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New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

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Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#41
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use Zoom online without installing anything.

I tried that the other day and could only get a 403. Is their web portal still active? I ended up just dialing in.

They disabled it temporarily (https://status.zoom.us/incidents/16ll08mmddk6)

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#42
post #9

"I bet Microsoft is behind this" I thought, and sure enough - found the obligatory Teams push in there.

It's omitted from this article, but they also banned Google Classroom at the same time, so I'd give this more credence than I usually would...

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#43
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, I'm just tired of the (in this case blatant) "but think of the children" in situations where it's totally irrelevant.

"Think of the Children" is when an issue that is only tangentially or tenuously anything to do with children, and may not even be a legitimate concern anyway, uses a notional impact on children as emotional leverage to gain undeserved attention. This case is literally and specifically about the protection of specific children from a proven risk.

What "proven risk" is that?

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#44
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that, while distasteful seems to signal any national security or personal security risk. This seems pretty hyperbolic. Why on earth would the Chinese government want access to videos of children in bedrooms? Ridiculous.

There are two vulnerabilities in particular that can grant access to videos to hostiles. One is that Zoom video chat IDs are short enough and low enough entropy to be guessable. Also saved videos have a standard naming scheme that makes their file names guessable and therefore accessible publicly. However, any vulnerability, especially intentional ones knowingly trading convenience for security or implemented decepti…

That's a pretty silly concern when photos and videos of the same children are spread across Facebook and other platforms willy nilly.

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#45
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you instead?

NYC could set up a jitsi instance. https://github.com/jitsi/docker-jitsi-meet#quick-start

Whatever it is has to be super easy to use.

Source: Father of two teenagers struggling with getting them acclimated to online school right now.

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#46
post #4

As the previous discussion already noted it seems disingenuous. Spacex has real security concerns with national security secrets and trade assets. Schools primary goal should be accessibility when it comes to teaching and Zoom arguably with its better video/audio has the best even with glaring security flaws (that do not necessarily seem decidedly worse than Hangouts). Banning Zoom seems to be getting on the negative…

The reason SpaceX banned it is because of legal reasons: they can't export their tech. When children are involved, there are very similar legal concerns: they can't export the data associated with the children, aka: the video feed. I think both bans of Zoom are reasonable.

Why would schools need to export video feeds?

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#47
post #9

"I bet Microsoft is behind this" I thought, and sure enough - found the obligatory Teams push in there.

Maybe because MS has a good solution that isn’t riddled with privacy issues? What’s actually behind this is the threat of a mountain of lawsuits that are gonna come descending on school systems that compromise little kids’ privacy by forcing them to use Zoom. If the images of one child during their private moments show up on the internet because Zoom has so many vilnerabilities and a malicious actor was able to contr…

No one is going to win a lawsuit over a classroom video.

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that, while distasteful seems to signal any national security or personal security risk. This seems pretty hyperbolic. Why on earth would the Chinese government want access to videos of children in bedrooms? Ridiculous.

Can you imagine the lawsuits that are gonna come pouring in because some hacker was able to control the webcam on a students MacBook because Zoom’s installer basically acts as an insecure root kit, and takes videos of a kid in his private moments and releases them to the internet?

No one has hacked their installer.

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#49
post #6
post #4

As the previous discussion already noted it seems disingenuous. Spacex has real security concerns with national security secrets and trade assets. Schools primary goal should be accessibility when it comes to teaching and Zoom arguably with its better video/audio has the best even with glaring security flaws (that do not necessarily seem decidedly worse than Hangouts). Banning Zoom seems to be getting on the negative…

We're talking about videos of children in their homes, in many cases probably their bedrooms. If they have to use it for school, they may also use it with their friends other than for school work as they will have it set up and know how to use it. I think the risks of illicit access to that material are pretty clear, and there are several serious vulnerabilities in Zoom that can grant direct access to video chats and…

Please elucidate these "risks", because they are far from clear.

Re: New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns

#50
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Think of the Children" is when an issue that is only tangentially or tenuously anything to do with children, and may not even be a legitimate concern anyway, uses a notional impact on children as emotional leverage to gain undeserved attention. This case is literally and specifically about the protection of specific children from a proven risk.

What "proven risk" is that?

I already answered that to a sibling post to yours 2 hours before your post.
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