[liberationtech] Billions of reasons why officials should not trust Zoom

[Tim McNamara]

Hi all, keen to receive any feedback on this blog post I'm drafting...

Billions of reasons why officials should not trust Zoom

This year has seen governments take unprecedented action to defeat the
world's most significant public health threat in over a century. Much of
that action involves money. Lots of money.

Officials and politicians deciding on economic stimulus packages around
have a problem: they can't talk face-to-face behind closed doors like
they're used to. Instead, they're turning to technology. Many of these
services have unproven security credentials. Using insecure tools will
allow the worst elements in our societies to benefit from the crisis.

Starting now, there is an increased financial incentive to break into video
conferencing systems. Billions, perhaps trillions, of dollars of subsidy
money will be provided by governments around the world. That money will be
unevenly spread. Many companies will fall. Some will not.

Organised criminals and hostile nation-states have significant
technological resources. They are well placed to exploit misplaced trust in
computer systems. Our governments and their officials should plan in
secret. Guaranteed secrecy while decisions are being made is the best way
to keep economies alive.

Governments should consider hosting their own video conferencing platform.
Open-source tools such as Jitsi Meet, BigBlueButton and Apache OpenMeetings
can all be deployed cost-effectively and securely behind a firewall.
Perhaps most importantly, they don't require meeting participants to
install anything onto their computer.

Deploying these open source video conferencing technologies provides
multiple benefits. The security within the system can be validated. Staff
managing the service can be vetted. Data can stay local. Most importantly
though, secrets can stay secret.



Original https://cloud.nzoss.nz/s/F2r3rDZsEaypKNf


*Tim McNamara*
Vice President, New Zealand Open Source Society
Author, Rust in Action
https://tim.mcnamara.nz | @timClicks <http://twitter.com/timClicks>
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