Hello everyone and welcome back to the Keep productive YouTube channel on today's feature
We're gonna be talking about the zoom security drama at the moment
We're going to be talking about the main issues that are currently happening and also short listening a few of the best zoom
Alternatives out there for you guys. So without further ado folks, let's dive into today's
Oome personally for last two to three years and I haven't had any issues
And naturally it is good that all of these security flaws are being brought up
I think it's a positive thing it then being found out and of course
you know, especially with the zoom boom that's happening right now this
Dramatic increase in zoom users. It is so important more than ever for them to focus on it
Apparently zoom in the last will since December they had 10 million daily active users now
They have 200 million daily active users. There's a lot of attention on them and
I'll obviously go through all of the developments. I'm not a security expert myself folks. I'm a user
So I've included all of the links that I've referred to throughout this feature
In the description below so you can maybe source your own but I'll be referencing from them. So let's start with the zoom drama
I'll be covering this as a collection of issues rather than a timeline
I think that's probably more effective. Now everything obviously has been blurting out all at once with the security issues
Literally probably over three or four days
With the zoom boom that is happening right now and apparently zoom have battled with issues before
Getting an apple block for their issues with their Mac application and due to some of the user
interaction access that it wanted so they haven't been
brand new to security issues
But at the same time when you've got for example the UK
Government using it as their main port of call and even showcasing their zoom ID
It can be quite worrying because obviously there's that security and access
So let's go through some of the issues. So the first issue is the zoom so with every zoom call
You get something called an ID, which is nine to eleven digits long
and essentially what people are doing is they're randomly generating these zoom IDs just through guessing a bunch of
numbers between nine and eleven and
Naturally joining and broadcasting inappropriate stuff on these zoom calls
And even in some cases people have heard them just listening in to these calls, which is definitely terrifying
Imagine just having a third person pop up and listening in to your call and not being able to necessarily get rid of them
So naturally people are concerned, especially if you've got large group calls. I've seen this happening with universities schools
churches
political conferences and even
You know, there's is that threat of it even happening with weddings now that they're remote
So zoom ID has been an issue and something that probably the most predominant issue
It's been called zoom bombing when you've got someone that's coming to a called. It's not meant to be there
So that's pretty scary
the second thing has been the zoom targeted ads and this is probably something that actually
Started it all and apparently zoom was quietly sending data to Facebook about users zoom habits
Even when that user doesn't have a Facebook account
And this actually happened with the iOS application notifying Facebook when they had opened the application
Regarding things like the device model
phone carrier and also
They out they opened and more
So that's pretty scary itself and naturally something that you don't want to be obviously sharing information like that
The third thing you'll probably like oh my god three things end-to-end security
So in my video, I actually pointed out that in the top left hand corner
they have some indication that they are end-to-end secure and even had on their website about end-to-end security and
apparently a zoom spokesperson and stated that it is not possible to enable e to e
encryption for zoom video meetings and
obviously that's
bit of misstatement a bit of miss marketing because they're selling a future that that
You believe to be existing when it's actually not existing. So as you can imagine
You know not something that you, you know provides trust in you every day
now the fourth feature was a feature and not necessarily something that
They did wrong per se but there's this thing called
Attendee tracking inside of zoom and it's come under fire because this feature allows you to Annette once enabled allows you to check
Whether they're participants of the meeting are clicking away from the zoom window
During a call and that could be after 30 seconds. So that's pretty intrusive
I think like being able to know whether a colleague is on email and not on zoom
Could probably be something that is probably not appropriate to have
But again, that's more of a moral thing versus a security flaw
So there's been a lot of conversation on Twitter about it
DHH from Basecamp actually was pretty much hammering zoom or week
Which I think their base camp had probably got some of the best remote work
you know, I guess not skills, but
values in the industry and even
There's a great article on the signals versus noise about presence prisons, which is something that de-reference
obviously the attendee tracking and
They have obviously done some good things in that feedback. So I'll talk to you about what zoom are doing now to fix this
so the first thing they're doing is a
90 day freeze and essentially that's a freeze on all new features launching
and apparently all of the zooms engineering resources will now be focused on the safety and privacy issues and
The company is currently working on a review
Wid third parties involved to get all of the security concerns out?
and so basically every
Internal focus is going to be on security which I definitely think is something that they needed
So that's was a statement from the CEO stating over the next 90 years were committed to dedicating resources needed to identify
address and fix issues proactively
We also committed to being transparent throughout this process now, I agree. That's a really good thing that they've done
They're like literally putting all their time and attention into it and the statement didn't come as fast as people wanted
Um, but at least it's come and so that's a good thing
so I guess two things you could probably you know, focus on in a moment if you are a zoom user is
Obviously you've got to zoom ID. But now the thing that you can do is set up
passwords with them so for any new zoom meetings that I have I'll be setting up passwords so that people can't randomly join and
naturally
you know interrupt your meeting or
you know do some inappropriate stuff and I believe they've made this default in education accounts now, so that's at least
Calming, you know for schools and universities that are using it. Um, also there's been a update on the iOS application
So if you go to the App Store and go to automatically update or the updates area
Make sure you've got the new iOS update if you use it there because apparently this removes the code that tracks the ads
As I said, the users were susceptible to their personal information being used for targeted ads
So if you want to read any of the articles referencing this folks, they're gonna be below the majority of them from the verge
It's been a great coverage from the verge and if you wanted to see the tweets of smell from DHS tha at DHH
From Basecamp, then you can check them in descriptions below
So let's talk a little bit about some of the alternatives that are out there now
I'm the first off
The one that I wanted to mention is Cisco WebEx now Cisco WebEx, I've used in the past. I believe we got invited
About a month and a half ago was pretty impressed by the design
What it has particularly as well is the chat features are very good
They have storage integrations already connect it up with say the likes of Google Drive
And other such storage platforms you can host up to
100 participants in each meeting and that's up from 50 and you can have meeting as long as you want as well
and they've got this like special offer page put with a week at
20:20 so you can get some sort of discount on there. I've noticed a lot of the
videoconferencing apps even zoom themself have been
Obviously making their minimum sort of default access a lot cheaper
Or pretty much free because obviously a lot of people are going to be using them and they want to obviously gain that loyalty now
potentially to be used afterwards
Now the second one I wanted to mention is goto meeting
And if any this is created by the folks at log me in it's not free
I haven't seen a free plan, but the plans starting at about
$10 per month, but I know it's got good enterprise access and I know meetings
Run, I know meetings run fairly well through this application
Maybe used it about a year ago and it seemed pretty smooth to get in and out
And I think this is a much more focused on corporate individuals. So number three there is a
Tool called join me
This has a really good slack integration
So you once you connect up the slack integration
You can start join Me's for your team or externally which is helpful food a slack connection
You can have meetings of free that are free, which is good. I know some
services might zoom even limit meetings a three, I believe that was as of
Since their their update, so that's something that's good. So if you have say for example a
Co-founder and you also wanted to do a call with an external party
Then you've got join me which has the free access to that
They was also an option to put you in circles as well a little bit of like the around
Videoconferencing software that I mentioned a while ago in a video that we did
No
No before is whereby and this was actually recommended by my good friend Joel
And he said where my was something that they're using at the moment as a company
I think it's a really friendly software. I believe I got invited
Maybe in the last six months. I think it was John Joan from
It was Jones from everyday habits who invited me
we can't caught up a chair and I think the the
Webinar style so you can see yourself and the person all in this really clean view
It's a very friendly platform and the one thing you can do with the premiere plans as I believe you can make custom
branding so you can like brand it to your colors your
Logos, and also you'll design that you wish it's a really well designed application has chat abilities record abilities as well
So that's one to take a look at number five is Google Hangouts, or actually apparently it's called hangouts meets now
I didn't actually know this
And it's free for any G suite users. It's a reliable service many people used to use it for streaming
But now it's naturally a meeting tool
So if you've got a Google suite account that's gonna work for you number six is uber conference
I've heard about Oba conference never used it myself, but they've recently upgraded their uber conference free plan to allow
Longer call durations and up to 50
Participants which is pretty good. So naturally it's getting better
Based on this they've got some special features
Voice intelligence is one of them where you can basically get a summary of your meeting it basically
Transcribes you entire meeting and even apparently you can automate some of the tasks that come out of it
which is pretty cool and there is also custom hold music so you can upload your own sort of like waiting around music so you
Wanted an elevator soundtrack. I don't know or even you're a music company and you want to add that one in there
That could be pretty cool. So that's custom hold music. So Zuba conference. I've always seen and to be a good service
Number seven is Zoho meetings
This is one that if you've got the Zoho suite it will come inside that plan I believe
So you can record meetings and you can utilize it for webinars as well
But I believe that comes at slightly higher pricing
um
But this one looks very similar to zoom in its design and it seems to work
well
as a video conferencing tool number eight is probably the most popular and naturally nanus Skype and many people saying
If Microsoft worked, I think it was Tom Warren on Twitter if Microsoft worked harder in the early days
Wind Skype then they definitely could have nominated the market in house. Ohm is doing now
So I agree with that statement like they should have
They could have made it what zoom is today and but Skype also works as a phone like many of the other ones
but a little bit more seamlessly in my opinion, you've got Skype meet which can apparently
blur backgrounds and it's a little bit more suitable for
meeting style
conversations and you can even record
Calls up to 30 days in there too. Now two other ones if you are a Microsoft 365
Business premium customer you'll have access to Microsoft teams
Microsoft teams does have a video chat feature as well and also slack I believe has a video chat feature which allows you to communicate
With you in your team
so folks
Please do. Let me know whether I missed anything. Naturally. The news isn't
Fast-moving and obviously this conversation can continue to be continued and comments. I'm at pleased to share what
Alternative you are going to be using I'm all whether you're sticking with zoom
I'm probably gonna be sticking with zoom but making my focus on the passwords and hoping in next sort of
30 to 60 days
They introduced some very strict tools and that allow you to be a bit more secure when you're using your meetings
I think this is a big wake up call if I'm honest for zoom
You know with a lot of I guess it's at spider-man quote with a lot of responsibility
I completely forgot it, but you get a point
You know comes
Focus, I don't know what the quote is, but it naturally will kick them into gear
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I will talk to you all very soon. Make sure have a great week and an awesome weekend Cheers ever. Bye