Zoom Falsely Claims Its Group Video Can Be End-to-End Encrypted

[bgentry]

Link to the source article: https://theintercept.com/2020/03/31/zoom-meeting-encryption/

Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22735746

[owenwil]

It feels like the URL shouldn't be an aggregator but the actual source in this case for sure...

[gfodor]

FYI, it's currently impossible to support end to end encryption in WebRTC based video that is browser based (if using a SFU, ie a central server), given the protocols supported in the browser. Zoom isn't, obviously, but that's another red flag if you see such claims.

[kaffeemitsahne]

Where did Zoom come from all of a sudden? I had never heard of it before the pandemic but now all my lecturers at two different universities are using it. They must be doing something right at least.

(edit: not to be apologetic for the issue at hand, of course)

[skizm]

From what I gather, they're one of the few video conference solutions that "just work", you don't need to install anything if you don't want (works in the browser), and their user pricing is pretty cheap and straightforward ($15/mo/user). Also, they've scaled well as there haven't been too many (any?) major outages, even though their usage has gone up probably 50x (complete guess) in the last 1-3 months.

[anamexis]

They were already one of the leading enterprise web conference providers, alongside Cisco and Microsoft.

[paulhodge]

If you're a connoisseur of video chat platforms then you probably already know it. For the past ~5 years it's been one of the best options. Really easy to use and good quality. Within our company we got in a habit of using the free 40-minute Zoom meetings, even though our IT department mandated us to use Skype (which is awful). I think a lot of people came to Zoom from a similar organic path.

Although this year, Microsoft came out with Teams which is just as good IMO. So we finally stopped using Zoom here.

[ironmagma]

They have a free promotional campaign for educational institutions that started 2020-03-13.

[jcwayne]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like they're misusing the term in the same way that Apple does with iMessage.

[olliej]

??

iMessage is fully E2E - Apple does not have any ability to decrypt messages, only the recipient can.

There's a full white paper explaining how iMessage works, and how it achieves full E2E. Same for FaceTime. And iMessage group messages.

[meritt]

Another Zoom article, and it's a dupe with one already on the front page! This is insane. I haven't seen HN so virulent over a topic since their blind faith defense on any criticism of Tesla.

[dang]

It happens all the time with follow-up posts on hot topics. Maybe we're getting slower or something.

[pixiemaster]

marketing mis-uses a buzzword. that’s news now.

[ryanmcbride]

The issue in my eyes is more that they are intentionally redefining what end-to-end encryption is, which is intentionally misleading.

[dewey]

It's news if you have a track record of privacy violations as it has been with Zoom in the past few days.