SPEAKER 1: Hello, just wanted to give you a tour of our three-TV Zoom Rooms
setup here.
So behind me are three 75-inch TVs, and connected to these TVs is just one PC
sitting on a shelf over there.
That PC is an Intel NUC and it's just running not only Windows, but also
Zoom Rooms software.
This is a little different from the typical Mac and PC client
that most of us are using.
Zoom Rooms is a separate piece of software from Zoom
that's typically used in conference room setups.
And what it does for us is it allows us to coordinate
all of the different students' video feeds on the screens
without having to manage them manually ourselves,
as we would if we had three separate computers connected
to three separate TVs.
So one of my colleagues, [INAUDIBLE] is behind the scenes on his iPad.
And any time I call on a student or they raise their hand to participate,
what I'll do is say, Bob, what is your question or comment?
[INAUDIBLE] will then find their name on the iPad interface, tap their name,
and pin them on the screen so that they appear dead-center in the middle
so that I can ideally then have a one-on-one conversation with them,
or so it would seem.
Indeed, we have one camera only on top of the middle TV here.
And it's far enough away from where I stand, which is over there,
so that it roughly looks like my eyeline matches up.
We experimented in the past with having three separate cameras
above each of the three TVs.
And that ended up involving more switching between them
and it didn't really add anything.
So we simplified ultimately with just the one camera.
Meanwhile, we have a PC connected to this vertical, tall screen
here, the motivation for which is that we're running Zoom separately on there
just so that I can have a big participants' window
that's only a few feet from me.
This way, I can see who has their hands raised.
I can see who's voting yay or nay on something.
Instead of cluttering the screen up here with additional information that's
a little harder to find this way, I can see folks
in a little more organized fashion.
In the middle screen here, we have a confidence monitor, so to speak.
So if I walk in front of the actual camera,
this is where I would simply see myself, just to make sure I'm lined up properly
and I am not actually mispositioned.
Last is my own laptop, which is connected
as an additional participant in the Zoom Room
such that I'm just an ordinary user essentially here.
And if I want to share my screen, I share it just like a student might,
typically.
And from my laptop can I then also see even a closer-up version
of the participants' window or any other detail
I might have, like my own slides, my lesson plan, my notes, or the like.
Ultimately, this camera and the microphone
that I'm wearing wirelessly here route to a small device
that's here on this table.
That's in turn routed into that same PC that's driving all of the screens here,
ultimately.
That's it for the tour, and let's go ahead and take a look at the class
itself.
All of this was pre-recorded a little bit
ago by all of the students who opted into today's demonstration.
Didn't want to keep folks waiting, so we're essentially just playing back
some of the recording we did a little while ago.
But what you're about to see now is some footage
of the actual class that ensued thereafter, so you
can see all of these working parts.
And we'll cut from a few different angles back and forth,
so you can get a sense of exactly what the experience is like, particularly
on the teacher side.
Good.
So two-factor authentication is increasingly in use in various places.
We'll talk about that in a little more detail tonight,
but that certainly should give you a little more comfort.
And that exists not only for websites and applications these days,
but even hardware devices, potentially.
Other thoughts, Barry?
In the yes camp?
SPEAKER 2: I am in the yes camp, and two-factor authentication
as well as the urban myth that hackers go
after Windows machines 90% of the time.
And I'm on Mac 100% of the time, so I'm more secure.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, so it's not so much an urban myth.
It really is just statistics.
There's a lot more people running Windows and PCs.
Therefore, they are a juicier audience.
The urban myth would be that Macs are more secure, software-wise, perhaps.
Apple is not necessarily any better than Microsoft or Google
for that matter at security, but the threats perhaps are fewer.
[? Tia, ?] I saw your hand go up too.
In the yes column?
SPEAKER 3: Yes.
I'm just going to say yes for now.
[LAUGHTER]
Yes for now.
And I have the two-factor authentication.
I have the right software.
But I'm just going to say for now yes, because you never
know what tomorrow will bring.
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER 1: Well, feel free to flip your vote when you are convinced otherwise.
In fact, as several of you already have, we're down to 11 to 11
now, so there's some skepticism already.
Now, how about those of you in the no camp?
If a couple folks wouldn't mind raising your virtual hands,
what makes you claim that, no, your own Mac or PC are not secure?
Any thoughts?
Yeah, [? Macy? ?]
SPEAKER 4: I think the two-factor is only six stages.
So it's not that hard to hack, like what you mentioned if you know programming.
You write a code, and then you can still do all the possibilities.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, so theoretically you could guess these codes.
Fortunately, these tools do tend to have mechanisms
built in where at least I know from personal experience
if I mistype the code once, the darn thing locks me out for a minute.
So yes, I can try again, but I can try only very slowly.
And frankly, a smart system would not let
you brute-force your way through the code, so to speak,
trying all possible codes.
Surely after three attempts, five, 10, 20, somewhere in that low number range,
they should probably just assume that you are not
who you are pretending to be and just lock you out altogether and perhaps
require that you, the device owner, have to go back to your IT administrator
or the like.