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Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

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Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#301

Post by rdxm »

jMyles wrote: post #207
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The threat model for a school is kids/others disrupting sessions and creepers using access to gawp at (or communicate with kids). Since the Chinese government is unlikely to feel the need to compel Zoom to do that, the fact that they have all the keys centrally stored is not a problem. Google's threat model actually does include state level attack (And specifically by China) to steal IP or access confidential user da…

> The threat model for a school is kids/others disrupting sessions and creepers using access to gawp at (or communicate with kids). Not if the school actually cares about the future of its students. From a blog post[0] we published at NuCypher a while back: > If we fail to take action now, we risk a world in which unsavory actors - domestic and foreign - have built rich, comprehensive profiles for every one of our ch…

Exactly. why do you think they punched the OPM to get SF86's?

It continues to surprise me that people just don't grok basic concepts of intelligence gathering. Particularly on a site like this....

And as much is its controversial here, there is a material difference between US and Chinese objectives, value systems and implementations of surveillance.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#302

Post by arcticfox »

soup10 wrote: post #297
enneff wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we can afford it, and that's why if you want MS Office you click a button on a web page and get it immediately. But why would we throw away money by having it installed by default?

Can you guys stop astroturfing here. Nobody is dumb enough to believe that Google is saving money by not using office.

> Nobody is dumb enough to believe that Google is saving money by not using office.

Maybe I'm dumb, why wouldn't they be saving money by not paying for Office? Obviously they could buy it for every employee, including the majority that don't need it, but why? They could also just light money on fire (but why?)?

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#303

Post by neil_s »

(disclaimer: I work at El Goog)

A number of companies have rightfully banned Zoom's native apps, given how insecure they are. I had previously uninstalled it when the news about the secret web server they install came out. Google is still allowing use of the web app, but the web app bizarrely doesn't support Grid/Gallery View, which is the main reason my friends/family wanted to use it.

Hangouts Meet was optimized for work meetings where most people would be dialing in from high-bandwidth meeting rooms, not everyone individually dialing in from home, but hopefully now they've heard the loud feedback about the especial usefulness of Gallery View during quarantine times and will introduce the feature soon.

For now I'm using the Chrome extension that enables this feature client-side using JS/CSS, and staying tf away from Zoom. With how little I used Zoom before quarantine, I don't understand the adoration for it (I found its UI confusing and quality similar to other tools), and I haven't been able to find any benchmarks comparing its video quality for people on less good internet connections (my home network is pretty strong).

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#304

Post by hibikir »

andreygrehov wrote: post #36

How do people feel about BlueJeans?

I used it at work, 3+ times a day for about a year. It worked well most of the time, but it had interesting ways to fail when it didn't like the connection quality. the MacOS app sometimes decided to stop connecting to any meeting. It got so bad at times that I had to force quit the app after every single meeting, because it didn't listen to regular closing.

It got so bad we added a bluejeans on fire emoji on slack to announce our problems. That said, I've not used it for a year, so some of those issues might be fixed: Software doesn't sit still.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#305

Post by BooneJS »

Is it not common for companies to control what apps are installed on corporate computers, and where company data is stored (cloud providers, etc)? I get the whole Zoom backlash, but this is taking a specific instance of company and app and harvesting clicks.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#306

Post by gowld »

jMyles wrote: post #207
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The threat model for a school is kids/others disrupting sessions and creepers using access to gawp at (or communicate with kids). Since the Chinese government is unlikely to feel the need to compel Zoom to do that, the fact that they have all the keys centrally stored is not a problem. Google's threat model actually does include state level attack (And specifically by China) to steal IP or access confidential user da…

> The threat model for a school is kids/others disrupting sessions and creepers using access to gawp at (or communicate with kids). Not if the school actually cares about the future of its students. From a blog post[0] we published at NuCypher a while back: > If we fail to take action now, we risk a world in which unsavory actors - domestic and foreign - have built rich, comprehensive profiles for every one of our ch…

Sure, but Zoom isn't anywhere near the source of marignal risk on that.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#307

Post by HenryBemis »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #253
uneekname wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't there companies that forbid looking at someone for more than five seconds? Wait what? Could someone explain to me the reasoning behind a policy like this? Edit: it appears to be a sexual harassment policy, and apparently Netflix has tried it [0] [0] https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/netflix-five-second-s...

Extremely unlikely Netflix actually has a policy like this. It was probably an example of what could be considered creepy in some circumstances during a training.

Perhaps Netflix had a very unhealthy (aka filthy) environment, like Uber and the likes, and they cracked it "up to eleven".

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#308

Post by HashThis »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #196
jMyles wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google's threat model may not be your threat model, and it definitely isn't the threat model of my daughter's school. A corporation like Google may be concerned using native applications, written in unsafe languages, written by developers from other corporations in China. That said, Zoom isn't wrong for everyone. Google's threat model surely differs in some way from a school, but the specific threats you named seem…

The threat model for a school is kids/others disrupting sessions and creepers using access to gawp at (or communicate with kids). Since the Chinese government is unlikely to feel the need to compel Zoom to do that, the fact that they have all the keys centrally stored is not a problem. Google's threat model actually does include state level attack (And specifically by China) to steal IP or access confidential user da…

I great worry that China's intelligence service has the zoom traffic of American's routed to the Chinese zoom servers, so they can intercept.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#309

Post by soup10 »

arcticfox wrote: post #302
soup10 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you guys stop astroturfing here. Nobody is dumb enough to believe that Google is saving money by not using office.

> Nobody is dumb enough to believe that Google is saving money by not using office. Maybe I'm dumb, why wouldn't they be saving money by not paying for Office? Obviously they could buy it for every employee, including the majority that don't need it, but why? They could also just light money on fire (but why?)?

Office is business productivity software. You don't buy it for every employee, you negotiate a license for the number of seats in use. It has way more features than google docs and is standard everywhere. It's like saying you could save money by having programmers write code on pencil and paper. You saved the money on the computer but you have a net loss because you lost the power and efficiency of real time editing, compiling and debugging. These corporate guys just drink the internal koolaid/spin from hr or whatever and come here repeating nonsense as if its fact and it annoys me. It's dogfooding with some minor privacy/security concerns since microsoft is competitor, we get it, just call it what it is and move on.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#310

Post by rossjudson »

enneff wrote: post #262
crazygringo wrote: post #77

I mean, Google bans MS Office from employees' computers as well (with special-case exceptions), so they use Docs instead. Since Google has Meet (Hangouts), this isn't really surprising. It mainly sucks for when an employee (especially in sales) has a call with a client that uses Zoom and can't use Meet, because then you're forced to dial in, which just puts you at a disadvantage when everyone can see everyone's face…

MS Office isn't "banned" from employees' computers at Google. If you need it (and some do) you must request it specifically, because it costs Google a nontrivial amount of money for every user. Same thing with any piece of commercial software: for example, I have Adobe Photoshop on my Google laptop, and I had to request it because it costs Google a few hundred bucks, and most people don't need it at all. Before Googl…

I haven't once thought, "Gee, I really wish I could use Microsoft Word". I have thought, "there's a capability I wish I had in Docs" a few times.

I did most of my doc writing in LyX before Google, though.

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