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

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

#151

Post by ubermonkey »

baal80spam wrote: post #20
rblatz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know what rock you are living under but everyone uses Zoom. Even Cisco sales reps use it for sales meetings and they own WebEx.

> everyone uses Zoom Well, my org uses Teams and I don't know anyone who uses Zoom professionally.

I have a couple of (honestly not very tech savvy) clients who adopted Zoom at the beginning of the COVID era, and who are absolutely swallowing whatever lies Zoom is telling about security and encryption and whatnot.

Zoom has the absolutely BALLS to sell a product called "ZoomGov" they say is more secure or whatever, but who wants to bet it's the same code running on different servers? They're also claiming HIPAA compliance, which I'm also certain is a complete lie.

They don't care. They'll say literally anything, and pay whatever fines happen if they get caught.

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

#152

Post by Krasnol »

ethelward wrote: post #136
sombremesa wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Zoom was the very first to let people join meetings without a) signing up; and b) downloading anything E.g. BigBlueButton and Jitsi were doing it for much longer.

Which is irrelevant because those who knew about those are not the significant majority which is responsible for the success of zoom

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

#153

Post by ramimac »

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…

Disclaimer: Have worked with many smart folks who now work at Zoom.

I agree that Zoom has had numerous security and privacy failings. I think it is important to color the characterization of their security teams with a timeline however.

Looking at that gist - the majority of the content predates the conclusion of the "90 day security plan" [1]. The team, and product no doubt, has changed immensely in the past year. That doesn't wallpaper over the history here, but there is completely different security leadership (e.g the current CISO didn't start until late June 2020 [2]) and staffing in place at this point that means your statements on their team likely aren't reflective of Zoom today.

[1] https://blog.zoom.us/ceo-report-90-days-done-whats-next-for-... [2] https://blog.zoom.us/zoom-hires-jason-lee-as-chief-informati...

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

#154

Post by reilly3000 »

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…

It’s tight integration with calendar systems and Slack definitely help. Their browser extension makes Google Calendar event creation have a Zoom Meeting link that is seamless, and /zoom is irresistible. For a time they had the best free tier on the market, and people appreciated the 45 minute time limit that came along with it.

FWIW the competition was terrible for a time. I’ve never been on a BlueJeans call that wasn’t painful, Google Meet/Hangouts had terrible quality, GoToMeeting was neglected post-acquisition, slack killed their meeting product for a while, and WebEx was bloated. Join.me was my goto for a while, but now I use Jitsi when I get to choose, but usually end up on Zoom calls.

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

#155

Post by [deleted] »

netr0ute wrote: post #144
CabSauce wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it's because we power users want more from a UI, but to Average Joe, Zoom is great because all the simple stuff is easy to understand.

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by hnlmorg »

netr0ute wrote: post #144
CabSauce wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it's because we power users want more from a UI, but to Average Joe, Zoom is great because all the simple stuff is easy to understand.

I've got to agree with the GP on this. I would argue Zoom is one of the least simple to understand UIs.

- It's multi-window (like WebEx). Whereas Teams and Meets is a single window interface

- It has a great many options and not all of them are immediately obvious. Like how filters are hidden behind then stop cam button

I'm not saying I'm a fan of MS Teams nor Google Meets either. But they do have a much slicker UI.

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

#157

Post by cycomanic »

Krasnol wrote: post #152
ethelward wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zoom was the very first to let people join meetings without a) signing up; and b) downloading anything E.g. BigBlueButton and Jitsi were doing it for much longer.

Which is irrelevant because those who knew about those are not the significant majority which is responsible for the success of zoom

So the point is not that zoom was better UX wise, but simply had better marketing, or not?

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

#158

Post by cycomanic »

netr0ute wrote: post #144
CabSauce wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it's because we power users want more from a UI, but to Average Joe, Zoom is great because all the simple stuff is easy to understand.

I can tell you that this is pretty much everyone. I've just experienced this in some interviews and conferences where people were using Zoom and Teams for the first time.

There was definitely much more confusion when using Zoom than teams. How do I share my screen? How do I open the participants/chat when sharing the screen ... The interface especially when sharing a screen is absolutely horrible.

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

#159

Post by cycomanic »

ratww wrote: post #141
taf2 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your line reasoning… but the problem with video conferencing isn’t really technical- IMO it’s all about the User experience (UX). Zoom by far beats the competition in this regard. It’s UI could be better but compared the mess of competitors it’s far more straightforward … just my opinion…

I don't think Zoom "beats" anyone in UX, especially with the dark patterns. They're just popular. I've seen countless times hundreds of people unable to activate the "Computer Audio" option on company-wide meetings because it's in a secondary tab with zero-affordance. Recently they made it very hard to find the "gallery mode" icon (you have to hover a dark area). They also make it borderline impossible to open it on…

One of my pet-peeves with the zoom UX is that it always switches to full-screen mode if someone is sharing the screen. This is particularly annoying if you are also using the participant or chat windows (because there's voting or chat messages etc.) and if you are switching between different presenters (meaning it switches again and again to full screen). Why can't it respect my decision to not have a full-screen window?!

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

#160

Post by e40 »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

Offer a comparable alternative, then. I spend half my day on meetings either internally or with clients, and every time I have to jump on a client meeting with Microsoft Teams/Google Hangouts/WebEx/GotoMeeting because their company bans Zoom, it's a recipe for a fruitless meeting. Someone will fumble the sharing controls; screens will take forever to present; at least one person's microphone will become inaudible, st…

Yeah, it's amazing to me the hate people have for Zoom.

I feel about Zoom like Garp felt about the plane that hit the house he was looking at buying. When the real estate agent said he wouldn't want to buy it now, he said The odds of another plane hitting this house are astronomical! and bought the house. I think it's unlikely Zoom will jeopardize their leadership by not taking security and privacy seriously.

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