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Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

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Re: Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

#31

I don't understand how the FTC arrived at the conclusion they're not E2E? Or have I missed something? >Despite promising end-to-end encryption, the FTC said that "Zoom maintained the cryptographic keys that could allow Zoom to access the content of its customers' meetings, and secured its Zoom Meetings, in part, with a lower level of encryption than promised." Not wonderful but that still, technically, is an E2E encr…

What kind of hurdle do you see? What you've described isn't e2e encryption, the FTC is absolutely correct.

The FTC not doing something unreasonable here, I would wager you are by implying they're placing undue hardship on a company that peddles bald-faced lies.

Re: Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

#32
post #16

If Zoom made clear to users that connections were not secured to the same standards as competitors, and that potentially hundreds of employees could be silently listening in on any call, I think that would have prevented them becoming a leader in video conference tech. So the right fine here is their entire market cap. That would put them back at square one, which is where an honest competitor would be right now.

Some reports say the whole video conferencing market, being very optimistic, will reach $50B in 2026 (considering Covid-19 - https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/video-conferenc... ) But Zoom, alone, already has a marketcap of $117.534B ( https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ZM/ ) I really think there is an unsustainable distortion happening.

Wild optimism aside, you can sell one or even a thousand ZM shares at approximately the current market price, but you can't sell the entirety of the company at the same price. The pool of buyers is much smaller for such volumes.

Re: Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

#33

If Zoom made clear to users that connections were not secured to the same standards as competitors, and that potentially hundreds of employees could be silently listening in on any call, I think that would have prevented them becoming a leader in video conference tech. So the right fine here is their entire market cap. That would put them back at square one, which is where an honest competitor would be right now.

Sure, that sounds like fair solution.

But that's not how capitalism works.

You can be honest business or you can steal billions, get caught and pay a millions in fines. I think everyone can see a problem here. You pay back less then you stole so this is an active encouragement to steal.

Most recent example, morgan stanley fraud for bilions in profit pays fine of 1.5 mil [0].

Reality is borrowing from Kafka.

[0] https://coinweek.com/bullion-report/morgan-stanley-mitsubish...

Re: Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

#34
post #16

If Zoom made clear to users that connections were not secured to the same standards as competitors, and that potentially hundreds of employees could be silently listening in on any call, I think that would have prevented them becoming a leader in video conference tech. So the right fine here is their entire market cap. That would put them back at square one, which is where an honest competitor would be right now.

Some reports say the whole video conferencing market, being very optimistic, will reach $50B in 2026 (considering Covid-19 - https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/video-conferenc... ) But Zoom, alone, already has a marketcap of $117.534B ( https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ZM/ ) I really think there is an unsustainable distortion happening.

I don't really think so. I think we are just moving away from inefficient meetings that are IRL. I would love to see all meetings go remote for many reasons. I think this will stay even once Covid is gone.

Re: Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

#35

If Zoom made clear to users that connections were not secured to the same standards as competitors, and that potentially hundreds of employees could be silently listening in on any call, I think that would have prevented them becoming a leader in video conference tech. So the right fine here is their entire market cap. That would put them back at square one, which is where an honest competitor would be right now.

I wish that was true, but in practice I think it wouldn't matter. Zoom was the only one ready with infrastructure, multiple clients, automatic quality adjustment, screen sharing options, scheduling, and many other needed features. Otherwise we had hangouts/meet with very basic features and jet-taking-off Mac behaviour, chime which is really good but nobody heard of it (Amazon is not interested in that market apparent…

Sure, if you don't worry about privacy.

Re: Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really different from competitors like Cisco (webex, jabber, ...)? A big selling point of all those is phone dial in which can't be done with e2e encryption (the phone gateway run by the operator has to have the keys)

The thing is: Our team doesn't use phone dial-in, haven't even seen the feature so I guess it's not enabled, but still we don't have e2e encryption. That doesn't make sense.

No doubt their, but GP refered to competitors and in that segment e2e is rare.

Re: Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

#38
post #21

If Zoom made clear to users that connections were not secured to the same standards as competitors, and that potentially hundreds of employees could be silently listening in on any call, I think that would have prevented them becoming a leader in video conference tech. So the right fine here is their entire market cap. That would put them back at square one, which is where an honest competitor would be right now.

Not defending them in any way - but don't think security was the primary reason for Zoom taking off. It was stability - it just worked and at the same time competitors didn't. Everybody used to have Skype and I would have gladly handed over my data to MS if only it would have been able to do stable video calls. It was often a disaster for just 2-way calls, let alone group.

Skype was better before the MS aquisition... and it used to be P2P. It'd be nice if the pre-MS source would leak somehow.

Re: Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says

#39
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that was true, but in practice I think it wouldn't matter. Zoom was the only one ready with infrastructure, multiple clients, automatic quality adjustment, screen sharing options, scheduling, and many other needed features. Otherwise we had hangouts/meet with very basic features and jet-taking-off Mac behaviour, chime which is really good but nobody heard of it (Amazon is not interested in that market apparent…

Sure, if you don't worry about privacy.

You can care about privacy yet still prioritize not killing your company in a pandemic.

Very few things that are hosted are immune to employee buggery, that’s why companies invest in third party risk management; to assess those risks, which are always material and non-zero and determine if they are within the appetite of the organization.

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