Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 16 submissions in the queue.
posted by Fnord666 on Sunday April 05 2020, @03:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the look-before-you-leap dept.

Zoom has had a meteoric rise as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Jitsi and other useful teleconferencing tools are not very well known, though still widely used. Nearly all the buzz has been about the newcomer instead, but few have actually evaluated it. One group has. The Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, at the University of Toronto, has investigated Zoom briefly, covering both the technology, especially its lack of encryption, and the company itself:

Key Findings

  • Zoom documentation claims that the app uses “AES-256” encryption for meetings where possible. However, we find that in each Zoom meeting, a single AES-128 key is used in ECB mode by all participants to encrypt and decrypt audio and video. The use of ECB mode is not recommended because patterns present in the plaintext are preserved during encryption.
  • The AES-128 keys, which we verified are sufficient to decrypt Zoom packets intercepted in Internet traffic, appear to be generated by Zoom servers, and in some cases, are delivered to participants in a Zoom meeting through servers in China, even when all meeting participants, and the Zoom subscriber’s company, are outside of China.
  • Zoom, a Silicon Valley-based company, appears to own three companies in China through which at least 700 employees are paid to develop Zoom’s software. This arrangement is ostensibly an effort at labor arbitrage: Zoom can avoid paying US wages while selling to US customers, thus increasing their profit margin. However, this arrangement may make Zoom responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities.

In a nutshell, throughout the mad rush to adopt teleconferencing software, due diligence has been largely abandoned and licenses left unread and software unevaluated. More scrutiny was needed, and still is needed, when acquiring and deploying software. That goes double for communications software.

Previously:


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 06 2020, @01:37AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 06 2020, @01:37AM (#979543) Journal

    I think you've put your finger on the problem. Standards. Advertising should measure up to standards. In 2001, it would have been legitimate to advertise 128-bit encryption as "safe, secure encryption". In 2020, not so much. More, in today's world, it is rapidly becoming negligent to assign default passwords that will be reused again and again. Every instance of this software should force the generation of a new password for people needing to join the conference.

    Standards are important in all software, of course. Standards in advertising should also be a thing. Maybe Zoom isn't guilty of false advertising, but a strong case for negligence can be made here.

    --
    “I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2