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Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

blog.zoom.us

541–550 of 557 posts

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#541
post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A majority cares little about privacy: maybe. 99%: where's your proof? Or is this part of the 73.6% of the made-up statistics? The other thing that is wrong with this sentiment is that "privacy" is not a binary thing: you don't "have privacy" or "not have privacy". You don't "want it" or "not want it". Privacy and the need for it, is heavily dependent on context. You want more privacy when watching porn than when wat…

I measure values by how much you are willing to give up. How much of a pain in the ass will you endure to get privacy? How much will you sacrifice to lessen your carbon footprint? Will you march in the streets and get tear gassed in order to protest for your social activist movement? Anyone can say they believe in anything. It's your actions that have an impact.

I guess that is -to some extent- the KPI for "wanting privacy".

Though privacy is also something people want "afterwards".

Something you'd wish you'd taken care of when its too late. When your identity is stolen, and used to get hundreds of speeding tickets on your name. When your sons pictures were lifted off your facebook to bully him after you had your 15 minutes of fame, and so on.

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom is being used by at least one court system for remote hearings. Their barebones IT people are completely incapable of independently verifying Zoom's encryption claims.

Would they use Jitsi if it was fully managed for them and free?

Apologies: rereading I realize you asked a question; I thought you were making a recommendation.

I don't know anything about Jitsi. Will research. Thanks.

At the start of the pandemic, my friend at this particular court was tasked with figuring something out. Initial plan was choose a web cam and software combo for everyone to use. And then they'd be futzing with Windows boxes of unknown provenance, trying to do remote tech support, etc. Whose got time for all that? For instance, they told me one of the new Logitech web cams they tried doesn't have Windows 10 drivers.

I recommended they just a cheap iPad for each location, participant. Create iCloud account for each device. Use FaceTime. Buy mounts or tripods as needed.

I haven't heard back what they finally decided.

FWIW, I since learned they were also having uninvited people join their confidential sessions, just like the naked guy showing up for online classes. Such a mess.

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely hate the term virtue signalling. It's always reductive and dismissive. If I am willing to go a LITTLE out of my way to protect my privacy, but not a LOT out of my way, am I "just virtue signalling"? If I continue to use a privacy-less platform (e.g. zoom/instagram/facebook) but just exercise caution with what I say using that medium, is that also "just virtue signalling"? I agree, evidence shows most peo…

I measure virtue by how much you are willing to lose for the sake of your values or because you want to help other people. If you aren't willing to give up anything, you're not virtuous no matter what you say. Actions matter. If you say you care about privacy but do nothing to protect your privacy, you don't really care about privacy in any way that matters. Since you mildly inconvenience yourself for the sake of pri…

Is, would you say, virtue signaling to say something others like but not actually do something inconvenient related to that oneself?

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#544
post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse than that. Saying AESGCM doesn’t even mean they are using SSL or DH key exchange or etc. it just means they’re using symmetric for the data, that’s all. Nothing about how the key is securely transferred to each side and how the user can have any confidence they aren’t passing the key back to themselves anyhow.

They use TLS, they have been using TLS this whole time. This E2E encryption is on top of TLS.

I see, but transferring the AES key directly over TLS is the worst scenario because now you be certain Zoom has it, no?

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to remind this to myself when I see features available for free which are not ported to GSuite (parental control, google assistant for home users, reminders, inbox in the past (it took I think a year to port it)

And the reasons it takes time to port those features is because Google respects GSuite's privacy promises.

What do you mean? How porting, say, Inbox has anything to do with privacy? This is the same codebase.

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#546
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are the 1%. 99% of people consider "privacy" a good value in abstract but will not lift a finger to protect their own privacy. It's virtue signalling.

Other comments aside, this isn't even using the term "virtue signaling" correctly. They're are plenty of things that people agree with in the abstract, but don't do enough to make a difference. Probably everyone agrees that the environment should be cleaner. If I agree with that, but "don't lift a finger" to make it better, how am a virtue signaling? It's the opposite. "Virtue signaling" involves doing some token thi…

If you go out on the street to give homeless people food but your main motivation for doing it is so you can take a quick selfie for some feel-good reactions on instagram and facebook, you're definitely virtue signalling in a particularly irritating way...... But, those homeless people still got some food as a result, and somewhere else, someone else might see your posts and decide to do the same thing (with or without selfie, depending on how much of a self absorbed ass they are) Either way, the net result is that now more people are giving food to the needy in this simple example. A net benefit is produced by self absorbed behavior.

When virtue signalling can become dangerous however is in situations where something based on a mistaken notion of doing good (when in reality it does more harm) becomes a fad and people who virtue-signal keep promoting it into wider popularity.

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot "5. Zoom gets praised for developing features in response to criticism that already existed in other products that work better." Jokes aside, with Zoom's track record, it's not worth using anymore regardless of what features they implement. Not having E2E encryption is no where near as much of a red flag as lying about it is to me.

Just curious - what other product that works better do you recommend? Webex, Skype, Hangouts/Meet, Teams all pale in comparison when it comes to quality and ease-of-use.

I use Jitsi Meet. It's easier to use, the audio is generally better (although my only evidence for this is anecdotal, I'm taking piano lessons over video chat right now and meet was the only one that provided consistently good audio for my teacher), and it's web interface "Just works" whereas Zooms hates to be launched and tries to make you install the app constantly (although their launcher is so weird it behaves differently for me depending on the day).

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like “PC” or “fake news”, it was originally meaningful but got co-opted by people who use it in bad faith.

Just curious: Fake news was coined by Trump, so you're agreeing it was a meaningful usage?

Wrong, it originally referred to fabricated political news stories (generally pro-Trump) circulated on social media during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump later co-opted the term to mean any unfavorable news coverage.

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that a business needs a moat to be profitable is a problem endemic to business. I'm pretty econ-left philosophically (socdem short-term, mutualist/ancom long-term), so you can't get much argument from me here. :) But I want to steelman the other perspective: so long as we live in a pre-post-scarcity market economy, having some kind of moat is part of how one gains bargaining leverage in a price negotiation…

> But say I'm a board member or an investor in Zoom, whether pre- or post-success: how would you pitch me on the business value of open-sourcing the expensive-to-product client software? Okay. Consider the following fantastical talk from technical me to you, oh dear fantastical board member: Let's face a fact: yeah open source software is "free (as in free speech)" and it can also be "free (as in free beer)". Anyone…

Well done! That was a good pitch, I'll bookmark it in case I need to use these arguments in the future. ;)

Re: Zoom to bring end-to-end encryption to all users, including non-paying

#550
post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the numbers different for you? 8x8 appears to have a market cap of $1.55B vs Zoom’s $67B. 40x difference.

you're right. i remembered the numbers wrong. i think it just proves my point even further though.

Yes for sure it does hah
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