7 ms·

Wait, governments are still using zoom? WTF?

by swiley 5y ago

nsizx 5y ago
What should they use instead, some half assed open source solution subcontracted to the usual cronies of the consulting business?
- swiley 5y ago
  Anything else, even something proprietary.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Where do you live where that is common?
rblatz 5y ago
I don’t know what rock you are living under but everyone uses Zoom. Even Cisco sales reps use it for sales meetings and they own WebEx.
- baal80spam 5y ago
  > everyone uses Zoom Well, my org uses Teams and I don't know anyone who uses Zoom professionally.
  - brewdad 5y ago
    My son's university has been holding tons of virtual sessions for incoming first-year students and their parents. Every one has been on Zoom. In my experience, Zoom is the standard when you are dealing with the public at large. Teams/Hangouts/WebEx, etc are the go to options when dealing with an internal organization where all of the users are "known" ahead of time.
    - f1refly 5y ago
      At my university the computer science + electrical engineering student councils protested so persistently that the university gave in and banned zoom across operations. I guess not every university was so lucky?
  - el-salvador 5y ago
    Teams comes from free with Office 365. I think last year someone from the accounting department suggested cancelling Zoom because we had meetings already included in Teams. It caused quite a commotion from the Zoom users a few minutes after we learnt about it. The plan was promptly cancelled.
  - csydas 5y ago
    For a time in 2020, Zoom for whatever reason had a significant boom of popularity (I suppose they had some freemium option for group calls? I really don't know). As a result, a lot of companies bought licenses because Zoom was the cool tech at the time. My company did this, despite there being an official mandate that all official communication/calls must go through Teams the year prior†. I think the persistence of Zoom is just whatever the tech equivalent of a hangover is. Everyone binged on Zoom in 2020, and now that we're far more comfortable with work from home and have more stable setups, a lot of places are stuck with Zoom licenses. Embarrassingly, our company's periodic all-hand-calls still are on Zoom when every other operation is done on Teams. I think our brand team also decided to host a few presentations on Zoom when we presented in the US for the sole reason of "well, it's cool." † I have no love for Teams to be clear, it's awful software. I do understand IT's mandate though, since the entire point of the mandate was to get people to stop installing random stuff on their work computers, which turned out to be a great idea when it comes to Zoom.
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    Well that must mean nobody uses it then. Huh.
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    I have a couple of (honestly not very tech savvy) clients who adopted Zoom at the beginning of the COVID era, and who are absolutely swallowing whatever lies Zoom is telling about security and encryption and whatnot. Zoom has the absolutely BALLS to sell a product called "ZoomGov" they say is more secure or whatever, but who wants to bet it's the same code running on different servers? They're also claiming HIPAA compliance, which I'm also certain is a complete lie. They don't care. They'll say literally anything, and pay whatever fines happen if they get caught.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  Not surprised. Among the various solutions discussed in this thread, WebEx is the worst. Hangouts, Zoom, and Teams are way ahead.
- el-salvador 5y ago
  Sounds famliar! I remember attempting to do a meeting with a company that resellls Webex. The meeting was not Webex related but related to another product they sell. We ended up switching to Zoom because Webex wasn't working.
- wil421 5y ago
  Don’t know many people who use Zoom except one of our software vendors.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  I have never seen it in a professional setting and I sadly have too many meetings. In my corporate world at least it is almost always teams and people don't want to use zoom. Sales might be different though.
whoomp12342 5y ago
Maybe I am missing the point but what is the problem here? is there some major security flaw in zoom?
- mishafb 5y ago
  Zoom is not end to end encrypted at all, and they can see every video stream. Also their clients had vulnerabilities in the past.
  - whoomp12342 5y ago
    false. if you configure zoom correctly, it is infact encrypted.
  - djrogers 5y ago
    For one thing, zoom does have E2EE (https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-enable-zoom-encryption/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-enable-zoom-encryption/) and secondly - if we're talking about public meetings (like city council meetings) why would it matter?
    - swiley 5y ago
      E2EE means just about nothing without open source clients.
- howaboutnope 5y ago
  Well, for one, this happened: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25474372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25474372
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    "This" being "Zoom executive charged with disrupting meetings commemorating Tiananmen Square".
- shakna 5y ago
  Zoom has had several major security flaws [0]. (Arbitrary execution, installers with malware in them, and so on.) Executives charged with coordinating attacks against citizens outside China, on behalf of the PRC. [1] They recently settled a class action for lying about having E2E encryption. [2] [0] https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=2159&product_id=0 https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=... [1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/china-based-executive-us-telecommunications-company-charged-disrupting-video-meetings https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/china-based-executive-us-tele... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58050391 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58050391
cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
Yup, just had some meetings with my city's local government as well as local nonprofits over Zoom. Concerning from a security standpoint.
wintermutestwin 5y ago
Zoom is used in some courts: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/19/880859109/zoom-call-eviction-hearings-they-ll-throw-everything-i-have-out-on-the-street https://www.npr.org/2020/06/19/880859109/zoom-call-eviction-...
saeergsergesrg 5y ago
Yes, there is version of zoom specifically for government. https://www.zoomgov.com/ https://www.zoomgov.com/

Wait, governments are still using zoom? WTF?

by swiley 5y ago

Wait, governments are still using zoom? WTF?

What should they use instead, some half assed open source solution subcontracted to the usual cronies of the consulting business?

swiley 5y ago
Anything else, even something proprietary.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Where do you live where that is common?

rblatz 5y ago

I don’t know what rock you are living under but everyone uses Zoom. Even Cisco sales reps use it for sales meetings and they own WebEx.

baal80spam 5y ago
> everyone uses Zoom Well, my org uses Teams and I don't know anyone who uses Zoom professionally.
- brewdad 5y ago
  My son's university has been holding tons of virtual sessions for incoming first-year students and their parents. Every one has been on Zoom. In my experience, Zoom is the standard when you are dealing with the public at large. Teams/Hangouts/WebEx, etc are the go to options when dealing with an internal organization where all of the users are "known" ahead of time.
  - f1refly 5y ago
    At my university the computer science + electrical engineering student councils protested so persistently that the university gave in and banned zoom across operations. I guess not every university was so lucky?
- el-salvador 5y ago
  Teams comes from free with Office 365. I think last year someone from the accounting department suggested cancelling Zoom because we had meetings already included in Teams. It caused quite a commotion from the Zoom users a few minutes after we learnt about it. The plan was promptly cancelled.
- csydas 5y ago
  For a time in 2020, Zoom for whatever reason had a significant boom of popularity (I suppose they had some freemium option for group calls? I really don't know). As a result, a lot of companies bought licenses because Zoom was the cool tech at the time. My company did this, despite there being an official mandate that all official communication/calls must go through Teams the year prior†. I think the persistence of Zoom is just whatever the tech equivalent of a hangover is. Everyone binged on Zoom in 2020, and now that we're far more comfortable with work from home and have more stable setups, a lot of places are stuck with Zoom licenses. Embarrassingly, our company's periodic all-hand-calls still are on Zoom when every other operation is done on Teams. I think our brand team also decided to host a few presentations on Zoom when we presented in the US for the sole reason of "well, it's cool." † I have no love for Teams to be clear, it's awful software. I do understand IT's mandate though, since the entire point of the mandate was to get people to stop installing random stuff on their work computers, which turned out to be a great idea when it comes to Zoom.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  Well that must mean nobody uses it then. Huh.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  I have a couple of (honestly not very tech savvy) clients who adopted Zoom at the beginning of the COVID era, and who are absolutely swallowing whatever lies Zoom is telling about security and encryption and whatnot. Zoom has the absolutely BALLS to sell a product called "ZoomGov" they say is more secure or whatever, but who wants to bet it's the same code running on different servers? They're also claiming HIPAA compliance, which I'm also certain is a complete lie. They don't care. They'll say literally anything, and pay whatever fines happen if they get caught.
metalliqaz 5y ago
Not surprised. Among the various solutions discussed in this thread, WebEx is the worst. Hangouts, Zoom, and Teams are way ahead.
el-salvador 5y ago
Sounds famliar! I remember attempting to do a meeting with a company that resellls Webex. The meeting was not Webex related but related to another product they sell. We ended up switching to Zoom because Webex wasn't working.
wil421 5y ago
Don’t know many people who use Zoom except one of our software vendors.
raxxorrax 5y ago
I have never seen it in a professional setting and I sadly have too many meetings. In my corporate world at least it is almost always teams and people don't want to use zoom. Sales might be different though.

whoomp12342 5y ago

Maybe I am missing the point but what is the problem here? is there some major security flaw in zoom?

mishafb 5y ago
Zoom is not end to end encrypted at all, and they can see every video stream. Also their clients had vulnerabilities in the past.
- whoomp12342 5y ago
  false. if you configure zoom correctly, it is infact encrypted.
- djrogers 5y ago
  For one thing, zoom does have E2EE (https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-enable-zoom-encryption/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-enable-zoom-encryption/) and secondly - if we're talking about public meetings (like city council meetings) why would it matter?
  - swiley 5y ago
    E2EE means just about nothing without open source clients.
howaboutnope 5y ago
Well, for one, this happened: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25474372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25474372
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  "This" being "Zoom executive charged with disrupting meetings commemorating Tiananmen Square".
shakna 5y ago
Zoom has had several major security flaws [0]. (Arbitrary execution, installers with malware in them, and so on.) Executives charged with coordinating attacks against citizens outside China, on behalf of the PRC. [1] They recently settled a class action for lying about having E2E encryption. [2] [0] https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=2159&product_id=0 https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=... [1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/china-based-executive-us-telecommunications-company-charged-disrupting-video-meetings https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/china-based-executive-us-tele... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58050391 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58050391

cupcake-unicorn 5y ago

Yup, just had some meetings with my city's local government as well as local nonprofits over Zoom. Concerning from a security standpoint.

wintermutestwin 5y ago

Zoom is used in some courts: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/19/880859109/zoom-call-eviction-hearings-they-ll-throw-everything-i-have-out-on-the-street https://www.npr.org/2020/06/19/880859109/zoom-call-eviction-...

saeergsergesrg 5y ago

Yes, there is version of zoom specifically for government. https://www.zoomgov.com/ https://www.zoomgov.com/