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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

#321

Post by Polylactic_acid »

Twixes wrote: post #25
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.

As much as I don't like consolidation of tech, I've had really good experiences with Google Meet. No scummy practices like forcing users to pretend that the app installer doesn't download just to connect from the browser either. What are Zoom's advantages?

Doesn't google meet only work in chrome?

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

#322

Post by jessaustin »

knolax wrote: post #300
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…

> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? The burden of proof lies on you to prove they are.

How on earth could a user "prove" this? Mention some secret on a call and then watch for the Chinese government to act on that secret? Give us a break. It's much safer to assume surveillance and protect oneself accordingly.

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

#323

Post by inetsee »

angott wrote: post #319
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc google also banned the installation of the zoom client on work devices.

To be honest, that's also because they probably want their employees to use one of their 37 different video-conferencing apps.

China has been accused a number of times of engaging in industrial espionage. As a company developing a lot of high technology products, I think Google is entirely justified in keep Zoom out of its technology infrastructure.

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

#324

Post by jessaustin »

milofeynman wrote: post #304
DominikPeters wrote: post #292

Article has been updated with a statement from Zoom: > Update: A Zoom spokesperson confirmed to Axios that the account had been closed "to comply with local law" and said it had now been re-activated. > “Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate. When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comp…

It seems that this would imply that the Chinese government knew the contents of his call(s)?

To be fair, many of the participants on the call were probably in the government's employ, so they got a realtime feed. BLM activists have to watch out for the same thing: lots of FBI and big-city police CIs.

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

#325

Post by foresto »

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 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.

Sticking with the "mutually exclusive" criterion, wouldn't ssh vs. rsh serve as a counterexample? How about https vs. http?

Both replacements brought us greatly improved security, with no effect on usability in the vast majority of time I've spent with them.

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

#326

Post by ascotan »

It's the perennial thorn in the side of big tech companies. If you want to do business in China, you have to abide by the rules (as you would in any country). However, in China this means that you have to engage in political censorship in order to do business there. Hopefully this is will be a lesson learned.

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

#327

Post by buran77 »

angott wrote: post #319
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc google also banned the installation of the zoom client on work devices.

To be honest, that's also because they probably want their employees to use one of their 37 different video-conferencing apps.

Funny and true but also because companies should really scrutinize this kind of software more carefully. Your meeting app "participates" in some of the most delicate conversations.

I used Zoom exactly once. I was invited, I installed the software and Chrome extension as a regular user. I had a mediocre experience in the meeting but didn't pay too much attention, and then proceeded to uninstall the software when I got a prompt that I need to do it as admin.

For me this was a clear warning signal that they want the software to be there especially in companies (that didn't block it) where many users may end up installing it but then aren't able to remove and just forget about it.

Then I started reading about their installer "mishap", their general encryption scheme weakness "mishap", their encryption key routing through China (!!!) "mishap", the redefining of E2EE "mishap", the default settings "mishap", and the mishaps just piled on to the point where I personally believe only a great deal of ignorance or blissfulness could allow a company to still use it.

I get schools and individuals do, it's "free", meaning they don't pay with money and they don't need to look any further than that. But I refuse to ever use it again and when I got Zoom invitations I politely declined, offered to host the meeting myself, or else just asked to be sent the meeting notes on mail. I have no reason to believe Zoom intends to fix their issues but rather to hide them better next time.

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

#328

Post by BLKNSLVR »

ican1 wrote: post #270
at_a_remove wrote: post #35

I wonder if we'll hear the "they're a private company, they can do what they want, it is only censorship if the government does it" routine. I remember about a decade ago when certain parties were so concerned with voices being silenced and "erasure." The same people are now cheering when Facebook, Twitter, and the like shut down certain kinds of speech, with great discretion as to how the "rules" are implemented. Th…

This xkcd comic didn't age well: https://xkcd.com/1357/ . Liberals used to cheerfully link to this whenever a conservative was deplatformed. I don't think they'll trot out this xkcd anymore when their favored people are being censored.

Nope, it's still a great illustrative comic. The people that disagree with the censorship are the ones showing Zoom the door. It's all individual choice, from Zoom and from those who agree / disagree.

I don't agree with Zoom's censorship because I don't agree with China's laws. But I'm not in China, so I have the luxury of expressing my opinion about pretty much anything. Zoom, having operations in China, chose their path. Fine with me, it just means Zoom are lower down my list. That's precisely the scenario depicted in the comic.

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

#329

Post by Aunche »

fiblye wrote: post #298
Aunche wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? It makes perfect sense to boycott Zoom based on their security issues, but does the presumption of innocence mean nothing anymore? It shouldn't be difficult to prove that Zoom is actively trying to block Chinese activists. China banned Zoom during the trade war. Are you going to treat that as evidence that Zoom isn't c…

Is it often that China unblocks a communication platform without them fully complying with the CCP’s desire to monitor and censor everything? I can’t think of any major platforms that got banned and reinstated with zero changes. I’m treating that as evidence that they are colluding.

For some reason, China periodically bans and unbans websites before banning it completely. Reddit is one example of this. It looks like Zoom is moving away from the Chinese market altogether:

https://technode.com/2020/05/15/zoom-suspends-chinese-indivi...

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

#330

Post by dntbnmpls »

jedberg wrote: post #22
john_moscow wrote: post #10

It is ironic how the western public generally frowns upon the silencing of dissident throught in China, and at the same time welcomes precisely the same behavior for "sensitive topics" back home.

There is a vast difference between letting the government suppress speech, which is what China does, and letting private companies suppress speech, which is what happens in America. When the government does it, you can't express that idea anywhere. When private companies do it, you can still express those ideas somewhere else.

> and letting private companies suppress speech, which is what happens in America.

Considering that private companies are now becoming more powerful than many governments/countries, maybe this is something we should take another look at.

> When the government does it, you can't express that idea anywhere.

Can't you argue that you can always move to another country, just like you can use another company?

> When private companies do it, you can still express those ideas somewhere else.

Depends on the private company and its scale/monopolistic position.

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