Coronavirus has undeniably changed our habits. Forced confinement in the home of a large part of the population has brought first marginal services to the fore. Entertainment and streaming have become a fundamental part of this particular cross-section of our lives as well as the need to be able to stay in touch with the people that until recently we were able to see every day.
Being able to see has become a particularly pressing need, capable of bringing up to date services until recently almost entirely accessories: this is the case of Zoom, a video conferencing app that has risen to the headlines for its incredible potential, downloaded by many people and now widespread. However, this popularity has revealed problems of no small importance that have somewhat obscured its rapid success.
Videoconferencing for everyone
Zoom does nothing different if it does not put people in video contact: it is a video conferencing service very similar to many others, from Skype to video calling services offered by the much more popular WhatsApp. The difference is practically infinite. If in many other apps the number of participants in a video call is usually limited with Zoom in the basic version yes it can reach up to 100 participants, which even become 1000 for its business version dedicated to companies.
It is therefore not surprising that this possibility, capable alone of making a difference with all similar services, has pushed Zoom to the top of the rankings of stores all over the world: from the most common person to the most organized company everyone has found in Zoom a comfortable, easy and fast service. School and university lessons, improvised parties, business video conferences, large group meetings, Zoom is now widely used. A success that however also brought to light the dark side of the service.
Old problems
In unsuspected times Zoom had already been plagued by not quite simple security vulnerabilities, today dramatically surfaced in all their relevance. In 2018 one was discovered security flaw which allowed hackers to use users to be able to intervene in the most disparate ways within video conferences, removing the participants, falsifying their messages and diverting the shared screens. In 2019 another bug allowed hackers to force users in Mac environment to make calls with Zoom without their permission and with the cam activated.
A vulnerability that also left the app running in the background without giving the user the opportunity to ever uninstall it completely. There have always been security and privacy issues and apparently they have never been fully resolved. A skinned cat that will make its weight felt, given the million users who use it daily. A treasure that allowed its founder to increase its assets by 4 billion dollars since the start of the pandemic and Zoom reach an estimated value of 42 billion.
New problems
The rooms where Zoom's video conferences take place are easily available on the net. The phenomenon of Zoombombing, although apparently harmless and fun, is leading to consequences of a certain weight. On the net, in fact, it is easy to identify the conference identification codes, with users who manage to quietly break into the various rooms to disturb the participants, sometimes in a harmless way and other times by posting pornographic material and other garbage, with all the consequences for the privacy of the participants that the presence of unknown or alleged criminals brings.
As a result, there are also many other problems that have been emerging in the last few days. For example, researchers from the University of Toronto have found that some calls to North America have been sent to China along with their encryption keys. Although the company claims to have advanced encryption systems, the researchers found out that it is on the other hand, easily accessible and "unbreakable" codes.
Little attention
The leaders got to work for solve the most serious problems, indirectly admitting that some things did not work out right and that the company is doing everything possible to resolve the situation. Yet the feeling, revealed by everyone, is that user data and security are not managed as it should be. Unwanted forays into video conferencing they are only the tip of the iceberg where information on some devices are sent to Facebbok without having informed the owners or security holes of various kinds allow unwanted access to user data, such as what has been used by hackers to steal passwords from Windows while using the app or the aforementioned ability to penetrate the Mac environment.
Upstream there would be the failure to use the now basic end-to-end encryption, used for some time by almost all these communication systems.
Ephemeral success?
Continuous updates are trying to solve the most known problems but the fear is that the fire is not over and that, in the long run, the difficulties go to overwhelm the good things that are present in the service. The fire in a row does not seem to pass and it is not obvious that Zoom is able to manage it in the best way. The success and popularity have yes expanded the user base and the earnings but also brought to light problems that perhaps, initially, was not noticed.
And if these continue to exist without a speedy resolution, it is quite obvious exodus of users to other shores: the large number of similar apps does not play in Zoom's favor, for a huge success that in addition to being counterproductive could in the long run prove to be ephemeral.
Position statements
Some U.S. schools have already banned the app from their systems, preventing students from using it for educational purposes and for distance learning: from New York to Nevada, many others are considering this possibility to avoid putting students and school staff at risk. Even some leaders of the Turin high schools they contacted the leaders of Zoom and decided not to use the app pending to understand what is going on: there are many students who saw their social accounts hacked after using the app.
Probably it is only coincidences, but if it were not so? Troubles that, among other things, are also involving much larger and more influential realities: Elon Musk's choice of Space X to prohibit its employees from using Zoom in the performance of their duties from home for safety reasons, caused a sensation. to return to the much safer use of emails, messages and phone calls or services that, although more limited, offer greater guarantees of security. Ban that has also been extended to NASA employees, customers of the Musk company and that has led the FBI to open a file on all these security problems.
There's still time?
A tsunami of large proportions that will be really difficult to resist or face, in light of the problems that arise almost daily as a result of the massive use of Zoom all over the world. It almost seems that success has turned against a company that certainly did not expect all this. The president of Zoom, Eric Yuan, he apologized and gave himself up 90 days to identify and resolve all problems effectively and then evaluate it all with third-party experts. On a practical level, additional passwords are being introduced in the short term to further protect the conversation rooms, which will not solve the most serious problems but which will certainly curb intrusions into the conversation rooms.
A small drop in an ever deeper sea, which does not detract from Zoom's great utility but which must open up more serious reflections on user privacy, which must always be guaranteed.
