Re: Privacy CG - New Teleconference Zoom Room

Cheers, thanks for the response.

I can't share the audit results (someone asked off-list) but I've run
probably ~30 webinars with 50k-350k concurrent users and have run dozens of
smaller ones + automated/evergreen webinars.
@Michael is completely correct that there are self-hosted options, but even
default Jitsi fires Google Analytics + CallStats + Amplitude pixels in the
call window of their free/hosted solution:
[image: Jitsi_Meet.jpg]

I think everyone on this list recognizes that the people on this listserv
have the skills to run/manage a video conference solution that is 10000000%
privacy safe, and that is open source, and that we all have time to review
the code for...
but then imo we're basically eating our own tails and protecting OURSELVES
when the purpose of this group is to PROTECT THE INTERNET and the public at
large.

*Also, if certain folks here have Zoom privacy-safe alternatives that
actually work, the world is certainly ready and willing to test them right
now...*

Personally, I trust the Mozilla team to not break their commitments, and if
we had 1-2 non-Mozilla people just regularly check out the Zoom settings
and confirm none of the "worst" settings are on (i'm happy to volunteer if
needed), then that's certainly more privacy and less time auditing a system
than if we try to spin up a completely custom build, rip out any
default tracking code, and then have an open source review of THAT code,
along with all the other code reviews that we're supposed to be doing in
this group...

Unless there are new players to the market, ANY custom solution that is
privacy safe, will require ongoing audits of that system by this group to
ensure it stays privacy complaint -- and I 100% guarantee that whatever
system you choose will have bugs/problems for certain devices/OS (not to
mention how hard it is to get both web AND toll free phone
calling......jitsi gives generic U.S. phone numbers..), and whenever those
problems come up with whatever custom build we choose, someone will need to
fix those problems between meetings...

Final note - if folks have problems with Zoom, then you're going to need to
suggest replacements. IMO the deal breaker that everyone will find is that
it's hard to find -> *Web Calls + Toll Free Phone calls in 1 system*, --
from my audit, this only comes from paid services that have some level of
tracking. If ya'll can point me to a solution that is different, i'd love
to audit it and will happily change my recommendations here.

Cheers,
Zach





On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 8:59 AM Michael Downey <michael@downey.net> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 24, 2020, at 08:42, Zach Edwards wrote:
> > Howdy ya'll, I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in -- I did a
> privacy/security audit of video chat systems about a year ago, zoom
> certainly had plenty of problems but they *all do* as Tom mentions. I never
> found a single "video conference solution" that both protected users
> privacy AND had any decent service for diverse-geographic group chats.
>
> Not sure what's meant by "decent service for diverse-geographic group
> chats", but there are easy-to-deploy open source solutions like Jitsi that
> would seem to protect users' privacy because of the simple fact that they
> needn't involve third parties to run them.
>
> The use of Zoom is why I never participated in any of this group's
> activities, FWIW.
>
> Michael Downey
> United Nations Foundation
>
>
>

-- 
--
Zach Edwards
zach@victorymedium.com
512-417-3095
skype: thezedwards