#19 Zoom Bombing
There's a lot wrong with the world's favorite video conference software
in principio
Zoom has been such a security snarl for so many years that I don’t even install the client app on my personal computer. It is installed on my work laptop, and it actually does handle video conferencing quite well, so I understand why so many businesses operationalize their sales teams with paid Zoom accounts. However, even for my employer’s sales team, we have stopped paying for Zoom and now use Google Meet, which we already pay for as part of the Google office suite.
But let’s run back the tape on Zoom. They’ve denied E2E encryption to users on the free tier (TechCrunch) unless they provided additional personal information (Zoom Blog, The Verge). They did this so they could turn over call information to law enforcement, but their friendliness with power goes beyond democracies. Zoom also de-platformed Chinese dissidents (Axios). All this while they attempt to become even more integrated into our lives with in-home communication appliances (TechCrunch).
Zoom did eventually roll out E2EE (End-to-end encryption) [TechCrunch], but the fact that this was not a day 1 feature tells us a lot about the company’s culture of moving fast to roll out growth-focused features and letting security take a back seat. After experiencing a rush of speculative interest, Zoom’s stock price has settled back down again, perhaps freeing up time for the business to start caring about the basic security needs of its users.
et cetera
The Good:
Meta users in the EU will finally be able to disconnect their Facebook Messenger and Instagram accounts [Neowin]. If companies are going to roll-up various services through acquisition, they should either keep them separate or merge them entirely. Maintaining the illusion of separation while actually having a single identity on the back-end does not serve the user.
The Bad
😞 Facebook addiction increases depression severity among people who are already depressed [PsyPost]
Google has been found to track users, even in incognito mode. [ABPlive]
The Ugly
Facebook is planning to make users pay a monthly fee to protect their data from advertisers [Noyb]. They are using a six-word comment in a legal ruling to claim that as long as they offer a paid subscription option, they should be allowed to carry on with their ad model for free users. I would argue that the law should defend the privacy rights of all users.
Various and Sundry
San Francisco is installing 400 new license-plate-reading cameras. Critics say the police will use them to generally surveil citizen movement. Someone should probably develop a legal theory of “freedom of movement” that ensures greater privacy for US citizens. [KTVU]
Fin