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SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns

reuters.com

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Re: SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns

#2
I looked into adding Zoom to our Slack workspace this morning, and was beside myself with the set of permissions they requested — reading the contents of every channel and private chat they're included in? For a slash command?

That's a hard no. Turned me off the service entirely.

Re: SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns

#4
The fact that they show end users (no pun intended) an "end-to-end encrypted" badge on the meeting window itself, and elsewhere explain how a Zoom server (not Zoom client) is what constitutes an "end" despite the whole rest of the electronic communication industry using "end-to-end" to refer exclusively to user agents, is bonkers.

Re: SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns

#7
This is a knee-jerk reaction. Zoom was indirectly sending information to Facebook as part of their Facebook SDK integration to enable login, not directly as part of explicit information gathering. Any app that integrates with the Facebook SDK does this, and they've also patched it already [1].

The supposed root exploit found in Zoom also requires physical, logged-in access to the machine, at which point a Zoom exploit is the least of your problems [2].

Zoom is a solid piece of software, and the developers are responsive and seem to care. I'm disappointed to see it getting dumped on during the past few days. A cynic might even suspect a co-ordinated campaign by Cisco, considering Zoom was started by frustrated ex-Cisco employees and has had runaway growth during the viral crisis, while the same cannot be said for Cisco's competitor product WebEx.

[1] https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/27/zoom-use-of-facebo...

[2] https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/01/new-zoom-bugs-takeover-macs-c...

Re: SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns

#8
post #2

I looked into adding Zoom to our Slack workspace this morning, and was beside myself with the set of permissions they requested — reading the contents of every channel and private chat they're included in? For a slash command? That's a hard no. Turned me off the service entirely.

It's only available in the paid version, but slack's video conferencing works pretty well.

Re: SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns

#9
post #2

I looked into adding Zoom to our Slack workspace this morning, and was beside myself with the set of permissions they requested — reading the contents of every channel and private chat they're included in? For a slash command? That's a hard no. Turned me off the service entirely.

It's only available in the paid version, but slack's video conferencing works pretty well.

Yeah, I saw that. Got pretty close to pushing the button on it after this episode, and probably will soon.
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