Zoom finally rolls out end-to-end encryption, but you have to enable it:
Hey, would you look at that: A tech company actually followed through on a promise to respect its customers' privacy.
Zoom announced Wednesday that, starting next week, it will finally make end-to-end encryption available for all users — both paid and free. This is a huge step toward securing its users' calls, and brings Zoom more in line with end-to-end encrypted competitors like FaceTime and Signal. Of course, there's a rather large catch: You have to turn the feature on yourself.
[...] It's also worth noting that everyone on the call has to have end-to-end encryption turned on or they won't be able to join the meeting. Also, you won't be able to call into an end-to-end encrypted meeting via phone.
[...] Perhaps, just maybe, Zoom would consider making end-to-end encryption the default for all its calls? After all, prophylactics only work if you use them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Friday October 16 2020, @02:00PM (7 children)
An app that every major technology company* already had a fully functional free version of for years, most already having these "amazing new features", becoming one of the biggest names around for... no discernible reason?
* Surprisingly, it looks like Oracle is the one exception.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PiMuNu on Friday October 16 2020, @02:08PM (6 children)
"no discernible reason"
Actually, if you have ever tried to connect to e.g. Google Hangouts compared to Zoom, you will find out quite soon why Zoom is so popular...
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday October 16 2020, @02:37PM (1 child)
I have done both, and do not understand your complaint.
The only one that consistently sucks shit is Skype.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2020, @01:33AM
Skype used to be better before MS got its grubby hands on it. It was supported on more platforms and for the most part it tended to work. Granted, it had a limited feature set that was mostly focused on video calls, but it did a pretty decent job of it. But, these days, I don't even bother trying to use it much at all as there are annoying limitations that have never been fixed. Years ago, it was fine that it could only support one account, but it's a bit of an issue if you have personal and business accounts that you want to keep separate as there's no way of monitoring them both at the same time and now you're stuck with OSX or Windows as there wasn't a viable version on Linux or any other platform last I checked.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday October 17 2020, @02:37AM (3 children)
Do enlighten me. My experience with Google Hangouts is that you click a link in an email/calendar in Chromium and it Just Works. Does Zoom even work on Linux? Do I have to install some dubious proprietary binary first?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday October 17 2020, @08:47AM (1 child)
Last time I tried, access was buried deep in google plus (whatever that is) and you need to have a gmail account to use it. Maybe it is better now.
Plus google (and all the others) have a bad reputation for spying on customers and selling their data, which is not/barely compatible with GDPR. Zoom's business model seems to be shareware style (free product with limited functionality, pay for full licence).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2020, @01:58PM
But that's not a problem since I don't intend to ever go to China and the more resources the Chinese Government spends on spying on people celebrating birthday's on zoom etc the less they have to spend on other stuff.
The US on the other hand seems to have a track record of kidnapping people who were never ever their citizens and not on US territory.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Taibhsear on Saturday October 17 2020, @11:54AM
Yup. It's one of the few that I've tried that works easy. It's in the software manager in Linux Mint. You can use it without making an account as well. No shenanigans that I've noticed. It could do with a lot of improvement but it's the one that seemed to work easiest and straight forward enough for elderly non-techie relatives to use. So I see why it got popular.
Skype, Jitsi, and Discord also work in Linux. Each one had their own issues with stability or finicky install. Adobe Connect does not run in Linux. Webex only works in Linux in-browser and only for one-on-one personal rooms, not for classes or meetings or seminars. TeamViewer also works in Linux but I haven't tried the video capabilities yet. I've had to install every fucking one of these things for work/school because no one could make up their damn mind and just pick one for everyone to use. I have to run Adobe Connect and Webex in a windows 7 VM and had to buy a new webcam for my desktop because my laptop didn't have enough resources to run two OS's at the same time without overheating and crashing. Zoom just works on the laptop, easy peasy. Google hangouts dropped me or a friend every 10-15 minutes and half the people couldn't see or couldn't hear each other. YMMV
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 16 2020, @08:04PM
Sure, all my Zoom meetings are encrypted end to end. But, I record them all, and send copies directly to the NSA for archiving. Good patriots everywhere will do the same. /sarcasm
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2020, @08:09PM (2 children)
Have they released any technical details about the architecture and implementation? Has any of it actually been vetted by a competent cryptographer?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2020, @09:59PM
China guarantees the security of this solution.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday October 17 2020, @08:41AM
Shit, they haven't even released the implementation yet. Just checked with my up-to-date Zoom install and there's no option for encryption visible anywhere...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2020, @02:06PM
If there's end to end crypto does that mean that Zoom/WhatsApp/etc can't secretly include hidden participants in meetings/groups/conversations?
Or is there something in the technology that prevents that somehow?
I remember when Lotus Notes crypto had 24 bits of all keys encrypted to the NSA's public key. So everyone else had to crack the full 64 bits but the NSA only had to crack 40 bits: http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/hacks/lotus-nsa-key.html [cypherspace.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2020, @02:19PM
everybody has been adequately dumped into facial recognition databases without their knowledge or consent by now. So at this point we are just waiting on the digital stars of david to start being issued. Nope, can't shop there. You said mean things on a social media site. Nope, can't go into THAT kind of business. You said mean things about the government. On the other hand, you WILL be exposed to content that will encourage you into base and criminal behavior, so that we can make sure we track and arrest all the free thinkers before they become a problem for the new world order.
Today I didn't read an article I thought has an interesting title, because I knew what it would do to my "suggested" content. If that ain't chilled speech I don't know what is.