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technology Thursday 2 July 2020
Zoom got big fast. Then videobombers made it rework security

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE a digital waiting room until book, said Rory Mir, a grass-
AP Technology Writer the meeting host let them roots advocacy organizer
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) in.Behind the scenes, Yuan for the Electronic Frontier
— Back in March as the began meeting regularly Foundation, a digital rights
coronavirus pandemic with a council consisting group.
gathered steam in the U.S., of top security executives "People don't have a lot of
a largely unheralded vid- in the tech industry and great options right now, but
eo-conferencing service brought in former Yahoo Zoom is kind of leading the
suddenly found itself in the and Facebook executive charge to make these im-
spotlight. Alex Stamos as a special provements," said Mir, who
And just as quickly as Zoom consultant. He also con- uses they/them pronouns.
became a household ferred with other supportive Zoom hasn't said when end-
name for connecting work executives such as Oracle to-end encryption will be
colleagues, church and founder Larry Ellison, who ready, but it's already had
school groups, friends, fam- took the unusual step of to expand on its original
ily, book clubs and others posting a video hailing plan to make it available This April 18, 2019, file photo shows a sign for Zoom Video
during stay-at-home lock- Zoom as an "essential ser- only to paid subscribers. Communications ahead of the company's Nasdaq IPO in New
downs, it also gained a vice." (Perhaps not coinci- The day after its original an- York.
reputation for lax security dentally, Zoom relies on Or- nouncement, faced with a Associated Press
as intrusive "videobombers" acle and Amazon for much backlash, Zoom agreed to said he was referring to ef-
barged into private meet- of the computing power it extend the encryption to forts intended to prevent
ings or just spied on inti- needs to handle an ex- free plans as well. Zoom from being used for
mate conversations. pected two trillion minutes It's been a heady ride for child pornography. "Some
On April 1, following a wave of meetings — the equiva- the company. Its shares activists now believe Zoom
of lawsuits over privacy lent of 38,000 centuries — closed Tuesday at $253.54, is like a cop," Mir said.
breaches, CEO Eric Yuan this year.) nearly four times their val- In a familiar refrain among
ordered a halt to work on The biggest security leap ue in December, creating tech companies operating
new features and vowed is still to come. Zoom has $50 billion in shareholder around the world, Steckel-
to fix the service's weak- promised to make it virtually wealth. The San Jose, Cali- berg said Zoom complies
nesses in 90 days. That time impossible for anyone out- fornia, company expects with local laws in each of
is up, and Zoom is ready to side a meeting to eaves- paid subscribers to gener- the more than 80 countries
take a bow. drop by scrambling con- ate $1.8 billion in revenue where its service is used.
The work on "security and versations via end-to-end for the company this year, More privacy issues could
privacy is never going to be encryption. The technique triple what Zoom pulled in loom if, as some analysts
done, but it is now embed- would lock up conversa- last year. anticipate, Zoom decides
ded in how we approach tions so that even Zoom If Zoom wants to prove it to start showing ads on the
everything we do at Zoom couldn't play them back. puts the privacy of its users free version of is service to
now," the company's chief Law enforcement general- first, Mir believes it will have boost its profit. Steckelberg
financial officer, Kelly ly opposes such encryption to show it's willing to fight said the company doesn't
Steckelberg, told The Asso- — already in use on apps requests from law enforce- have any immediate plans
ciated Press in a recent in- such as iMessage, What- ment and other govern- to sell ads, but didn't rule
terview. Zoom hailed some sApp and others — saying it ment agencies trying to out that possibility.
of the strides that it says it impedes legitimate police pry into the conversations If Zoom goes down that
has made in a Wednesday investigations. on its service. The Zoom road, Mir believes it will be
blog post. Such a security feature CEO has said he wanted difficult to resist the oppor-
The most visible changes would give the company to limit the use of end-to- tunity to mine the personal
included a switch that au- an even bigger advantage end encryption so that the information it's collecting
tomatically protected all over competing services company could continue because, they said, "data is
meetings with passwords from Google, Microsoft, to work with law enforce- the new oil. But it also can
and kept all participants in Cisco Systems and Face- ment; the company later be toxic."q

China: U.S. ‘oppressing

Chinese companies’ in

new Huawei move

By JOE McDONALD subsidies from a govern-
AP Business Writer ment fund, stepping up ef-
BEIJING (AP) — China on forts to limit their access to
Wednesday demanded the U.S. market.
Washington stop "oppress- A foreign ministry spokes-
ing Chinese companies" af- man accused Washington Residents wearing masks to curb the spread of the coronavirus
ter U.S. regulators declared of "abusing state power" past by a Huawei shop in Beijing on Friday, June 5, 2020.
telecom equipment suppli- to hurt Chinese companies Associated Press
ers Huawei and ZTE to be "without any evidence." reasonably oppressing Chi- com switching equipment,
national security threats. "We once again urge the nese companies," said the and its smaller Chinese rival
The Federal Communica- United States to stop abus- spokesman, Zhao Lijian. ZTE Corp. are controlled by
tions Commission on Tues- ing the concept of national U.S. regulators say Huawei the ruling Communist Party
day blocked the Chinese security, deliberately dis- Technologies Ltd., the big- and say they might facili-
vendors from receiving crediting China and un- gest global maker of tele- tate Chinese spying. q