Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zoom monitors activity on your computer

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 149 posts

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#91

Post by pfranz »

userbinator wrote: post #85
discreditable wrote: post #37

When someone sends you a zoom invite, cancel the download, then click the having problems link to download again. Cancel it again. It will show you a link to join by browser. A few other meeting apps have dark patterns like this. One of my favorite things about Hangouts Meet is it's web first.

What I find irritating is this proliferation of meeting apps like these, all using their own proprietary variations of protocols and consuming huge amounts of system resources, when there has been a standard protocol for it that's been around since the late 90s, with a variety of different clients available: SIP. One could be sent a SIP URI for a meeting and it would work in any client. Maybe it's like IRC vs all the…

At a previous job there was no "blessed" app. We used Mac/Win/Linux and different apps seemed to work better depending on the situation (screen sharing, group chat, one-on-one video chat). Not only in resource usage, but if you had more than one open I'd see issues with sharing resources like video and audio.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#92

Post by pfranz »

barbs wrote: post #88
userbinator wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find irritating is this proliferation of meeting apps like these, all using their own proprietary variations of protocols and consuming huge amounts of system resources, when there has been a standard protocol for it that's been around since the late 90s, with a variety of different clients available: SIP. One could be sent a SIP URI for a meeting and it would work in any client. Maybe it's like IRC vs all the…

Excuse my ignorance but is there a good implementation out there that uses this protocol? Jitsi perhaps?

I haven't used Jitsi, but different apps and approaches work better in different situations. Are you screen sharing? Audio chat? video chat? Large meeting with multiple people? Mac/Win/Linux? Is your connection bad? High latency? Low throughput? No solution was very robust and if you're working internationally and people have their own equipment it can be a mess. People are also get really familiar with one piece of software and hate installing yet another.

The churn between companies like Google and Microsoft (each offering, and deprecating multiple solutions) doesn't help.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#93

Post by guessmyname »

discreditable wrote: post #37

When someone sends you a zoom invite, cancel the download, then click the having problems link to download again. Cancel it again. It will show you a link to join by browser. A few other meeting apps have dark patterns like this. One of my favorite things about Hangouts Meet is it's web first.

This is one of the reasons why I always join a Zoom call from my phone, by calling their international numbers [1].

Recruiters sometimes ask me to turn my video on during interviews… I politely decline and move on to other opportunities.

Their app is so privacy invasive, I cannot understand why people keep using it, specially considering 2018 vulnerability [2].

Feross Aboukhadijeh talks about Zoom security problems in Stanford’s CS253 Web Security course [3][4].

[1] https://zoom.us/zoomconference

[2] https://www.tenable.com/blog/tenable-research-advisory-zoom-...

[3] https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs253/

[4] https://feross.org/

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#94

Post by saltcured »

ilikepi wrote: post #71
discreditable wrote: post #37

When someone sends you a zoom invite, cancel the download, then click the having problems link to download again. Cancel it again. It will show you a link to join by browser. A few other meeting apps have dark patterns like this. One of my favorite things about Hangouts Meet is it's web first.

I tested "Join by Browser" recently. On macOS (Mojave), it only seemed to work in Chrome, and the video resolution of the other person was poor, but it did work. Also, I did not need to click a "Having problems" link before the "Join by browser" link to appear, so maybe this feature is being deployed more widely now. Since you mentioned Google Meet, I recently tried that with a group of 6-7 people, and it only lasted…

There is an account preference option for the one scheduling new meetings whether the join with browser link is present in meeting landing pages. At least, that's how it works with our university license...

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#95

Post by ribeka »

discreditable wrote: post #37

When someone sends you a zoom invite, cancel the download, then click the having problems link to download again. Cancel it again. It will show you a link to join by browser. A few other meeting apps have dark patterns like this. One of my favorite things about Hangouts Meet is it's web first.

I am using this bash script to convert the link that open zoom app into a link where you can join meeting using your browser:

  function zoomify() {
   echo "${1/j/wc\/join}"
  }

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#96

Post by manigandham »

gsich wrote: post #81
manigandham wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to name every possible thing they can potentially receive. Mac addresses are available as part of networking details if you're using their desktop software. Zoom is enterprise video conferencing that only recently gained attention for average consumers.

>They have to name every possible thing they can potentially receive. Then they are missing a lot.

Like what?

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#97

Post by manigandham »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #82
manigandham wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says " when you use or otherwise interact with our Products. " It's not unreasonable. I'm not sure what your claim is here, because you'll find this language in every single online business. You realize Zoom sells enterprise video conferencing right? They have no use for your data otherwise.

I think other running programs would fall under > information that we collect about you from third parties

Your own device is not considered a third-party. That's most likely other email/directory/conference software used by a company to provision Zoom.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#98

Post by cassianoleal »

barbs wrote: post #88
userbinator wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find irritating is this proliferation of meeting apps like these, all using their own proprietary variations of protocols and consuming huge amounts of system resources, when there has been a standard protocol for it that's been around since the late 90s, with a variety of different clients available: SIP. One could be sent a SIP URI for a meeting and it would work in any client. Maybe it's like IRC vs all the…

Excuse my ignorance but is there a good implementation out there that uses this protocol? Jitsi perhaps?

I have used Jitsi. Last week I did a few pairing sessions where the both of us were sharing our screens and still had our webcams on in the corner and it was awesome.

We tried to do a standup with (I think) 8 people and it was terrible - people would randomly not get any audio for stretches of time, video would get choppy or lost completely, it was not pleasant.

I will keep using it for pairing since I haven't found another tool that gives me that kind of flexibility and it was in fact very good. I believe the whole experience is limited by the connection quality of the worst participant.

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#99

Post by gsich »

manigandham wrote: post #96
gsich wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They have to name every possible thing they can potentially receive. Then they are missing a lot.

Like what?

Example: A program on your PC can open all files your user owns. Then transmit those files (or parts from them).

Re: Zoom monitors activity on your computer

#100

Post by manigandham »

gsich wrote: post #99
manigandham wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what?

Example: A program on your PC can open all files your user owns. Then transmit those files (or parts from them).

That's not considered PII information for a privacy policy. They also don't store your files.
Post reply on HN