Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#121

Post by cannabis_sam » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

I feel like I live in a bizzaro world...

First, I’ve been working remotely over skype, audio-only, for over a decade. Yet in 2020 and with the emergence of zoom, it’s suddenly become an expectation that everyone is incessantly and awkwardly staring at each other through screens for the whole workday.

Second, the few times I’ve used Zoom it’s been absolutely garbage, with video and sound dropping or just not there (this was a university paying for Zoom’s services).

Yet I use teams everyday, and while I have plenty of complaints about it, at least I can get the sound and (screen-sharing) video that I actually need for my work.

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#122

Post by cookiengineer » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

For people from the EU that hate techcrunch due to its cookie banner spam fatigue - here's the source:

https://datenschutz-hamburg.de/pressemitteilungen/2021/08/20...

(Note that DPA means Deutsche Presse Agentur in German, so we don't use that term over here)

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#123

Post by acdha » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

sombremesa wrote: post #120

lrvick wrote: post #118

I recommend almost anything else at all other than Zoom. As a security researcher that has reported a number of issues to Zoom, I can say without reservation they are one of the most security negligent companies I ever worked with. It was evident after multiple calls with their team they didn't employ anyone strong technically in their US offices and had no idea how to translate security issues, even obvious ones lik…

Zoom has fixed the UX in this business, which is the one thing that matters most™, and which is why they will continue to be successful. It's like a restaurant which has the absolute best food by a mile, so they remain in business despite the cockroaches and unfriendly waitstaff. Most customers don't really care about privacy and security, they just want to pretend, and as long as they can easily pretend they're happ…

Which UX problem do you think it fixed? If I had to rate by the ability to successfully start a call and not have technical issues interrupt it, I'd rank Zoom, Teams, Slack, and Google Meet roughly equivalent — the quality isn't as good or robust as Facetime but that's also not designed for meetings or cross-platform.

I'd accept Google self-selecting out of the market with their incoherent messaging strategy but that has nothing do with UX other than not needing to tell people to uninstall the old apps and install the current one.

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#124

Post by blululu » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

danielrhodes wrote: post #72

blululu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who runs Zoom via the browser (they do deploy a dark pattern to discourage this behavior but there is no good reason to trust them) I find that Hangouts and Teams are both solid alternatives in terms of AV quality. Would be happy to see some actual data on this claim. People prefer the interface they are used to. I personally find Zoom to be really frustrating from an interface angle but that is probably j…

Perhaps I am jaded, but as of yet I have never used a browser-based video chat that worked well. Invariably connection issues arise which I have only rarely experienced with Zoom. My best explanation is that a native app has more to work with in terms of codecs and connection management than a browser can offer. So to this end, that "dark" pattern is ultimately to a user's benefit and they are truly better off if the…

This dark pattern may benefit some users, however there is a trade-off between video quality and data security. Different users have different preferences/needs between these two aspects of a video call service. Tricking people into selecting one option is rarely done out of concern for the interests of the end user. I would personally be much more convinced that I am benefiting from installing an app that has a history of data security issues if they gave a clear and up front explanation of why this benefits me.

FWIW, my work uses Google Meet running through Chrome and it gets the job done for remote collaboration. I would actually be curious to see some figures on the difference in performance between Browser and Desktop. I imagine that you can do a few tricks for compression and buffering on with a native app that would not be possible on a browser, but I haven't seen a big difference in terms of my ability to have a meeting.

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#125

Post by d0mine » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

rblatz wrote: post #7

So this is different than all the other Zoom is insecure things. This is related to Zoom sending data to a “hostile” state (the US) which cannot guarantee GDPR compliance and there is no waiver to allow transmission of protected data to The US.

who doesn't send data to US? (google, apple, facebook?)

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#126

Post by justaguy88 » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #123

sombremesa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom has fixed the UX in this business, which is the one thing that matters most™, and which is why they will continue to be successful. It's like a restaurant which has the absolute best food by a mile, so they remain in business despite the cockroaches and unfriendly waitstaff. Most customers don't really care about privacy and security, they just want to pretend, and as long as they can easily pretend they're happ…

Which UX problem do you think it fixed? If I had to rate by the ability to successfully start a call and not have technical issues interrupt it, I'd rank Zoom, Teams, Slack, and Google Meet roughly equivalent — the quality isn't as good or robust as Facetime but that's also not designed for meetings or cross-platform. I'd accept Google self-selecting out of the market with their incoherent messaging strategy but that…

> Which UX problem do you think it fixed?

You can join a call without signing up

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#127

Post by sombremesa » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #123

sombremesa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom has fixed the UX in this business, which is the one thing that matters most™, and which is why they will continue to be successful. It's like a restaurant which has the absolute best food by a mile, so they remain in business despite the cockroaches and unfriendly waitstaff. Most customers don't really care about privacy and security, they just want to pretend, and as long as they can easily pretend they're happ…

Which UX problem do you think it fixed? If I had to rate by the ability to successfully start a call and not have technical issues interrupt it, I'd rank Zoom, Teams, Slack, and Google Meet roughly equivalent — the quality isn't as good or robust as Facetime but that's also not designed for meetings or cross-platform. I'd accept Google self-selecting out of the market with their incoherent messaging strategy but that…

When Zoom first came onto the scene, the other technologies you've listed had more friction than coarse grained sandpaper. Zoom was the very first to let people join meetings without a) signing up; and b) downloading anything. I don't know about all the solutions you've listed, but Google Meet for example still requires an account whereas Zoom still does not.

As more and more people use Zoom, the friction of using it decreases as well, since you can more safely assume that people have used it before and are familiar with it - if not, they can still use it without making an account, and without downloading anything (though this has become a bit harder now).

Furthermore, Zoom was also one of the first solutions to let you simply call in with your phone (and put that option front and center), which also does not require accounts or any downloads.

There are probably many other things I'm glossing over here - UX is a holistic phenomenon after all, and requires many small things to feel right. I'm not sure whether you're arguing that Zoom did not have 10x better UX than anything out there when it launched, but if you are, I can't help but think you're being willfully ignorant.

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#128

Post by CabSauce » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

sombremesa wrote: post #120

lrvick wrote: post #118

I recommend almost anything else at all other than Zoom. As a security researcher that has reported a number of issues to Zoom, I can say without reservation they are one of the most security negligent companies I ever worked with. It was evident after multiple calls with their team they didn't employ anyone strong technically in their US offices and had no idea how to translate security issues, even obvious ones lik…

Zoom has fixed the UX in this business, which is the one thing that matters most™, and which is why they will continue to be successful. It's like a restaurant which has the absolute best food by a mile, so they remain in business despite the cockroaches and unfriendly waitstaff. Most customers don't really care about privacy and security, they just want to pretend, and as long as they can easily pretend they're happ…

Really? Their UI/UX within a call is the worst of the major video conferencing tools, IMO.

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#129

Post by biztos » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #123

sombremesa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom has fixed the UX in this business, which is the one thing that matters most™, and which is why they will continue to be successful. It's like a restaurant which has the absolute best food by a mile, so they remain in business despite the cockroaches and unfriendly waitstaff. Most customers don't really care about privacy and security, they just want to pretend, and as long as they can easily pretend they're happ…

Which UX problem do you think it fixed? If I had to rate by the ability to successfully start a call and not have technical issues interrupt it, I'd rank Zoom, Teams, Slack, and Google Meet roughly equivalent — the quality isn't as good or robust as Facetime but that's also not designed for meetings or cross-platform. I'd accept Google self-selecting out of the market with their incoherent messaging strategy but that…

I think a lot of it is that everyone has heard of Zoom, and Zoom works pretty well for calls with a lot of people, so it became the default for group video calls.

The “UX” in this case was “fixed” by being less crashy than the competition for long enough to earn a reputation.

As someone with a security background myself, I really hope organizations use it less and less, because the competition by now works just fine. But as a human living in the world, I don’t refuse to use Zoom, I just use it on my iPad and assume the conversation is intercepted somewhere.

Re: Stop using Zoom, Hamburg’s data protection agency warns state government

#130

Post by schmorptron » Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

Akronymus wrote: post #85

schmorptron wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Element, too!

Element actually uses jitsi.

Oh right, they're just planning to get voice and video working over matrix natively in the semi near future