Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by jedberg » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 2:39 AM UTC

pvg wrote: post #418

jedberg wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. HTTPS everywhere has zero impact on the usability of a website, but makes visiting those sites much more secure. You have to install a plugin on every browser and device. That's not user friendly. Also some sites break and you have to understand why. > 2. Apple's App Store model for installing applications improves security and is also easier to use for the average user. You have to have an account on the app st…

It's not really much of a comparison if you pick things like 'the security mechanism breaks in some way' and no similar failure modes of the 'no security' variant. It's a serious usability problem if an insecure interaction gives you bogus information or if all your accounts are compromised because you use the same password everywhere.

But that’s the point. Security introduces new failure modes that make usability worse.

Again I’m not saying it’s bad, quite the opposite. I’m just saying we have to acknowledge it’s always a trade off.

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

#422

Post by knolax » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 2:42 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #415

knolax wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of Chinese dissidents, including the the activist that is the subject of TFA. The default assumption is to assume noncorrelation between things until proven otherwise. That's a defensible position, yours isn't.

I only said that it is safer to assume surveillance. I didn't say it was more fair or more "defensible" or whatever. In reply you've offered "default assumptions" and "burdens of proof" and "theology". Whom do you attempt to convince with this [EDIT:] sophistry? Oh and nice job implying that Chinese dissidents have the duty of "proving" to the world that the Chinese government surveils them. Snowden is not a dissiden…

> Oh and nice job implying that Chinese dissidents have the duty of "proving" to the world that the Chinese government surveils them.

Chinese dissidents didn't make the claim that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom, you are. They're not your rhetorical shield.

> I only said that it is safer to assume surveillance.

This thread was started by:

> Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse?

You seem to be taking all of this very personally for some reason.

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

#423

Post by kragen » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #402

kragen wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please don't make your arguments this way on HN. It poisons the community and evokes worse from others. Worst of all, if you're right, i.e. if you're in possession of some truth that others don't know, you end up discrediting the truth by mixing it in with personal attacks, calling names, or other aggressiveness. That phenomenon gets stronger the less-known the truth is, because people will more readily look for reas…

Your policy isn't working. It's letting open-and-shut misinformation like this, the outright denial of the existence of a well-known field of research going back decades, go unchallenged. That's Creationism-level intellectual malpractice. You may succeed in making HN more polite — or, more likely, rude in a more subtle way, like Winston Churchill — but if you do it by reducing it to an echo chamber of vulgar misconceptions like this, is that really a win? How can you improve the epistemic functioning of the community?

I'm going to take a break for 81 days now, unless I need to respond to something specifically about something I've written. We'll see what this place looks like then. I'll probably follow it with a longer break.

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

#424

Post by jtdev » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

I’m no longer using Zoom due to the numerous security issues and infractions in addition to Zoom appearing to be a Chinese state controlled organization. I’ve also started to inform my less technical friends/family that Zoom should be avoided at all cost.

On a related note: Has anyone else noticed that non-technical people have started calling any and all video conferencing “zoom”? I keep hearing the phrases: “...have to get on a zoom” or “they’re doing a zoom”.

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

#425

Post by myrandomcomment » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

I just sent email to my company's e-staff (which I am on) saying I will not join another Zoom call. As an American free speech above all is my default. I do understand the Chinese governments worry on having social harmony given the fact that their revolution was driven by the disharmony and they worry about another revolution.

Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." — From Problems of War and Strategy - Mao Zedong

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

#426

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

knolax wrote: post #422

jessaustin wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only said that it is safer to assume surveillance. I didn't say it was more fair or more "defensible" or whatever. In reply you've offered "default assumptions" and "burdens of proof" and "theology". Whom do you attempt to convince with this [EDIT:] sophistry? Oh and nice job implying that Chinese dissidents have the duty of "proving" to the world that the Chinese government surveils them. Snowden is not a dissiden…

> Oh and nice job implying that Chinese dissidents have the duty of "proving" to the world that the Chinese government surveils them. Chinese dissidents didn't make the claim that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom, you are. They're not your rhetorical shield. > I only said that it is safer to assume surveillance. This thread was started by: > Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is s…

They're not your rhetorical shield.

That's handy because you're the one who brought them up only to imply that they aren't as worthy of our sympathy as Snowden.

This thread was started by...

...someone with the good sense to ignore your verbal incontinence. Eventually I'll learn the lesson; downvote and move on.

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

#427

Post by mushufasa » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 3:08 AM UTC

freeopinion wrote: post #347

mushufasa wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for group calls. Jitsi worked fine one-on-one but as soon as a third person joined it became unusable.

Are any of the participants using Firefox? There's a known problem with Firefox's WebRTC and Jitsi wherein even a single Firefox participant can create performance issues for everyone.

I was using firefox. That's probably it.

Does only Chrome work? Seems to defeat the point of FOSS...

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

#428

Post by pvg » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 3:08 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #421

pvg wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really much of a comparison if you pick things like 'the security mechanism breaks in some way' and no similar failure modes of the 'no security' variant. It's a serious usability problem if an insecure interaction gives you bogus information or if all your accounts are compromised because you use the same password everywhere.

But that’s the point. Security introduces new failure modes that make usability worse. Again I’m not saying it’s bad, quite the opposite. I’m just saying we have to acknowledge it’s always a trade off.

If that's the point it seems like a particularly inaccurate and cherry-picky one. Security is not what's introducing the failure modes, the adversarial universe is. The no-security solutions have catastrophically worse usability in that reality. You're comparing the usability of things with security features with the usability of things without security in a hypothetical non-adversarial environment. I can posit a world in which security features never fail or introduce usability friction, that wouldn't be a useful starting point for a comparison either.

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

#429

Post by est » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 3:08 AM UTC

johncolanduoni wrote: post #390

est wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time. > its product development has been based in China, and that some Zoom calls were accidentally routed through Chinese servers. Curious, did you background check every employee/contractor to make sure they are Chinese race free? Did you do every byte of your network traffic audit to make sure they are not Chinese IP routable? How often do you update your firewall rules?…

There’s a big difference between routing an encrypted packet through China and decrypting that packet on a server located in China. Likewise, there’s a big difference between employing a Chinese national in the US and having a large part of you engineering organization operate from within China.

> having a large part of you engineering organization operate from within China

Shockingly, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, IBM, Redhat, Cisco all have engineering team in mainland China. Do a job list search please.

> decrypting that packet on a server located in China

In your infrastructure setup, for hostnames in a cluster, how do you separate China servers and non-China servers? Do you put a subdomain or something? And how do you link user's nationality to which server they are supposed to connect to?

What if there's a US hosted meeting, a mainland Chinese user joins the meeting? Is it an ethical thing to happen?

Should the packet decrypting happen in a US server? China server? or server located in a third neutral country instead?

What if a US citizen joins a mainland Chinese hosted meeting? Is it wrong for Zoom to decrypt packets in China?

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

#430

Post by petergatsby » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

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's time for western companies to stop pretending it's possible to be economically successful in China whilst remaining true to their purported western values.