ZOOM – it is great and it is horrible, but is it getting better? Can I use it now?
Yes, but only if you know how to secure it, and No if you are in the US Senate and are a K12 Teacher!
US Senators Told to Stop Using Zoom
Zoom continues its struggle to convince everyone it is secure and private, but the video chat service just lost another set of users, this time at the United States Senate. As Reuters reports, the US Senate has just advised all senators to stop using Zoom due to concerns over data privacy, but stopped short of issuing an all-out ban of the video conferencing app. Instead, the Senate expects senators to find an alternative service for video chat.
SpaceX, New York City schools, the government of Taiwan, and even Google have banned the use of Zoom. There’s also the problem of Zoom-bombing, which the Feds have recently pointed out is a crime, not a joke. Thankfully you can prevent it from happening with a few settings tweaks.
HOW TO FIX ZOOM
– The issue How Zoom et al should fix it
– How purchasers should identify it before corporate purchasing
What individuals should do ~ Mudge
1998
Hackers Testifying at the United States Senate, May 19, 1998Your computers, they told the panel of senators in May 1998, are not safe — not the software, not the hardware, not the networks that link them together.
The companies that build these things don’t care, the hackers continued, and they have no reason to care because failure costs them nothing. And the federal government has neither the skill nor the will to do anything about it.
The DOE decided to end the use of Zoom due to privacy/security concerns despite a simple measure teachers can take to avert infiltrators/Zoombombers: set up a “waiting room” where only approved users (ie, their students) can enter.
Plan is to move to a Microsoft platform that requires schools to throw out well-planned strategies and start over—getting students, teachers & parents up to speed on a new system no one has used requiring new credentials & that is, by all accounts, clunkier & less flexible. 3/
So to the irony of the situation: the governor and mayor have asked NY schools to work through the upcoming spring break to occupy students and keep them inside during the pandemic. Yet at that very moment, schools are unable to continue the work they’ve been doing. 7/
Which means many or most NYC students will be at loose ends starting tomorrow, just as the government wants them occupied and off the streets. The left hand might want to have a glance at what the right hand is doing. 8/
Here’s the solution. The chancellor should abandon this misguided plan that benefits no one & throws a massive wrench into the education of NYC students at the worst possible moment. Train teachers to use Zoom responsibly to avoid security breaches. Keep calm, carry on. END 9/9