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Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#201

Post by beaugunderson »

MrWiffles wrote: post #156
lsllc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly running dtruss on (modern) macOS requires disabling system integrity protection.

I don't remember the option off-hand, but there's a way to leave SIP enabled, but still allow dtruss too on modern MacOS. You'd have to Google it up, but that option does exist (I just can't remember the name off hand). Saw it about ~4 weeks ago while doing some research.

Looks like you're referring to this, from June: https://poweruser.blog/using-dtrace-with-sip-enabled-3826a35...

Sadly it's a little more involved (a chroot which removes all codesigning bits) than a simple option, but I'm glad to have found a way to do it all.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#202

Post by inter_netuser »

woodruffw wrote: post #178
dathinab wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you implement such a overly complex and unreliable thing when: 1. The windows manager can provide you with a list of open windows. 2. Screensharing including only sharing specific windows is a feature provided by the windows manager over standardized protocols. 3. Even knowing the processes which do have a GUI doesn't allow you to share that GUI, at least not without going through roughly the same mechanism…

Hence “unlikely stretch.”

Let's just say the quiet part outloud: they sell that data.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#203

Post by neurostimulant »

est wrote: post #200
xfitm3 wrote: post #136

It not only examines all processes and arguments - it leverages the microphone to act on ultrasonic cues for "integrations". Zoom is a privacy dumpster fire. https://devforum.zoom.us/t/ultrasonic-connection/3318

Any application allows remote screen recording is basically a trojan horse.

By that definition all major browsers are trojan too because they can capture screens and windows via screen capture api.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#204

Post by neurostimulant »

nonameiguess wrote: post #128
jlgaddis wrote: post #59

> Is there any way to prevent it? Mounting /proc with " hidepid=2 " should prevent it from seeing processes owned by other users, although it would still be able to see your processes. Alternatively, it shouldn't be too hard to create an AppArmor profile that blocks access to /proc. Other options might include things like SELinux, seccomp-bpf, namespaces, cgroups, etc., depending on what's available on your host. Or…

You can edit /usr/share/applications/Zoom.desktop to run inside of bubblewrap, similar to how the Arch Wiki suggests doing this for Skype: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bubblewrap#Skype_for_Linux Since this puts it in its own PID and mount namespace, it won't see any processes except itself and its children. You can even try not mounting /proc in the container this makes at all and see what happens. This is effect…

Does screen sharing still works with this method?

Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#205

Post by cranekam »

nullc wrote: post #193

How else would they backup your command-line passed passwords and private keys for you?

I assume this is a joke comment because I have never heard of passing a private key (the contents of one, not the file name) as a command line argument. It’d be ten times worse than asking what someone’s wifi password was and being told some 40-digit hex string.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#206

Post by neurostimulant »

eertami wrote: post #123
zippergz wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people here who are saying "Teams and Meet are just as good" are the people who use Zoom in a browser. The audio and video quality, and resilience to poor connections, is much better in the desktop app.

>The audio and video quality, ... is much better in the desktop app But is the quality actually better, or is it post-processing tricks to make it seem better on commodity hardware/audio setups? If it is actually better, surely this should be measurable and there should exist evidence to support such a claim.

You can test it by throttling your network speed down from your router and compare the desktop and web version performance. The desktop version will sacrifice video quality (to the point of stuttering on very low bandwidth) in order to maintain audio quality, which massively increase usability on poor network condition.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#207

Post by rocqua »

vbernat wrote: post #67
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why anyone who is forced to use it doesn't use it in a browser (I have a separate Firefox container for that, same for Teams).

For me: more CPU usage (and more battery usage), not able to see other participants when sharing screen. But I am running Zoom in a Flatpak to avoid the kind of issues reported here. BTW, the same happens with Discord and it's not possible to disable it.

Discord does it to detect which game you are running, so it can display "user is playing X" to your friends.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#209

Post by q-rews »

travoc wrote: post #104
slownews45 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful with this. In some orgs you can get a bit of a bad reputation for being technically incompetent if you can't get zoom to run. Zoom is very invasive / flexible - so it's actually somewhat hard to have it NOT work. People will suggest you try connecting on your phone or dialing in if you really can't figure it out (note that it has a fallback to browser option if you get stuck trying to start meeting as well…

You can avoid this reputation by saying “our security analysts block Zoom because they think it might be untrustworthy spyware.”

I resorted to using all modern video call software on my iPhone for that reason. I also get better camera quality so there's that. Apple Handshake also makes it relatively easy to share links.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?

#210

Post by kamray23 »

thxg wrote: post #154
thxg wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ This is the correct answer. I installed the Zoom client just to have a look for myself. The syscalls in question emanate from freshly forked processes that immediately execvp() the command `pidof` (on my system it finds it under /usr/bin, so it's the system command, not anything fishy shipped by Zoom). Actually, the command-line argument to the command is, in succession: gnome-session gnome-panel gnome-shell gnome-…

Hmmm... maybe Zoom devs too use Stack Overflow? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3376679/qt-how-to-detect...

God damn it, why do terrible SO suggestions find themselves in every application?
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