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Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

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Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#121

Post by mushufasa »

nvahalik wrote: post #51
ciarannolan wrote: post #8

I feel like the good faith presumption for this company has to have shifted by now. Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Documenting participants (face, voice, language, location, etc.), recording content, etc. We're talking about the data of 200M+ users. I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time. >The company has acknowledged that much of its product…

Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution. However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.

I've tried Google Meet, Jitsi, and some other things, but Zoom is the only service that my 6+ year old laptop can handle for more than 5 min without nosediving into 100% CPU usage and freezing up.

Does anyone have other suggestions? Either for other services or for troubleshooting Jitsi?

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#122

Post by seppin »

laumars wrote: post #97
ethanbond wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all governments are equal. Cut out this whaddaboutism. Edit: When I replied, OP was simply “governments monitor all major companies... including the US government”

Whataboutism is usually done to defend something by making it look better in comparison but what the OP was arguing is that we should be pursuing end to end encrypted solutions exclusively because it’s not just the Chinese government who are doing the snooping. ie he’s not defending Zoom nor the Chinese government but suggesting the complaint against Zoom/China doesn’t go far enough

If the company itself is compromised, e-2-e doesn't matter.

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#123

Post by JumpCrisscross »

This requires oversight.

The U.S. government has no business telling Zoom what it must or must not host. But it can prohibit federal procurement of Zoom, prohibit contractors from using Zoom in connection with government work, keep a close eye on Zoom and its employees as potential intelligence threats, and prohibit Zoom from accessing federal benefits.

It should require pre-emptive disclosure by of foreign ownership, control and influence; as well as public disclosure of government censorship requests and fulfillments by publicly-traded companies.

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#124

Post by cutemonster »

chongli wrote: post #13
ordinaryradical wrote: post #4

Aiding in the Chinese media's censorship is not good for China nor the world. When a government destroys the ability for it to be criticized it becomes untethered from consensus reality; megalomaniacs can take the reins and a kind of national hubris forms that can lead to devastating conflict and oppression. All governments need open dissent and criticism to keep from going down this path. Zoom should not be aiding a…

The problem for China is that Xi Jinping has essentially installed himself as dictator-for-life. He now rides to and fro on a tiger from which he dare not dismount. The CCP witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and instead of opening up to a peaceful transition to democracy they chose to double down on top-down authoritarian policies. At the same time, they’ve sought to leverage markets for economic growth. The…

> he dare not dismount

Sounds as if you think he wants to dismount

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#125

Post by seppin »

mnd999 wrote: post #88
Novukus wrote: post #49

Guys, guys, it's fine. According to everybody on HN who's so eagerly embraced Zoom and continued to use it even after the security issues, the only thing that matters is that Zoom is the best UX experience for video conferencing. Forget about the human rights, suppression of free speech or the fact that the company is wholly subservient to the CCP (not like anybody could've ever foreseen anything like this ever happe…

The UX is actually not that good. The layout is bad, features are hidden all over the place. It’s not logical or intuitive. It does have a lot of features though, I think that is what people like.

Exactly, it's more like a default choice than a "really good one".

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#126

Post by strogonoff »

jedberg wrote: post #94
strogonoff wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Security and ease of use are always a tradeoff. Security and ease of use are not by default mutually exclusive. Depending on circumstances satisfying both may be a challenge, but it’s not a blanket impossibility and we could probably hold certain companies up to a standard that corresponds to their multi-billion valuations. A virtual “slider” on which you can only dial up security by hurting usability is only a use…

> It’s worth keeping in mind that even though security and ease of use tend to inversely correlate with each other, they are not by default mutually exclusive. I actually disagree with you. I think security and ease of use are mutually exclusive. I can't think of a single counterexample where security did not have an effect on usability. Now to be clear, I absolutely believe we should have a lot more security than we…

I believe that the degree to which security negatively affects usability is variable, and in some cases could be negligible, depending on engineering and product teams’ competence.

(Edit: remove many words)

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#128

Post by jessaustin »

oneplane wrote: post #96
jessaustin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...when he's gone? Wishful thinking is a temptation, but it doesn't lead to reasonable analysis. Xi is in fine health at the age of 66. His father lived to the ripe age of 88. His mother is still alive, at 93. We can expect him to receive better medical care than they did, since he is leader of China and they spent several decades getting purged, imprisoned, overworked, and starved by the party. If the Chinese people…

The 'when' is known because there is a limit to life (as far was wek now). So even if that when is in 40 years, it's still a when ;-)

Imagine that we lived in a world where new technology is developed all the time, although not everyone gets access to all new technology simultaneously. In such a world, wouldn't it be possible for the powerful dictator of the most populous and technologically advanced nation in that world to receive seemingly miraculous life-extension treatments before most people knew of their existence?

Besides, if current dystopic trends continue, most of us won't have 40 years to wait for the expiration of our despotic sovereign overlords...

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#129

Post by shacrw »

miles wrote: post #79
staycoolboy wrote: post #64

Is anyone here boycotting use of Zoom? I have a few clients that ask me to use it and I'm trying to think up a good response as to why I don't have it installed. For those of you that have rejected it on principle, what are you all saying?

I generally share a smattering of links like these: Zoom banned from New York City schools due to privacy and security flaws https://www.fastcompany.com/90486586/zoom-banned-from-new-yo... Google Told Its Workers That They Can’t Use Zoom On Their Laptops Anymore https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/google-bans... Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-…

The above China concern is legit but a lot of the issues in the above links have been fixed in the updates ~2 months back.

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#130

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #7

This kind of thing is the exact reason why I was disturbed by the Keybase.io sale to Zoom and abandoned my account. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23105253 ) I've been currently using Zoom during the pandemic because as a product it's still the best (and I signed up for a discounted year of pro), but I won't give them any money again.

[deleted]
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