ZOOM

Discussion in 'Stocks' started by dealmaker, Apr 10, 2020.

  1. dealmaker

    dealmaker

    Zoom out

    Singapore is the latest to crack down on video-conferencing tool Zoom by banning its teachers from using the platform for online instruction. The move follows "very serious incidents," which reportedly include obscene images appearing on screens and strange men making lewd comments during a streaming geography lesson for teenage girls. Zoom, once a darling of the coronavirus era, is now plagued by security flaws, which CEO Eric Yuan apologized for last week. Reuters
     
  2. Tremolo

    Tremolo

    I can't understand why zoom is booming. I don't find it convenient to use given all other streaming apps. Strange
     
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  3. S2007S

    S2007S

    Once this quarantine is lifted this stock will drop...it has already dropped from its 52 week highs but could drop even more once users drop off using it after the back to work and school is put back into place.
     
  4. kmiklas

    kmiklas

    Somebody inside must be pushing it.

    I like GoToMeeting.
     
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  5. Same opinion here mate, but then again I don't understand why tick tock is booming when all the other apps allow you to do pretty similar stuff
    ( Instagram, Snapchat) at the end of the day I think it's all about people following the latest trend and big names out there
     
  6. themickey

    themickey

    [​IMG]Reuters/Carlo AllegriZoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan

    • Zoom has admitted that some call data was routed through China for non-China users.
    • CEO Eric Yuan said the calls were routed “mistakenly” after the company ramped up capacity to cope with a huge increase in demand.
    • Separately, researchers at Toronto’s Citizen Lab found Zoom used encryption keys issued via servers in China, raising further surveillance worries.
    • China does not enforce strict data privacy laws and could conceivably demand that Zoom decrypt calls, they said.
     
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  7. Nine_Ender

    Nine_Ender

    From March 2009 :

    In other words, your vision on the prospects for IT firms is usually terrible.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2020
  8. themickey

    themickey

    https://www.afr.com/technology/late...gs-giving-up-business-secrets-20200324-p54ddd

    Mind that Zoom in the work-from-home boom
    Natasha Gillezeau Reporter Mar 24, 2020 – 6.27pm

    Cyber security and privacy experts say remote workers should exercise caution when using video-conferencing platform Zoom, and recommend that sensitive business and legal conversations be kept off the platform due to Zoom's data and privacy policies.

    On March 19, Google search interest in Australia for the term "Zoom" hit peak popularity, as organisations across the country sent more staff to work from home where possible to encourage social distancing practices to help contain the spread of COVID-19.

    And while The New York Times declared just last week that "We Live In Zoom Now", Australian National University Cyber Institute research fellow James Mortensen told The Australian Financial Review that Zoom was not his first choice when it came to secure, private video-conferencing software.

    "Given the huge rise in the use of Zoom, and the sort of data Zoom collects, basically, uninhibited speech and video, because our legal framework around privacy is so poor, we're about to create a new animal," Mr Mortensen said.

    "If you're in a position where you want to control who hears what you say, I would strongly recommend finding an alternative to Zoom."

    He said society was "still struggling" with how much data Facebook, Google and other tech giants controlled, and that the present circumstances were fertile soil for Zoom to emerge as another untameable data giant in that game.

    "Zoom has I believe wilfully gone as close to the wind as possible with what they can get away with, the permissions they ask for are few and far between, and they take great liberties with what they don't ask for," Mr Mortensen said.

    "My real problem with Zoom is that the law is there to safeguard best practice and to maintain a bit of a standard, and Zoom demonstrates that they are not really interested in best practice or best standard, they're interested in what they can have without getting into hot water."

    Organisations need to consider availability, usability and security when adopting new IT tools.

    He said it was technically possible for Zoom to run video calls through facial recognition software or use auto transcription tools to transcribe the voice contents.

    He used the analogy of Google search to explain why videos of boring work meetings could have any real value to the company. Although initially it was not entirely clear how thoughts and queries typed into a search bar had value, once that data was aggregated and analysed it allowed Google to "essentially control the internet".

    In 2019, security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh publicly disclosed a vulnerability in Zoom that apparently would allow someone to turn on a person's Mac webcam and force them to join a Zoom call without their permission if they had Zoom downloaded on to their Mac.

    This meant users could be more vulnerable to hackers spying on them or a denial of service attack.

    Ankura senior managing director Shannon Sedgwick, who is a strategic cyber security expert, said Zoom's initial response to this revelation was not ideal.

    "When this vulnerability was broadcast in July 2019 by a security researcher, having disclosed the vulnerability to Zoom in March 2019, he was largely ignored," Mr Sedgwick said.

    "At the time, it was surprising to hear that Zoom had failed to address the issue because a vulnerability such as this, that allows malicious websites to access your camera without permission, is not insignificant. There was a significant loss of trust among their users that were more privacy-minded."

    Zoom's chief executive later ultimately owned the company's mistakes after public backlash and pressure, and patched the vulnerability and engaged with the informant security researcher and other experts.

    'Acceptable option'
    "Transparency and honesty, no matter how late, is never wasted and went a long way to repairing their reputation," he said.

    Mr Sedgwick personally considers Zoom an "acceptable option" from a data and privacy perspective, depending on the organisation at hand.

    But he noted that Microsoft Teams was another good option as data is encrypted at rest in transit, it has two-factor authentication, and cloud-based backups with no standing access to customer data.

    "Some communication and conferencing applications might be brilliant and incredibly secure with a small number of users, like Signal or Australia's own Session, but may lack the capability to scale for large numbers of users," he said.

    "Organisations need to consider availability, usability and security when adopting new IT tools."

    In Zoom's Privacy Policy, the company state that "whether you have Zoom account or not, we may collect Personal Data from or about you when you use or otherwise interact with our Products."

    In practice, that means anyone who uses Zoom effectively "consents" to the company collecting a broad suite of information including but not limited to their name, home address, email address, phone number, job title, employer, information about their device, network and internet connection, as well as other information uploaded, provided or created while using the video-conferencing service.
    [​IMG]
    A Zoom representative said the company collected user data only to the extent it was absolutely necessary to provide technical and operational support, and to improve its services.

    "Zoom must collect technical information like users' IP address, OS details and device details in order for our service to function properly. When user data is used for service improvement, it is completely anonymised and aggregated immediately upon collection in order to protect users' identities and privacy," the representative said.

    "Zoom does not sell user data to anyone and we stand by our commitment to protect the privacy of our customer's data."

    The company also said it was "confident" it could handle the growing number of users hopping on board the platform.

    "We operate our own global (co-location) data centres in 17 locations around the globe, providing significant control and flexibility when it comes to routing both our audio and our video traffic," it said.

    "We have always ensured that we have enough capacity to handle double our average daily peak. This has always been our policy, even before this global health crisis. We have designed the platform so that, in the event of capacity constraints at the data centre nearest a user, additional traffic will be routed to one of our other data centres."
     
  9. gaussian

    gaussian

    It just works. Simple as that. If you've ever spent an hour with any other conferencing software zoom is actually a pretty well put together piece of work...from the outside. It is far easier to use than competitors - especially webex. Google Hangouts/Jitsi/etc don't have nearly the power, scale, or compatibility.

    Internally it's a mess. There is no security, "encryption" keys are run through China, and iirc 2/3 of their development team resides in China. For all intents and purposes it's a CCP spy app. It sure does have a nice sheen to it if you don't look at the man behind the curtain however.

    Zoom should be treated like malware. Especially if you read into it's security and installer practices. However, it's unlikely anyone with dethrone zoom in the short term. It's unfortunately the best in class application for enterprise web conferencing.

    GoToMeeting is complete trash compared to Zoom. This isn't even an opinion. It, along with webex, are objectively worse on literally every measure EXCEPT security. I'm a consultant. I have dealt with every iteration of scalable meeting software. Zoom is the only one that I had no reason to hate until last year (when the installer controversy came to a head). It was wonderful. You just clicked on the app and things worked which is incredible in the web conferencing world. It didn't really matter what you ran it on, your connection, or anything else. It would degrade nicely and basically always work. It's a shame it's malware.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2020
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  10. S2007S

    S2007S



    I have heard about gotomeeting well before zoom. Have never used any of these video calling things since I don't do conferences but it seems zoom caught on bigger than anyone would have imagined.
     
    #10     Apr 11, 2020