc google also banned the installation of the zoom client on work devices.
- angott 6y ago
  To be honest, that's also because they probably want their employees to use one of their 37 different video-conferencing apps.
  - inetsee 6y ago
    China has been accused a number of times of engaging in industrial espionage. As a company developing a lot of high technology products, I think Google is entirely justified in keep Zoom out of its technology infrastructure.
    - angott 6y ago
      If it wasn't clear, I was just being sarcastic about Google's huge number of messaging products... I fully agree with your statement, their move totally makes sense from an IP protection standpoint.
      - dhimes 6y ago
        It's three products but it has 27 different names.

Redoubts 6y ago

> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Why does this event move the needle one way or another? The group had a paid account so Zoom knows who they are, and this was a publicized event. All the Chinese government needed to know was an event they don't like was happening, with the services of a company they can exercise soft power over.

yeahforsureman 6y ago
That's weird use of the term "soft power".
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Presumably several voice messages were left before they broke out the rubber hoses and jumper cables.

ljm 6y ago

In my workplace and from my perspective, I don't know how Zoom became trustworthy in the first place except through growth hacking and selling iPads with their software on it under the 'Zoom Rooms' name. Besides that, why defend a company or a corporation in the first place? It's a damn shame that people are more enervated by corporate strife than by the suffering of our fellow beings.

bigyikes 6y ago
Aw man, I didn’t know those iPads were a Zoom product. For some stupid reason I was under the illusion that my company made a home-grown Zoom meeting room solution.
- ljm 6y ago
  It never really worked properly for us, but what worked a little too perfectly was the camera control. I had so much fun pointing the camera towards the open door and zooming in so far that we could all lip-read a conversation happening across the office. Or, due to a lack of forethought, creating the official CrotchCam(tm) by letting the camera auto-focus and then zooming in to the unfortunate victim's midriff.
pfarnsworth 6y ago
To be fair, Zoom is the best video conference software I've ever used. It's so much better than Skype or anything created by Google, Facebook, etc. When I first started using it at work 5 years ago, I was blown away at how stable it was, and how many people could connect at the same time. It just worked.
- RussianCow 6y ago
  You're getting downvoted, but they really do have a solid product. A lot of their growth does come from their aggressive sales and marketing, but their video conferencing solution is by far the best I have used—it Just Works™ in a way that none of their competition seem to be able to match. (And I've used most of their competitors.) Which is a shame given issues like the OP and all of the security/privacy problems they have had recently.

pfarnsworth 6y ago

If they have a workforce in China, there are 100% spies working there. Putting it another way, China would be foolish not to have spies working at Zoom, just like it would be foolish to not have spies working at Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. You should assume all of those companies have been infiltrated by the major countries of the world, or they are working with them. To believe otherwise would be extremely naive.

Aunche 6y ago

> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? It makes perfect sense to boycott Zoom based on their security issues, but does the presumption of innocence mean nothing anymore? It shouldn't be difficult to prove that Zoom is actively trying to block Chinese activists. China banned Zoom during the trade war. Are you going to treat that as evidence that Zoom isn't colluding with the CCP? Why is Zoom not embracing end-to-end encryption to free users evidence that they are beholden to China, but Zoom committing to end-to-end encryption for paid users not evidence of the contrary? This type of circumstantial cherry picking is how conspiracy theories sprout.

fiblye 6y ago
Is it often that China unblocks a communication platform without them fully complying with the CCP’s desire to monitor and censor everything? I can’t think of any major platforms that got banned and reinstated with zero changes. I’m treating that as evidence that they are colluding.
- Aunche 6y ago
  For some reason, China periodically bans and unbans websites before banning it completely. Reddit is one example of this. It looks like Zoom is moving away from the Chinese market altogether: https://technode.com/2020/05/15/zoom-suspends-chinese-individuals-users-from-hosting-meetings-due-to-regulatory-demand/ https://technode.com/2020/05/15/zoom-suspends-chinese-indivi...
reaperducer 6y ago
does the presumption of innocence mean nothing anymore In a court of law, yes. In the court of public opinion, it has never been that way. I don't blame people for being suspicious of Zoom. Why wait until the harm has already been done to move to something else? Zoom knows it has a credibility problem. If Zoom really cared, it would do something to distance itself from China and the Chinese government. But it doesn't.
- Aunche 6y ago

sjg007 6y ago

Yep.. zoom is done.

knolax 6y ago

> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? The burden of proof lies on you to prove they are.

jessaustin 6y ago
How on earth could a user "prove" this? Mention some secret on a call and then watch for the Chinese government to act on that secret? Give us a break. It's much safer to assume surveillance and protect oneself accordingly.
- knolax 6y ago
  We have definite proof of surveillance by the Five-Eyes, why would China would be better at hiding evidence of surveillance. Claiming that something can't be measured at all doesn't help your argument either. That type of reasoning is only acceptable in theology.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    The Chinese Edward Snowden is not currently living in Moscow. "I see no reason" is not a good way to start fallacy-measuring.
    - knolax 6y ago
      There are plenty of Chinese dissidents, including the the activist that is the subject of TFA. The default assumption is to assume noncorrelation between things until proven otherwise. That's a defensible position, yours isn't.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        I only said that it is safer to assume surveillance. I didn't say it was more fair or more "defensible" or whatever. In reply you've offered "default assumptions" and "burdens of proof" and "theology". Whom do you attempt to convince with this [EDIT:] sophistry? Oh and nice job implying that Chinese dissidents have the duty of "proving" to the world that the Chinese government surveils them. Snowden is not a dissident, he is a whistleblower. Also, in general, telling people who suffer that they ought to educate the rest of us about the particular details of their suffering is not cool.

HenryBemis 6y ago

> surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Documenting participants (face, voice, language, location, etc.), The first time I read that Zoom is the shell (in the USA) while the majority of work is being done in China, I thought the exact same thing. That China has everyone's face 3D scanned by now (multiple photos from multiple angles), everyone's voiceprint, everyone's IP, transcripts of what was said and by who... Now they are trying to rebuild their shattered rep, while still handing anything and everything to their patrons.

vectorrain 6y ago
"That China has everyone's face 3D scanned by now (multiple photos from multiple angles), everyone's voiceprint, everyone's IP, transcripts of what was said and by who" As a native Chinese, I haven't been scanned by 3D scanner. How do you get this conclusion?
- mathieuh 6y ago
  Presumably they mean that if you use your web cam with zoom they would be able to construct a 3D model of your face from the camera feed as you move your head around.
- nix23 6y ago
  You don't need a 3D-Scanner for that, just a moving head and some minutes/seconds of video-material.

est 6y ago

> I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time. > its product development has been based in China, and that some Zoom calls were accidentally routed through Chinese servers. Curious, did you background check every employee/contractor to make sure they are Chinese race free? Did you do every byte of your network traffic audit to make sure they are not Chinese IP routable? How often do you update your firewall rules? Because if you don't do either of these, if you run a successful company, someone will write an article to complain you have employed a Chinese developer and routed traffic to China.

johncolanduoni 6y ago
There’s a big difference between routing an encrypted packet through China and decrypting that packet on a server located in China. Likewise, there’s a big difference between employing a Chinese national in the US and having a large part of you engineering organization operate from within China.
- est 6y ago
  > having a large part of you engineering organization operate from within China Shockingly, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, IBM, Redhat, Cisco all have engineering team in mainland China. Do a job list search please. > decrypting that packet on a server located in China In your infrastructure setup, for hostnames in a cluster, how do you separate China servers and non-China servers? Do you put a subdomain or something? And how do you link user's nationality to which server they are supposed to connect to? What if there's a US hosted meeting, a mainland Chinese user joins the meeting? Is it an ethical thing to happen? Should the packet decrypting happen in a US server? China server? or server located in a third neutral country instead? What if a US citizen joins a mainland Chinese hosted meeting? Is it wrong for Zoom to decrypt packets in China?
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    > In your infrastructure setup, for hostnames in a cluster, how do you separate China servers and non-China servers? Do you put a subdomain or something? Yes, these are exactly the sorts of things one does. The PRC is so distinct in terms of legal norms that servers hosted there need to be treated differently. If PRC would adhere to the legal norms of most of the rest of the world, and stop trying to start a cold war with the U.S, this would not be necessary. > And how do you link user's nationality to which server they are supposed to connect to? It's not so much about nationality, but about jurisdiction. For calls where no participants' connections originate from a PRC IP block, don't use the PRC infrastructure. For calls where at least one connection originates from the PRC, terminate the call wherever meets the legal requirements (that PRC participant may have special obligations to their government) and is technically convenient. It's not really that hard. > What if a US citizen joins a mainland Chinese hosted meeting? Is it wrong for Zoom to decrypt packets in China? Again, it is not a matter of citizenship, but of jurisdiction. If the call is hosted in PRC, that's not even a question; if PLA asks, you must decrypt the packets on the host, or at least provide keys. In each case, you bring up nationality or citizenship, but when it comes to these scenarios, these are not relevant. Chinese nationals legally present in U.S. jurisdiction have most of the same rights as U.S. citizens, and all of the same legal obligations. In terms of obligations, the same is true in PRC: if you are present in PRC, you are obligated to follow the PRC's law, whether or not you are a national.

redis_mlc 6y ago

> I feel like the good faith presumption for this company When you place faith in a dictator, like the CCP, this is always the result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

microcolonel 6y ago

I think Zoom is probably best used for hangouts-on-air type things, where you are literally publishing the contents of the call to the world in realtime anyway; for anything else it's off my list.

ct520 6y ago

“I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time.” I get the vibe with anything China related. Like it takes an over abundance of facts not to be attacked. Zoom fiasco is interesting though. I don’t do anything I don’t mind be monitored on there so sort of careless for now

mtgx 6y ago

Now it makes so much sense that they said the free calls wouldn't be encrypted end-to-end. But most people here bought the child porn excuse, so it is no wonder that it gets used to often when companies or governments abuse your rights.

thePunisher 6y ago

I truly question whether Zoom is a U.S. company at all if a large number of its developers and servers are located in China. Its founder is also ethnically Chinese (although he also holds American citizenship). This company seems to be largely influenced by China, either through its founder or other means.

JackPoach 6y ago

You are oversimplifying the issue, in my opinion. Zoom has R&D office in China. If Chinese authorities come to Zoom with a violation of local law, Zoom has two options. First ignore the request and this means that the company is likely to be banned in China or comply with the request and get blowback in US. This issue is not unique to Zoom and each company makes its own decision. For instance, Google and Facebook fail to comply and are banned in China. But Apple does comply with Chinese laws and there are number of apps that are simply not available in China but are available in US. However, I wouldn't make a judgement that Google is good, but Apple is bad. Nor is this issue limited in China. Same thing applies to EU. EU has passed GDPR laws that all US companies have to comply with if they want to do business in EU. Again, some decided to comply with GDPR, others exited the market. Even in US this issue exists. When the government tells Google that they can't offer their services to Iran or sell to Huawei. Google chose to apply. You can try to make an argument that complying with US government orders is good, but complying with other government orders (EU, China, Brazil) is bad. This may work for you if you are an American, but the rest of the world knows about the Patriot Act, Edward Snowden and NSA. You could also make an argument that complying with any government is bad and the way PRISM is enabled by US tech is terrible. But if US companies start ignoring US laws, no matter how terrible they are, the only right thing to do is to shut the company down. It's called a rule of law. I am writing this not to say that Zoom is good or bad, but to prevent oversimplifying the issue or vilifying specific companies, countries or governments.

ipiz0618 6y ago

There is really no excuse for "accidentally" routing through Chinese servers for a service. To me the reasons are as shallow as Google's "error in algorithm". Just recently YouTube "accidentally" deleted the account of a pro-democracy channel in Hong Kong with more than 600k subscribers [1]. Incidentally, this has never happened to pro-Chinese channels. [1] (only sources in Chinese are available) - https://inews.hket.com/article/2664703/%E3%80%90YouTube%E5%B0%81%E6%AE%BA%EF%BC%9F%E3%80%91%E8%95%AD%E8%8B%A5%E5%85%83%E5%8F%8A%E5%A4%9A%E5%80%8B%E9%A0%BB%E9%81%93%E5%BD%B1%E7%89%87%E6%B6%88%E5%A4%B1%E3%80%80%E7%B6%B2%E6%B0%91%EF%BC%9A%E8%95%AD%E8%8B%A5%E5%85%83%E5%87%BA%E4%BA%8B%EF%BC%9F%C2%A0 https://inews.hket.com/article/2664703/%E3%80%90YouTube%E5%B...

celticninja 6y ago

Our organisation has just reversed course on zoom and it is no longer our go to video conferencing tool.

guilamu 6y ago

I totally agree with you, there's a very high probability that the Chinese gov is recording everything. But is that any better than being 100 % sure that the US gov is doing it? I mean, what is the point of "the Chinese may be listening this is horrible!" when we know for a fact that the US are listening and most probably multiple european countries. Nowadays, you must assume that whatever you do online is recorded by multiple states and may be used against you one day.

ekianjo 6y ago
I am more worried about dictatorships recording everything than other regimes. Does not excuse recording at all, just an appreciation of the level of risk.
- guilamu 6y ago
  Thanks for your reply, but I fail to see how a dictatorship would do worst things with these recordings than a democracy, say like the USA, UK or France, where intelligence services operate outside the law as Snowden (and many others) have shown over the last decade. Also, I see that I'm being downvoted and I would be really interested to know why I'm wrong. I mean it, I love the level of discussion here and I really like constructive criticsm.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    Intelligence services may operate outside of the Law in pretty much all countries but the difference is that democracies typically have a Rule of Law as to how the data can be used against you. Not a perfect safeguard but way better than dictatorships where power has a blank check to do anything to you, anytime.

deleted 6y ago

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daffy 6y ago

> recording content, etc. Would it be technically feasible to record everything?