Google bans Zoom from employees' computers • Hacker News Board

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#441

Post by dheera » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

zwaps wrote: post #407

dheera wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more companies would ban WeChat's desktop clients and force them to re-enable the web version at web.wechat.com WeChat now often pops up a notice when you try to use web.wechat.com that translates to "For your account safety you cannot use the web version, and you need to download a Windows or Mac client." Safety my ass -- web is the safest. I know better than you about my safety, Tencent.

What companies would allow weChat apps on company machines or machines where company data is handled? That is insane!

I have seen MANY people install it on company hardware because it's tiring to have long chats on a 5" screen and it's hard to send/receive files through a phone. Many hardware providers send/receive contracts and even firmware hex files over WeChat (WTF, I know, but they do) so you're forced to use it for work if you are in the hardware industry, but for most people Tencent doesn't let you use it from a desktop without a native app. And they try to brainwash you into thinking it's for your own "account safety". BS.

Also, Alibaba's conferencing client. If you even have a meeting with anyone at Alibaba, they send you a proprietary desktop client to use for the meeting. More people need to learn to stand up and say no to this. From a corporate executive level, proprietary conferencing apps need to be banned on company-owned machines.

What they should be doing is straight-up WebRTC running in a web browser, which works great, and which will work in China as long as you set up signalling servers there.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#442

Post by aidenn0 » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #356

aidenn0 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebRTC fell down for 6 users the other day, so we switched to G2M

GoToMeeting is the WORST! They have this long long outstanding bug where if they deem the audio low-quality (despite the fact it's crystal clear) they gain the audio and it goes crackly and too loud. If you turn down the volume... they gain it again, and again, and again, till you need to restart the app. Only for it to happen again.

Wow, I've never had that happen in GoToMeeting, but I had something similar happen in MS Teams today.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#443

Post by ehsankia » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

jtaillon wrote: post #387

ehsankia wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from Zoom to Jitsi with my family, because I was tired of it pushing the desktop client to me and the webapp limitations as you point out. Jitsi web supports Grid view, as well as desktop sharing (with audio!). We've been playing Jackbox games over it just fine.

How do you manage the audio for your games? Do you use the newer audio sharing setup, or have you rigged something up in OBS, etc?

Right in Jitsi, you share your screen and Chrome's dialog opens, you go "application window" and select your game, and check the little box "share audio". Here's a GIF from their newest blog post showing it: https://335wvf48o1332cksy23mw1pj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#444

Post by coribuci » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

ascar wrote: post #403

technicaldonut wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be the BND as an FYI

I think that's technically incorrect. The BND (and it's military sibling MAD) are mostly concerned with foreign intelligence, while the Stasi was mostly used for internal surveillance. The subdivision HVA inside the Stasi would be the equivalent to the BND, while the larger and infamous internal surveillance of the Stasi is now in the responsibility of the Verfassungsschutz.

> I think that's technically incorrect. The BND (and it's military sibling MAD) are mostly concerned with foreign intelligence, while the Stasi was mostly used for internal surveillance.

Of course they are. That's why they are happy to work with NSA which get everything that is routed through frankfurt.

>The subdivision HVA inside the Stasi would be the equivalent to the BND, while the larger and infamous internal surveillance of the Stasi is now in the responsibility of the Verfassungsschutz.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#445

Post by coribuci » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #327

HashThis wrote: post #308

Earlier 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.

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.

> 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.

Because China=bad, Google or Facebook or Microsoft (which all provide data to) or NSA =good

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

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Post by rangibaby » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

abnry wrote: post #353

rangibaby wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I couldn't imagine it mattering to any random individual, but I could imagine some American diplomat or defense contractor being concerned.

I would say contributing or maintaining anything on Github would make you a possible target, you never know

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

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Post by tbodt » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:01 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #370

thelean12 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unde…

https://github.com/google/santa is used to whitelist binaries on Macs, but you can fill out a form to instantly opt out. One of the options for why is "I use a package manager".

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#448

Post by tbodt » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:07 AM UTC

rossjudson wrote: post #314

cameronbrown wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally you can install anything, but the responsibility is on you though. It's not uncommon to see people with Steam, Spotify or other personal software too.

I am pretty sure Steam gets uninstalled automatically within a day or two if it shows up on a corp laptop. I have no idea how I know this. ;)

I just checked and Steam is still on my corp laptop

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

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Post by mbo » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 8:02 AM UTC

jeffhou wrote: post #404

mbo wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, as of today, just Google Meet, no "Hangouts".

I thought so as well, but apparently it's called Google Hangouts Meet. https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/ (disclaimer - I work at Google, but not on teams that build video chat software)

Disclaimer: also work at Google

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/8/21214059/google-hangouts-m... you would be incorrect

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

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Post by coffeeling » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

mehrdada wrote: post #411

lonelappde wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Docs is good at sharing and searching, but bad at editing. Anything over a few pages brings a workstation to its knees.

For workplace collaboration, sharing is the highlight, not formatting (unless you're designing for paper-based publication). I have to say the few times I encountered the browser-based Word 356, it felt like total shit. Cannot imagine anyone really using it if they have the desktop app installed. Seems like a checkmark product and the real users end up using the full app version. I've even heard this from friends at…

From what I've tried the desktop apps themselves do cloud-driven collab just fine, so I don't really see a reason to use a browser app when native's available. May just be me seeing things, but the native-to-native sync seems faster than with the web apps. Sadly that means sharing is a bit less convenient than just click link to open.