A question: I have avoided installing the native macOS Zoom client, but I use the iOS native app on my iPhone. Does the iOS app have the same vulnerabilities as the macOS native app? I searched in these comments for ‘iOS’ to see if someone already discussed this. Thanks.
Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
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Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#362Zoom's issues are fixable... unlike a hardware defect like the macbook pro keyboard and the iphone antenna that didn't work well... Zoom is clearly better than the alternatives and has my 80 year old uncle talking about it. This too shall pass.
I don’t understand why people are so eager to trust this company with sensitive business information. They’re totally untrustworthy after what they’ve done. It doesn’t matter what they pretend they’re fixing. Their word is worthless. What is it with you people blindly believing whatever garbage comes out of these companies?
Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use this because I have a pixelbook and it works pretty well except for two issues: (1) minor issue that you have to click the "leave meeting" button, you can't just close the window or else it strangely relaunches and (2) major issue is that you can't change your video background which is a killer feature IMO.
I haven't been able to find a way to change my video background on the Linux client either. The image recognition software must be difficult to reliably implement for their lower-value platforms (as in, it would cost them too much to get it working well relative to the number of users).
Works for me on Linux, after signing in (I'm using a paid plan).
Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Every native app made by a Chinese company could also provide a backdoor to the PLA. Same could be said about apps from other countries and the NSA, FSB, GCHQ, Mossad, ASD, whatever the Germans are calling the gentler, kinder, totally-not-spying-on-everyone-anymore-we-swear successor to the Stasi, etc. There is no specific evidence for this, but it is a possibility. Balancing remote possibilities and accepting some t…
>Personally, I would try to stick to apps by companies headquartered in your home country.
Why is that? It seems like the opposite would be the best advice: make sure to use something from a company not headquartered in your country. Most people probably have more to worry about from their own government than anyone else.
Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm not sure why you worry about that. It's guaranteed they have it and use it. You should worry about "is it a problem for me that the Chinese government and Chinese companies have access to my video meeting streams" If yes: do not use Zoom right now. If no: do what you want.
If China wants to waste its resources having people spy on me on Zoom while I play board games with friends on it, then this seems like a good thing to me.
But I wouldn't use it for work meetings.
Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but why does it matter if China intercepts your American school children? Why would they want to? That's not a reasonable threat model.
It still leaks information. How many kids you have, their name, some things about their personality, who they are friends with, etc. Think about how someone who wants to hurt or control you could could use that information.
You seriously think the Chinese government is going to stoop to K&R with random Americans?
The Chinese government is the last entity I'd be worried about with this kind of information (unless, of course, you live in China). Certain criminals in your own country are a much bigger concern.
Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing Google Docs has over MS is the collaboration. Word in the browser is a billion times better for formatting than Google Docs. I loath using google docs. But when it comes to Collab, Google docs wins hands down.
> The only thing Google Docs has over MS is the collaboration. As someone who has had to build relatively complex tools in both Sheets and Excel, I would have to say Sheets has done a much more impressive job with their builtin formulas/functions than Excel.
I can't comment on that because I rarely use Sheets or Excel. I think my usage of Sheets is `=SUM...` :D
Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#368"Employees who have been using Zoom to stay in touch with family and friends can continue to do so through a web browser or via mobile." (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
Does Google usually dictate which products you can and cannot use in your personal life and free time? Why was this statement needed?
Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#369"Employees who have been using Zoom to stay in touch with family and friends can continue to do so through a web browser or via mobile." (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
Does Google usually dictate which products you can and cannot use in your personal life and free time? Why was this statement needed?
I believe they are talking about using Zoom to call friends/family from your work laptop.
Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google’s reputation as an employer stems in large part from rejecting that belief, and more generally the enterprise bureaucratic culture it lives in. Engineers aren’t clamoring to get into the kinds of companies where IT needs to pre-approve software for their workstations.
You might be disappointed to know that native applications need pre-approval in most cases. There's a whitelist. Of course, after years and years and hundreds of thousands of engineers, the whitelist is pretty robust. I don't know for sure, but I bet Zoom has been on that whitelist, and "banning" is removing it from that whitelist.
I'll be absolutely stunned if people are really having to raise JIRA tickets instead of typing "brew install" but my information is secondhand so what do I know.
Our laptops are configuration managed, force upgraded, and surveilled, but we all have root and IT has never stood in the way of "power user" behavior. The extent of the frustration in engineering is that their management processes sometimes eat CPU. My understanding is that most of the Valley is like this.