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Zoom monitors activity on your computer

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Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#101

Post by Godel_unicode »

tmpz22 wrote: post #86
userbinator wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find irritating is this proliferation of meeting apps like these, all using their own proprietary variations of protocols and consuming huge amounts of system resources, when there has been a standard protocol for it that's been around since the late 90s, with a variety of different clients available: SIP. One could be sent a SIP URI for a meeting and it would work in any client. Maybe it's like IRC vs all the…

Well the best product usually wins in this space. Usually this means well-managed vanity features like sleek design, animations, emote, but also occasionally more heavy weight performance improvements like video quality and sound quality. Ultimately if the standards and protocols you mentioned provided for that, they'd have won, but they didn't so here we are.

Standards are distinctly not products. Also, the thing that tends to win in this space is lock-in and network effects.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#102

Post by asdff »

eddyg wrote: post #69
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #17

EFF seems to be the source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/what-you-should-know-a... > If attendees of a meeting do not have the Zoom video window in focus during a call where the host is screen-sharing, after 30 seconds the host can see indicators next to each participant’s name indicating that the Zoom window is not active. It doesn't seem too invasive, although of course it'd still be annoying if you have t…

This feature is primarily used in educational-type settings so instructors can tell that students aren't paying attention to something else. As far as I've been able to determine, there is no collection of "apps" or other data, just "not paying attention" time.

So what if the student has their notes app pulled up? That's a legitimate reason to trigger the alert. The student could also just be playing xbox or something unbeknownst to the professor and still appear alert on the webcam.

It seems like it trades a lot of privacy for something students will evade with no effort at all.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#103

Post by CivBase »

manigandham wrote: post #58
CivBase wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet. There is an incentive to do so and they have taken measures to legally protect themselves if they do. That's grounds enough for alarm, even without evidence of them actually doing it.

Alarm for what? It's enterprise video conferencing tech. They make their money from subscriptions. Your personal data is rather useless to them and now a liability under data regulations. Worrying about Zoom here (and I'm not sure the tweet is accurate) seems to ignore all context of the product and business.

> Alarm for what?

That privacy policy is a clear indication that Zoom is only concerned about protecting themselves at all costs. They may not be acting maliciously, but they clearly aren't dedicated to acting ethically either.

I'm not saying it's an emergency, but a privacy policy like that should at least set off some warning flags for a privacy-concious user.

> They make their money from subscriptions. Your personal data is rather useless to them...

I don't care if the data os valuable to them as long as it's valuable to someone.

> ...and now a liability under data regulations.

The liability is worth it if the price is right.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#104

Post by scarface74 »

valuearb wrote: post #57
scarface74 wrote: post #31

Is anyone surprised? https://www.zdnet.com/article/zoom-defends-use-of-local-web-...

Didn't Apple shut that down?

Yes. And people on HN complained that it is yet another example of Apple “locking down” the Mac for killing an app that secretly installed a backdoor and let an app reinstall itself.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#105

Post by scarface74 »

discreditable wrote: post #37

When someone sends you a zoom invite, cancel the download, then click the having problems link to download again. Cancel it again. It will show you a link to join by browser. A few other meeting apps have dark patterns like this. One of my favorite things about Hangouts Meet is it's web first.

Knowing what I know about Zoom and being careful what I install on my computer, I use all such apps on my iPad except for Teams.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#106

Post by gsich »

manigandham wrote: post #100
gsich wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example: A program on your PC can open all files your user owns. Then transmit those files (or parts from them).

That's not considered PII information for a privacy policy. They also don't store your files.

It's still private files. So an oversight by Zoom. A picture of you is absolutely a PII.

>They also don't store your files.

Nobody can prove that. Assume the worst, especially with a company like Zoom.

Remember it was about:

>They have to name every possible thing they can potentially receive

And files certainly fall into that.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#107

Post by colatkinson »

ilikepi wrote: post #71
discreditable wrote: post #37

When someone sends you a zoom invite, cancel the download, then click the having problems link to download again. Cancel it again. It will show you a link to join by browser. A few other meeting apps have dark patterns like this. One of my favorite things about Hangouts Meet is it's web first.

I tested "Join by Browser" recently. On macOS (Mojave), it only seemed to work in Chrome, and the video resolution of the other person was poor, but it did work. Also, I did not need to click a "Having problems" link before the "Join by browser" link to appear, so maybe this feature is being deployed more widely now. Since you mentioned Google Meet, I recently tried that with a group of 6-7 people, and it only lasted…

We've been using Google Meet at my work for daily "standups." Typically 4-6 people, lasting 15-30 mins. Been very smooth sailing, even using Firefox. Out of curiosity, what kind of issues were you running into?

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#109

Post by dpwm »

griphook wrote: post #15

Does anybody have a good alternative to zoom that does not do this?

If you would prefer to self host, there's always FreeSWITCH [0]. It can act as a server for meetings. There is a webRTC client called Verto Communicator that seems to work quite well, or you can use SIP clients.

The documentation is a bit lacking, but it's actually a very capable system for unifying voice, video and chat communications – and a whole lot more.

[0] https://freeswitch.com/

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#110

Post by IggleSniggle »

matsemann wrote: post #41
digitalboss wrote: post #20

via Zoom Support Reply: https://twitter.com/zoom_us/status/1241768006327336963 "Hi, attention tracking feature is off by default - once enabled, hosts can tell if participants have the App open and active when the screen-sharing feature is in use. It does not track any aspects of your audio/video or other applications on your window." Points to this article: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115000538083-Atte…

The twitter thread in the OP says " collects data on the programs running " without backing anything up. Seems like FUD from the face of it. Yes, the privacy may not be perfect (according to EFF admins can see time spent by others in the organization on meetings etc.), and zoom can notify the meeting organizer about participants not having the window in focus. But that's it? Not exactly the gravity touted in the link…

The more interesting aspect to me from the EFF article was that admins can also see your geolocation, who you are meeting with and when, etc. Basically, if Zoom is your platform for communicating, your Zoom admin knows a LOT of metadata about your people that they might not be aware is knowable.
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