1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,760 Speaker 1: Welcome to Text Time, a production from I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:15,560 Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 3 00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:19,280 Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 4 00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:23,439 Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And as we continue 5 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:28,120 Speaker 1: to try and maintain some sense of normalcy and regularity 6 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:33,479 Speaker 1: in our lives while simultaneously dealing with a pandemic, certain 7 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:38,479 Speaker 1: potential topics just seemed to beg to be addressed, including 8 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,960 Speaker 1: in the world of tech. Recently, I went on Twitter 9 00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:45,080 Speaker 1: and I asked my followers if they had any suggestions 10 00:00:45,080 --> 00:00:49,000 Speaker 1: for episode topics, and I got a whole bunch of different, 11 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:52,720 Speaker 1: you know, candidates, But the one that received the most 12 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:58,560 Speaker 1: independent submissions was the video conferencing service Zoom. For many, 13 00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:01,840 Speaker 1: Zoom was something that just kind of popped up once 14 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:04,679 Speaker 1: millions of us had to shift to work from home. 15 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:07,840 Speaker 1: The company, as it turns out, has been around for 16 00:01:07,880 --> 00:01:10,319 Speaker 1: a few years, but it was really when people were 17 00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:15,039 Speaker 1: rushing to find conferencing solutions that it became mainstream news. 18 00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:18,080 Speaker 1: A lot of you out there were probably using Zoom, 19 00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:22,520 Speaker 1: possibly for years, because it was already a popular video 20 00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:25,280 Speaker 1: conferencing tool, but it's just that a lot of folks 21 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:28,920 Speaker 1: never really had occasion to use it until current circumstances 22 00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:34,400 Speaker 1: changed things. Add to that some pretty high profile controversies 23 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:38,360 Speaker 1: regarding everything from Internet security to privacy concerns, and you've 24 00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:42,080 Speaker 1: got yourself a prime tech stuff topic. So today we're 25 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:45,480 Speaker 1: going to talk about the Zoom service, where it came from, 26 00:01:45,520 --> 00:01:48,640 Speaker 1: how it made its founder a billionaire, and we'll look 27 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:51,320 Speaker 1: into some of those controversies. But let's start with what 28 00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:54,760 Speaker 1: Zoom is. Just in case you don't know, the basic 29 00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:57,080 Speaker 1: idea behind Zoom is pretty easy to get your mind 30 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:00,880 Speaker 1: wrapped around. It's a conferencing service that uses the Internet, 31 00:02:01,360 --> 00:02:04,840 Speaker 1: so you can do audio conferences, video conferences, you can 32 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:09,000 Speaker 1: do web conferences, including sharing screens so that multiple people 33 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:13,360 Speaker 1: can view the same documents simultaneously. It works on mobile 34 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:17,040 Speaker 1: devices as well as desktop or laptop computers. It can 35 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:19,799 Speaker 1: support meetings with as few as two people or as 36 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,040 Speaker 1: many as five hundred. There are also options to have 37 00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:26,760 Speaker 1: a single presenter streamed to an unlimited audience. This would 38 00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:30,919 Speaker 1: be one way communication like a lecture. Obviously, a lot 39 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:33,560 Speaker 1: has to happen in the back end for all of 40 00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:37,400 Speaker 1: this to work, and it requires a persistent Internet connection. 41 00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:39,959 Speaker 1: But we'll get into all of that later. Right now, 42 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:43,160 Speaker 1: let's talk about the company's history, and the story of 43 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:47,200 Speaker 1: Zoom really starts with a different company, and that company 44 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:51,360 Speaker 1: would be Cisco, which is an enormous technology conglomerate that 45 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:54,000 Speaker 1: does a whole lot of stuff, and among that stuff 46 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:58,440 Speaker 1: is a web conferencing service called WebEx. Now WebEx didn't 47 00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:01,920 Speaker 1: come out of Cisco. Cisco actually acquired the company in 48 00:03:01,919 --> 00:03:05,600 Speaker 1: two thousand seven. WebEx itself was founded in the late 49 00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:09,400 Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. Originally it was called Active Touch, but quickly 50 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:15,400 Speaker 1: became WebEx. One Cisco executive named Eric Yuan found the 51 00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:21,160 Speaker 1: WebEx service needed several improvements. Yuan was born in China. 52 00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:25,560 Speaker 1: He grew up attended school and later college in China. 53 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:29,760 Speaker 1: As a kid, Yuan's first attempt at making money involved 54 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:34,040 Speaker 1: taking copper out of leftover material from construction sites and 55 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:36,760 Speaker 1: selling it. And he found out that the company he 56 00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:39,520 Speaker 1: was selling these scraps to really just wanted the copper 57 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:43,320 Speaker 1: that was it. So he decided, you know, to streamline things, 58 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:46,240 Speaker 1: he would go a step further and attempt to extract 59 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:50,960 Speaker 1: copper from everything else by burning it, you know, burning 60 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:54,280 Speaker 1: the everything else away and leaving the copper behind. As 61 00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:59,200 Speaker 1: a result, he accidentally burned down his neighbor's shack, which 62 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:03,720 Speaker 1: he was using to secretly conduct his business, and he 63 00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:07,200 Speaker 1: was doing this d I y copper reclamation project. As 64 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:09,800 Speaker 1: a kid burned down his neighbor's shack, and you could 65 00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:13,720 Speaker 1: say this first business venture was a failure. But unlike 66 00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:18,719 Speaker 1: the shack, Yuan did not suffer from burnout but um bum. 67 00:04:18,760 --> 00:04:21,920 Speaker 1: As a young adult, he was in a long distance 68 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,800 Speaker 1: relationship with a girlfriend and she lived so far away 69 00:04:25,839 --> 00:04:28,080 Speaker 1: that he would have to take the train to see her, 70 00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:30,720 Speaker 1: and it would take a ten hour trip by train 71 00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:33,960 Speaker 1: to get there. Yuan frequently wished there was some easier 72 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:37,200 Speaker 1: way for him to see his girlfriend, and later said 73 00:04:37,279 --> 00:04:40,679 Speaker 1: it was this desire that fueled his motivation for creating 74 00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:44,200 Speaker 1: Zoom in the first place. He studied computer science at 75 00:04:44,279 --> 00:04:48,479 Speaker 1: university and then married that long distance girlfriend when he 76 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,040 Speaker 1: was twenty two years old, and he was pursuing a 77 00:04:51,080 --> 00:04:53,919 Speaker 1: master's degree at the time, and he was thinking about 78 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:55,800 Speaker 1: what was going to come next once he got out 79 00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:58,360 Speaker 1: of school, what he was going to pursue as a career. 80 00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:03,400 Speaker 1: Yuan learned of the Internet and felt that this technology 81 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:06,800 Speaker 1: would be truly transformative, but he lived in China, and 82 00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:10,800 Speaker 1: the Chinese government hadn't rolled out internet infrastructure, and it 83 00:05:10,839 --> 00:05:12,960 Speaker 1: was pretty obvious that the government was going to keep 84 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:16,280 Speaker 1: a tight control on what could come into China once 85 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:18,279 Speaker 1: it was connected to the rest of the world. This 86 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:22,240 Speaker 1: would be the Great Chinese Firewall. Yuan decided that he 87 00:05:22,279 --> 00:05:24,800 Speaker 1: wanted to immigrate to the United States so that he 88 00:05:24,839 --> 00:05:27,479 Speaker 1: could work on projects connected to the Internet and be 89 00:05:27,680 --> 00:05:32,640 Speaker 1: free of that particular obstacle. The first time he applied 90 00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:35,039 Speaker 1: for a visa to work in the United States, he 91 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:37,880 Speaker 1: received a rejection. He didn't let that get to him, 92 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:42,520 Speaker 1: so he applied again, and he was rejected again. So 93 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:46,719 Speaker 1: he applied again and again. In fact, it wasn't until 94 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:51,039 Speaker 1: his ninth try that he was accepted. Upon arriving in 95 00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:54,440 Speaker 1: the United States in nine seven, at the age of 96 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:59,320 Speaker 1: twenty seven, Yuan secured a job with Webbex, which itself 97 00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:01,360 Speaker 1: was just a couple of years old. In fact, a 98 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:03,960 Speaker 1: little less than two years old. It only had a 99 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:08,359 Speaker 1: few employees, but it was growing fairly quickly, and unlike 100 00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:11,599 Speaker 1: many web based companies, WebEx was able to get through 101 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:14,120 Speaker 1: the dot com bubble burst of two thousand and two 102 00:06:14,160 --> 00:06:19,120 Speaker 1: thousand one, when the economy stabilized WebEx began to grow again, 103 00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:22,920 Speaker 1: and it held its own I p O. Several years later, 104 00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:27,600 Speaker 1: a decade after you Want joined WebEx, Cisco came a colon. 105 00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:31,919 Speaker 1: The mega company acquired WebEx for the princely sum of 106 00:06:32,080 --> 00:06:36,839 Speaker 1: three point two billion dollars. At the time, WebEx was 107 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:40,520 Speaker 1: reporting three hundred eighty million dollars in revenue with a 108 00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:44,200 Speaker 1: fifty million dollar profits, so the company was doing well. 109 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:46,640 Speaker 1: It was no wonder that a big company like Cisco, 110 00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:49,960 Speaker 1: which is all about providing internet and text services mostly 111 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:54,000 Speaker 1: to other big companies, would be interested. Even at the 112 00:06:54,080 --> 00:06:57,480 Speaker 1: time people were criticizing WebEx as being a bit too 113 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:02,240 Speaker 1: bloated and costly. Michael Arrington of tech Crunch posted about 114 00:07:02,279 --> 00:07:06,400 Speaker 1: the acquisition announcement and mentioned that several startups were aiming 115 00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:10,280 Speaker 1: at the same general suite of services that WebEx provided, 116 00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:13,240 Speaker 1: and that these startups were on the rise, indicating that 117 00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:17,240 Speaker 1: perhaps WebEx was already loaded with feature creep, that it 118 00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:20,200 Speaker 1: was getting too unwieldy for its own good, and it 119 00:07:20,280 --> 00:07:25,240 Speaker 1: was creating its own opportunities for competition to jump up 120 00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:28,680 Speaker 1: and and take some of the pie u wan transition 121 00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:31,640 Speaker 1: to Cisco, he became the company's VP of Engineering in 122 00:07:31,760 --> 00:07:35,760 Speaker 1: charge of collaboration software. And Uan stated in interviews that 123 00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:38,520 Speaker 1: he met with several Cisco customers over the course of 124 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:40,720 Speaker 1: his tenure with the company, and he heard from many 125 00:07:40,720 --> 00:07:43,560 Speaker 1: of them that they found WebEx to be clunky, hard 126 00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:46,960 Speaker 1: to use, and expensive. He could tell that these weren't 127 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:51,520 Speaker 1: outlying opinions, but rather indicated some real areas of opportunity 128 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:55,440 Speaker 1: to improve the service. One thing he felt very strongly 129 00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:58,000 Speaker 1: about was that the service was anchored in a more 130 00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:01,840 Speaker 1: traditional approach, a client a kind of approach, and Yuan 131 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,120 Speaker 1: felt that a cloud based service would be more suitable. 132 00:08:05,280 --> 00:08:08,240 Speaker 1: He argued that Cisco should let him rebuild the WebEx 133 00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:12,080 Speaker 1: product as a cloud based product, reinvigorating it, and his 134 00:08:12,160 --> 00:08:15,200 Speaker 1: efforts to do so were met with resistance within Cisco. 135 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:17,720 Speaker 1: So by two thousand and eleven he had had enough. 136 00:08:18,160 --> 00:08:20,920 Speaker 1: Yuan resigned from Cisco so that he could go and 137 00:08:20,960 --> 00:08:24,640 Speaker 1: found his own web conferencing company, and around thirty to 138 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:28,040 Speaker 1: forty engineers from Cisco, some of them in China, would 139 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:32,040 Speaker 1: follow him and join his new venture, which would become Zoom. 140 00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:35,280 Speaker 1: Between the time he left Cisco and the time Zoom 141 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:39,360 Speaker 1: actually launched, two years would pass. So what was going 142 00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:43,080 Speaker 1: on in those two years, well pretty much what you'd expect. 143 00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:46,600 Speaker 1: Yuan was meeting with investors raising money to fund his 144 00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:49,400 Speaker 1: new company. At the same time, his team of engineers 145 00:08:49,400 --> 00:08:52,000 Speaker 1: were building out the service with certain goals in mind. 146 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:55,960 Speaker 1: Two of the big ones were really key to Zoom's survival, 147 00:08:56,120 --> 00:08:58,280 Speaker 1: and those were making sure the service would work on 148 00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:02,640 Speaker 1: pretty much any platform, including mobile devices, and making sure 149 00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:08,000 Speaker 1: latency was as low as possible. Latency is lag or delay, 150 00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:12,040 Speaker 1: and it's an incredibly frustrating thing to encounter with technology. 151 00:09:12,080 --> 00:09:15,560 Speaker 1: In communication, it makes things even more challenging. You have 152 00:09:15,640 --> 00:09:18,080 Speaker 1: to ask was that a pause or is the person 153 00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:20,800 Speaker 1: done speaking? Is it time for me to speak up? 154 00:09:21,240 --> 00:09:23,680 Speaker 1: If you're video conferencing with me, I'm likely to think 155 00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:25,560 Speaker 1: you have nothing to say, so I'll just keep on 156 00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:29,160 Speaker 1: going because I'm a total chatterbox. This comes as news 157 00:09:29,200 --> 00:09:33,320 Speaker 1: to nobody. I know that. But we humans are really 158 00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:37,360 Speaker 1: good at picking up on latency, even unconsciously, and this 159 00:09:37,400 --> 00:09:41,000 Speaker 1: makes developing certain technologies a real challenge, such as really 160 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:44,760 Speaker 1: good virtual reality. If you have noticeable latency with VR, 161 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:48,320 Speaker 1: it creates a sort of swimmy experience and it tends 162 00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:51,600 Speaker 1: to lead to motion sickness, and while you might feel 163 00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:56,040 Speaker 1: nauseated on some video calls. That's not really due to latency. 164 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:58,720 Speaker 1: Most times it's usually just due to the content of 165 00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:02,199 Speaker 1: the call, But it's still difficult to have a natural 166 00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:06,840 Speaker 1: conversation if there's latency involved. Over on the website protocol, 167 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:11,160 Speaker 1: David Pierce wrote that when he asked about latency and communication, 168 00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:14,640 Speaker 1: he found that a lag of just one hundred fifty 169 00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:19,400 Speaker 1: milliseconds or point one five seconds, is long enough for 170 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:21,960 Speaker 1: us to pick up on it. So the service needed 171 00:10:21,960 --> 00:10:24,880 Speaker 1: to deliver video and audio at a lower latency than 172 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:29,640 Speaker 1: point one five seconds. Combining these two goals created a 173 00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:32,880 Speaker 1: real engineering challenge. The team needed to come up with 174 00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:36,280 Speaker 1: solutions that would work on multiple devices and not contribute 175 00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:40,280 Speaker 1: to latency. Some services that cater to multiple platforms take 176 00:10:40,320 --> 00:10:44,520 Speaker 1: a pretty straightforward route. The service will cater to whichever 177 00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:48,199 Speaker 1: device or connection is the slowest. So this you could 178 00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:52,360 Speaker 1: call the weakest link strategy. You deliver the experience at 179 00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:56,559 Speaker 1: the fastest speed that the slowest connection can handle, and 180 00:10:56,679 --> 00:10:59,960 Speaker 1: everybody has to deal with that. But that means everyone 181 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:02,520 Speaker 1: and gets a pretty lousy experience, or at least not 182 00:11:02,640 --> 00:11:05,640 Speaker 1: as good as what it could be. The team instead 183 00:11:05,679 --> 00:11:08,800 Speaker 1: wanted to create an approach in which their service would 184 00:11:08,800 --> 00:11:11,959 Speaker 1: be adaptable. It would be able to deliver an optimized 185 00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:15,760 Speaker 1: experience for each and every participant in a session. This 186 00:11:15,800 --> 00:11:18,600 Speaker 1: would require a flexible approach in which the service could 187 00:11:18,640 --> 00:11:22,560 Speaker 1: do things like downscale video quality or audio quality in 188 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:25,600 Speaker 1: order to stay synchronized with people on more capable devices 189 00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:28,880 Speaker 1: and faster connections. It required a lot more programming on 190 00:11:28,920 --> 00:11:31,120 Speaker 1: the back end for the service to identify what people 191 00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:34,600 Speaker 1: were using and how to best serve them. By the 192 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:37,640 Speaker 1: end of two thousand twelve, Yuan's group had a beta 193 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:40,480 Speaker 1: version of the Zoom service and it could host around 194 00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:42,600 Speaker 1: a dozen or so people at once. It was only 195 00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:45,080 Speaker 1: a hint of what the service would become, but it 196 00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:48,079 Speaker 1: was a handy tool when meeting with potential investors. So 197 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:51,320 Speaker 1: for two years, Un and his team build out Zoom 198 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:54,600 Speaker 1: and secure funding with rounds of investment. It must have 199 00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:57,360 Speaker 1: been pretty challenging, since, as I mentioned earlier, there was 200 00:11:57,400 --> 00:12:00,440 Speaker 1: already a host of video conferencing services using the internet 201 00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:03,720 Speaker 1: back in those days, but he managed it. Yuan boared 202 00:12:03,760 --> 00:12:05,760 Speaker 1: a lot of his own money into the venture himself. 203 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:11,360 Speaker 1: CBS Insights reports that Yuan held an estimated eighteen point 204 00:12:11,520 --> 00:12:14,800 Speaker 1: five percent steak in the company, so nearly twenty percent steak, 205 00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:18,360 Speaker 1: and that was when it would go public just in 206 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:22,000 Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, so the company wouldn't hold its Series 207 00:12:22,040 --> 00:12:25,160 Speaker 1: A round of funding until two thousand thirteen when it 208 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:28,400 Speaker 1: would first launch. As part of this fundraising approach, Uan 209 00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:31,720 Speaker 1: had investors used the Zoom product and he would hold 210 00:12:31,760 --> 00:12:34,920 Speaker 1: meetings in Zoom. He reportedly would only show up in 211 00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:38,000 Speaker 1: person for the first time to make sure investors had 212 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:40,240 Speaker 1: access to the service and had signed up for it, 213 00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:43,240 Speaker 1: and then he held all other meetings on the service itself. 214 00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:46,120 Speaker 1: It's reported that over the course of five years he 215 00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:51,040 Speaker 1: had fewer than ten work related trips, so averaging out 216 00:12:51,080 --> 00:12:55,520 Speaker 1: to two work trips per year. Man I envy that schedule, 217 00:12:56,240 --> 00:12:59,240 Speaker 1: But he was using this product that his company was 218 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:02,480 Speaker 1: providing to hold virtual meetings instead. He was practicing what 219 00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:04,800 Speaker 1: he was preaching, and it was an effective way to 220 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:08,920 Speaker 1: get buy in from investors and later on customers. In fact, 221 00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:13,000 Speaker 1: there's a story that he would personally contact customers who 222 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:16,679 Speaker 1: were canceling subscription services and he would reach out to 223 00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:20,160 Speaker 1: them himself. People thought there was an automated service, but no, 224 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:23,880 Speaker 1: it was actually Yuan himself. The founder of the company 225 00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:27,120 Speaker 1: writing to them to say, hey, would you reconsider, which 226 00:13:27,160 --> 00:13:30,040 Speaker 1: is kind of a crazy level of dedication. He could 227 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:31,920 Speaker 1: only keep that up for so long, because, as it 228 00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:34,319 Speaker 1: turns out, it would get pretty popular. See the product 229 00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:37,080 Speaker 1: launched in two thousand thirteen and by the end of 230 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:40,839 Speaker 1: the first month had nearly half a million users, so 231 00:13:41,160 --> 00:13:44,480 Speaker 1: keeping up with that many as a little tricky. By 232 00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:48,040 Speaker 1: half a year, it was hitting a million users, and 233 00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:52,320 Speaker 1: growth just exploded from there. Was Zoom making strategic partnerships 234 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:55,120 Speaker 1: both to enhance the services features and to become the 235 00:13:55,160 --> 00:13:59,119 Speaker 1: preferred video conferencing an online meeting solution for several companies. 236 00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:02,679 Speaker 1: Skipping ahead to two thousand nine team that's when Zoom 237 00:14:02,679 --> 00:14:06,000 Speaker 1: would hold its initial public offering and it became a 238 00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:10,040 Speaker 1: publicly traded company. At the market's open, the price per 239 00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:13,520 Speaker 1: share of stock was thirty six dollars. By the end 240 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:16,600 Speaker 1: of the day, the price had climbed to a whopping 241 00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:20,960 Speaker 1: sixty two dollars per share, And with Yuan's steak in 242 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:23,960 Speaker 1: the company, that would mean that his personal wealth would 243 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:27,360 Speaker 1: be pushed somewhere between two point nine and three point 244 00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:32,520 Speaker 1: to billion dollars billion with a B. So yeah, that 245 00:14:32,600 --> 00:14:36,040 Speaker 1: I p o made him a billionaire. Now when we 246 00:14:36,120 --> 00:14:39,560 Speaker 1: come back, I'll talk a little bit more about what 247 00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:43,320 Speaker 1: actually makes Zoom tick in the background, and then we'll 248 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:54,640 Speaker 1: conclude with some stories about some trouble waters for Zoom. 249 00:14:54,640 --> 00:14:57,800 Speaker 1: So let's talk a little about the tech that makes 250 00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:01,400 Speaker 1: a service like Zoom possible. At the heart of this 251 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:05,120 Speaker 1: is the cloud infrastructure. And I've been doing this long 252 00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:07,920 Speaker 1: enough to remember a time when cloud computing was a 253 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:10,720 Speaker 1: term that was just starting to make its way into 254 00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:14,760 Speaker 1: the mainstream. And typically you get pretty high level explanations 255 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:18,440 Speaker 1: for what cloud computing is, and they can range from 256 00:15:18,520 --> 00:15:23,280 Speaker 1: their services that exist online, which that's not terribly helpful, 257 00:15:23,720 --> 00:15:26,960 Speaker 1: or the stuff you are accessing, whether it's storage or 258 00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:31,120 Speaker 1: a program or whatever, lives on someone else's computer, which 259 00:15:31,160 --> 00:15:35,200 Speaker 1: is more accurate but not very satisfying. So let's talk 260 00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:38,600 Speaker 1: about cloud computing, and we'll start with that second definition 261 00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:41,200 Speaker 1: we're gonna build on that. Cloud computing refers to a 262 00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:45,560 Speaker 1: system in which a computer, or really a network of computers, 263 00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:49,120 Speaker 1: sometimes a network of computers that can dynamically add more 264 00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:53,040 Speaker 1: machines to support a service in times need. This network 265 00:15:53,120 --> 00:15:57,320 Speaker 1: hosts something that remote users can access. Uh in the 266 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:00,040 Speaker 1: case of cloud storage. You're talking about a computer a 267 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:02,640 Speaker 1: network that serves as a kind of you know, file 268 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:07,480 Speaker 1: repository for users. People can access it through some online portal. 269 00:16:07,960 --> 00:16:12,640 Speaker 1: Cloud computing usually refers to systems in which applications themselves 270 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:15,840 Speaker 1: are running on a network of machines, and end users 271 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:20,240 Speaker 1: access those applications through some sort of client interface or portal. 272 00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:24,400 Speaker 1: And it might be a dedicated app that exists on 273 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:27,960 Speaker 1: top of a desktop computer or a smartphone or something, 274 00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:31,400 Speaker 1: or it might just be a web client that exists 275 00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:34,600 Speaker 1: in a special web page or whatever. The programs are 276 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:39,000 Speaker 1: running on this computer network, and usually it's designed for 277 00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:41,440 Speaker 1: that purpose, and therefore it does a really good job, 278 00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:44,360 Speaker 1: like a better job at running that application than a 279 00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:48,560 Speaker 1: more general purpose computing machine would be able to do, 280 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:51,240 Speaker 1: you know, like a personal computer. The real beauty of 281 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:54,840 Speaker 1: cloud computing is that it shifts the burden of the 282 00:16:54,880 --> 00:16:58,680 Speaker 1: work off the end users machine, whether that's a laptop, 283 00:16:58,760 --> 00:17:02,240 Speaker 1: a desktop, a table computer, or a smartphone, and it 284 00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:06,040 Speaker 1: moves it to these dedicated computer systems or servers. Users 285 00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:08,720 Speaker 1: don't have to upgrade their devices or by the latest 286 00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:12,159 Speaker 1: and greatest computers in order to use these services, because 287 00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:15,600 Speaker 1: the hard work is really happening elsewhere. We say that 288 00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:17,840 Speaker 1: the hard work is happening in the cloud, but really 289 00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:19,760 Speaker 1: what we mean is that the work is going on 290 00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:23,480 Speaker 1: in some data centers filled with servers, and a person 291 00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:25,600 Speaker 1: with a state of the art system and a person 292 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:29,600 Speaker 1: using a smartphone could have a fairly comparable experience with 293 00:17:29,720 --> 00:17:33,920 Speaker 1: the same cloud based service, assuming that both users also 294 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:38,680 Speaker 1: have a decent Internet connection, and the Internet connection can 295 00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:41,919 Speaker 1: become the new bottleneck with this model of computing. So 296 00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:44,879 Speaker 1: a couple of decades ago, the limiting factor was the 297 00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:48,119 Speaker 1: end users hardware, like was the machine that the end 298 00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:52,440 Speaker 1: user had good enough to run the program. Well, that 299 00:17:52,520 --> 00:17:55,720 Speaker 1: was where the concern was. These days now we tend 300 00:17:55,760 --> 00:17:58,920 Speaker 1: to worry about the end users internet connection. Folks who 301 00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:01,960 Speaker 1: have fiber connect ativity and high speeds tend to have 302 00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:05,560 Speaker 1: a better experience than those who have tighter bandwidth restrictions. 303 00:18:06,160 --> 00:18:09,200 Speaker 1: In addition to being cloud based, Zoom can create and 304 00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:13,600 Speaker 1: leverage peer to peer networks. This particular network strategy got 305 00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:16,840 Speaker 1: a really bad rap abound a decade ago or so 306 00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:20,159 Speaker 1: when some people were using peer to peer networks to 307 00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:24,000 Speaker 1: pass around pirated copies of stuff like music and TV 308 00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:26,320 Speaker 1: shows and movies and pretty much anything else that could 309 00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:30,000 Speaker 1: be copied digitally, But the actual concept of a peer 310 00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:33,560 Speaker 1: to peer network is agnostic towards anything that is shared 311 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:37,199 Speaker 1: on top of that network. P two P structures are 312 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:41,680 Speaker 1: a legitimate way to distribute files or services to multiple users. 313 00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:45,640 Speaker 1: So what is it? Well, basically, it's a decentralized network 314 00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:48,800 Speaker 1: in which all the machines, which can be called peers 315 00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:53,200 Speaker 1: or nodes join the network play a pivotal role within 316 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:56,439 Speaker 1: that network. This is in contrast with the traditional client 317 00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:00,720 Speaker 1: server model and which numerous clients all connect to one 318 00:19:00,960 --> 00:19:06,679 Speaker 1: centralized server. These peers or nodes have special software running 319 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:08,680 Speaker 1: on them that allow them to connect to other nodes 320 00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:12,679 Speaker 1: on that network, and they also share some portion of 321 00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:16,040 Speaker 1: their own capabilities with the other nodes on the network. 322 00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:19,280 Speaker 1: That might be storage, so you might have computers on 323 00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:22,480 Speaker 1: the network storing files on behalf of other computers on 324 00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:26,400 Speaker 1: the network, or it might be processing power or bandwidth, 325 00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:29,280 Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So why does Zoom make use 326 00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:33,440 Speaker 1: of P twop networks? In some cases, the local P 327 00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:37,320 Speaker 1: two P structure might work just as well to facilitate 328 00:19:37,359 --> 00:19:41,639 Speaker 1: an online meeting as a Zoom server proxy. So in 329 00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:44,440 Speaker 1: those cases, the computers that connect to the meeting make 330 00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:48,200 Speaker 1: up this network and they share some resources, and Zooms 331 00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:51,440 Speaker 1: cloud servers don't really have to do very much outside 332 00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:54,520 Speaker 1: of initiating the meeting, keeping track of who is in there, 333 00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:59,919 Speaker 1: and some other load demand basic tasks and the mainstream 334 00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:05,320 Speaker 1: tasks are offloaded onto the Zoom users computers. But in 335 00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:10,000 Speaker 1: other cases, the Zoom server figures out that p TP 336 00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,600 Speaker 1: network really isn't a viable option, and so it will 337 00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:17,480 Speaker 1: shift all those online meeting functions to a more conventional 338 00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:21,920 Speaker 1: cloud server based approach. To determine which way it's gonna go, 339 00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:25,200 Speaker 1: Zoom goes through a very technical process, but I can 340 00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:27,800 Speaker 1: simplify it a little bit, and it does become important 341 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:31,080 Speaker 1: later on the host of the meeting launches the app 342 00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:34,080 Speaker 1: and starts the meeting within it or within the web 343 00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:36,520 Speaker 1: client or whatever. But the host chooses to start a 344 00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:40,159 Speaker 1: meeting that sends a message to Zooms servers over t 345 00:20:40,359 --> 00:20:44,159 Speaker 1: c P or Transmission Control Protocol. This is one of 346 00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:48,520 Speaker 1: the basic Internet standard communication protocols, and a protocol is 347 00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:52,160 Speaker 1: essentially a set of rules or instructions. The Zoom server 348 00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:57,239 Speaker 1: notifies the invitees to the meeting also through TCP, and 349 00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:00,400 Speaker 1: that manifests itself to users as a message that's says, hey, 350 00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:02,520 Speaker 1: your meeting is starting, you need to join it, and 351 00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:05,639 Speaker 1: it allows those users to join the meeting. The server 352 00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:08,280 Speaker 1: then does a P two P check among the host 353 00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:12,920 Speaker 1: and all the invitees of this meeting, and it evaluates 354 00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:17,080 Speaker 1: the peered connections between these different computers. If that evaluation 355 00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:21,240 Speaker 1: passes a threshold of acceptable performance, then the server says, 356 00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:23,080 Speaker 1: all right, you guys are good to go. I'm going 357 00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:26,040 Speaker 1: to hand over the streaming duties to this peer to 358 00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:28,760 Speaker 1: peer network and I'll just keep an eye on what's 359 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:31,640 Speaker 1: going on. But if it doesn't meet that threshold, then 360 00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:33,720 Speaker 1: the Zoom server steps in and says, all right, we're 361 00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:37,640 Speaker 1: gonna have a Zoom proxy server step in and handle 362 00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:40,720 Speaker 1: all those duties because the peer to peer network wouldn't 363 00:21:40,720 --> 00:21:43,560 Speaker 1: be able to do it otherwise. And the streaming is 364 00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:48,199 Speaker 1: sent over a different protocol, not TCP. Instead, it's a 365 00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,600 Speaker 1: protocol called User Data Gram Protocol or u d P. 366 00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:57,480 Speaker 1: And now we need to talk about packets because this 367 00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:00,960 Speaker 1: is also important. So the NATE sure the Internet means 368 00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:03,560 Speaker 1: the machines are popping on and off the Internet all 369 00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:05,640 Speaker 1: the time, right, So if you think about the Internet 370 00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:10,520 Speaker 1: as being this interconnected web of UH servers that allow 371 00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:14,080 Speaker 1: information to pass from point A to point B. Some 372 00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:16,679 Speaker 1: of those servers are coming online, some of them servers 373 00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:20,240 Speaker 1: are going offline, which means you cannot predict which pathway 374 00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:25,720 Speaker 1: is going to be reliable, right, So that makes communication 375 00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:30,280 Speaker 1: really tricky. It means that sometimes a pathway that existed 376 00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:33,119 Speaker 1: at the beginning of a transfer may go offline in 377 00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:36,600 Speaker 1: the middle of a transfer, So you need a backup 378 00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,639 Speaker 1: plan if something goes wrong, and the protocols and packets 379 00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:42,760 Speaker 1: are meant to deal with this. They are the style 380 00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:47,520 Speaker 1: of backup plan. So packets are bundles of data. Rather 381 00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:52,800 Speaker 1: than sending a file through the Internet entirely whole, computers 382 00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:57,000 Speaker 1: will divide files up into more manageable packets or bundles. 383 00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:00,720 Speaker 1: And this is easy to under stand if you think 384 00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:02,439 Speaker 1: about what could happen if you were to try and 385 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:04,720 Speaker 1: send a file and it's a huge file. Let's say 386 00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:08,840 Speaker 1: it's like a two hour high resolution video file. Well, 387 00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,560 Speaker 1: you're trying to send this from one machine to another. 388 00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:16,879 Speaker 1: Now imagine that some server along that pathway goes offline 389 00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,840 Speaker 1: in the middle of that transfer. Maybe you're halfway through 390 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:23,960 Speaker 1: sending this file. And that server goes offline, you'd be 391 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,080 Speaker 1: back at square one, because now you have a useless file. 392 00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:30,200 Speaker 1: You only got half of it to its destination. And 393 00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:33,600 Speaker 1: it's even possible you wouldn't even know that something wrong 394 00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:37,160 Speaker 1: had happened and that the file didn't go through, and 395 00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:39,080 Speaker 1: that would be even worse than being at square one. 396 00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:42,800 Speaker 1: So instead, what computers do is they divide those big 397 00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:46,720 Speaker 1: files into packets, and those packets have information in them 398 00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,600 Speaker 1: about what file they belong to, where they're supposed to go, 399 00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:51,600 Speaker 1: how they fit in with all the other packets, kind 400 00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,520 Speaker 1: of like a puzzle, and they all go across the Internet, 401 00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:58,000 Speaker 1: and they don't necessarily all take the same pathway from 402 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,760 Speaker 1: point A to point B. They may take very different 403 00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,320 Speaker 1: pathways in order to get to point B. Information that's 404 00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:08,119 Speaker 1: sent over t c P means that that that protocol, 405 00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:12,400 Speaker 1: that set of rules requires stuff like error correction, and 406 00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:15,280 Speaker 1: it accounts for all packets in order to process a 407 00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:18,680 Speaker 1: file on the other end, So it's a little slower, 408 00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,960 Speaker 1: a little more painstaking, a little more concerned with precision 409 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,880 Speaker 1: and accuracy. It's really all about being confident that your 410 00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:29,240 Speaker 1: file is getting to where it needs to go. Now, 411 00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:31,040 Speaker 1: Someday I'm going to have to go through all the 412 00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:34,159 Speaker 1: various Internet protocols and explain what each one does. But 413 00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:36,239 Speaker 1: the important thing to know in this case is that 414 00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:40,479 Speaker 1: while TCP is a reliable means of delivering information over 415 00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:44,560 Speaker 1: the Internet, u d P is faster. And this is 416 00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,240 Speaker 1: because u d P does a weigh with some of 417 00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:51,399 Speaker 1: those pesky error checking processes, and it doesn't worry about 418 00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:55,200 Speaker 1: dropped data packets. In fact, according to Zoom, you could 419 00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:57,880 Speaker 1: drop as much as the data packets and you would 420 00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:00,959 Speaker 1: still get video and audio quality that would be decent. 421 00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:05,119 Speaker 1: So u DP gets stuff done fast, even if not 422 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:08,040 Speaker 1: everything goes as planned, if it's a little on the 423 00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:12,040 Speaker 1: sloppy side, you could say, but stuff like streaming video, 424 00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:16,879 Speaker 1: streaming audio, and streaming applications like gaming typically rely pretty 425 00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:20,000 Speaker 1: heavily on u d P because of that speed. Now, 426 00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:22,399 Speaker 1: some of you might be wondering why even bother talking 427 00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:24,879 Speaker 1: about this, and the answer is because all of this 428 00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:26,600 Speaker 1: is going to come back to play a part when 429 00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,640 Speaker 1: I talk about Zoom and security and privacy issues later 430 00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:34,280 Speaker 1: on that right, there's what we call foreshadow. And now 431 00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:37,840 Speaker 1: computer services in general, not just Zoom, also have to 432 00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:42,000 Speaker 1: work with end devices to get permission to use certain peripherals, 433 00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:46,240 Speaker 1: namely stuff like webcams and microphones. And because Zoom is 434 00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:48,680 Speaker 1: a service that aims to be available on pretty much 435 00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,680 Speaker 1: any platform, it means that the developers had to account 436 00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:54,800 Speaker 1: for the various permissions the service would need to accommodate. 437 00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:58,880 Speaker 1: Defining permissions is something that typically falls to the companies 438 00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:03,920 Speaker 1: that create operating systems. There are Android permissions, Windows permissions, 439 00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:09,239 Speaker 1: iOS permissions, etcetera. And understanding what this means requires us 440 00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,240 Speaker 1: to take a little step back and consider the dreaded 441 00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,760 Speaker 1: layers of computing. You can think of layers as a 442 00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,679 Speaker 1: way to envision the various operational components required for a 443 00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:24,199 Speaker 1: computer to work. It's pretty clear that when you strip 444 00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,800 Speaker 1: everything away, when you take everything away from the computer 445 00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:32,639 Speaker 1: that is running on top of stuff. At its core, 446 00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:37,360 Speaker 1: computers are running on electricity that passes through circuits. This 447 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,960 Speaker 1: is a layer of hardware, and we can think of 448 00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,640 Speaker 1: it as being concrete in the sense that it has 449 00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,720 Speaker 1: a form, and that form doesn't change, at least not 450 00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:49,639 Speaker 1: without you adding in or swapping out components. The hardware 451 00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,320 Speaker 1: is like the concrete slab for a building. It's the 452 00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:56,920 Speaker 1: layer on top of which everything else has to exist now. 453 00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:01,000 Speaker 1: In the olden days of programming, like the earliest computers, 454 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,440 Speaker 1: computer programmers would actually have to change the hardware layout 455 00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,600 Speaker 1: of a machine every time they wanted to run a 456 00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:10,960 Speaker 1: different operation. And I'm talking about physically unplugging cables from 457 00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:13,800 Speaker 1: one part of the machine, plugging them into another part, 458 00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:17,600 Speaker 1: or toggling switches, that kind of thing. In modern terms, 459 00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:19,840 Speaker 1: this would be like requiring you to open up your 460 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:24,000 Speaker 1: computer or your smartphone and physically change the circuitry every 461 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:26,560 Speaker 1: time you needed it to run a different operation. And 462 00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:30,199 Speaker 1: keep in mind, I'm saying an operation, not a process. 463 00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:33,040 Speaker 1: I mean some processes, like a like a program might 464 00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:37,680 Speaker 1: consist of multiple operations. Fortunately, in the years since those 465 00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,439 Speaker 1: early computers, some very smart people were able to develop 466 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:45,320 Speaker 1: additional layers to interface directly with the hardware that was 467 00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:49,320 Speaker 1: at the foundation, but also allow programmers to run applications 468 00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:53,919 Speaker 1: higher up a level of abstraction. So these middle layers 469 00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,600 Speaker 1: can send commands lower down so that the hardware can 470 00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,000 Speaker 1: run the programs and and provide the sets that are needed, 471 00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,800 Speaker 1: and the layers on top, the application layers let you 472 00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:07,560 Speaker 1: do the stuff that you actually want to do with 473 00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:11,240 Speaker 1: your computer. Permissions are part of this picture. Permissions are 474 00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:16,120 Speaker 1: part of operating systems. Developers build applications for various operating 475 00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:19,120 Speaker 1: systems and they communicate with the OS through what's called 476 00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:23,359 Speaker 1: an application programming interface or a p I. The a 477 00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,720 Speaker 1: p I sort of sets the rules for developers. The 478 00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:30,840 Speaker 1: API defines how applications can call for the assets they 479 00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,560 Speaker 1: need in order to run, kind of like the rules 480 00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:37,359 Speaker 1: of how to requisition computer processing power and stuff, and 481 00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:40,040 Speaker 1: it includes things not just like processing power, but also 482 00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,960 Speaker 1: access to computer memory, to storage, and how the program 483 00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,600 Speaker 1: can tap into stuff like peripherals, including webcams and microphones. Typically, 484 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,800 Speaker 1: modern operating systems include a requirement in a p I 485 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,640 Speaker 1: s that will send an alert to an end user 486 00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,680 Speaker 1: whenever an app wants to, at least for the first time, 487 00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,680 Speaker 1: make use of stuff like microphones and cameras. This is 488 00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:04,160 Speaker 1: meant to help protect security and privacy. Clearly, you wouldn't 489 00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:06,760 Speaker 1: want some random program to be able to activate your 490 00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:11,200 Speaker 1: computer or smartphones camera without your permission. Once the user 491 00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:14,600 Speaker 1: grants permission, the app can make use of those assets, 492 00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,680 Speaker 1: and typically the app assumes permission continues for subsequent uses, 493 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,000 Speaker 1: which in turn can be a little problematic, but that's 494 00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:25,520 Speaker 1: neither here nor there. The Zoom team developed apps for 495 00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:31,200 Speaker 1: Windows based machines, Linux machines, Max, Android and iOS devices. 496 00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:35,040 Speaker 1: In addition, Zoom has a web based client and that 497 00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,080 Speaker 1: does not require users to download any sort of app 498 00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,040 Speaker 1: to their desktop or computer. They could access it straight 499 00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:43,920 Speaker 1: through the web. However, the feature set on the web 500 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:48,760 Speaker 1: client is a bit threadbare when compared to the app versions, 501 00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:52,160 Speaker 1: and it's not even the same across all browsers. For example, 502 00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:54,960 Speaker 1: if you're in the web client version of Zoom and 503 00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:57,640 Speaker 1: you want to share video, you better not be using 504 00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:00,880 Speaker 1: Internet Explorer because it doesn't have that capable ability. But 505 00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,800 Speaker 1: let's be honest, you shouldn't be using Internet Explorer anyway, 506 00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:08,200 Speaker 1: as that browser is essentially obsolete and all versions apart 507 00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:11,560 Speaker 1: from the latest one, which I believe is Internet Explorer eleven, 508 00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:16,160 Speaker 1: no longer even received support from Microsoft. If you wanted 509 00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,480 Speaker 1: to share your computer's screen with a group, then you'd 510 00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:23,800 Speaker 1: best not be using Safari, as that browser lacks that function. Now, 511 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:25,520 Speaker 1: I'm not going to go through every feature and call 512 00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,120 Speaker 1: out each browser, but i will say, according to Zoom itself, 513 00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,720 Speaker 1: the browser with the greatest compatibility with Zoom's features is 514 00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,560 Speaker 1: Google Chrome and I'm not gonna go through all the 515 00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,600 Speaker 1: different features because this isn't an ad for Zoom. Suffice 516 00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:43,120 Speaker 1: it to say the app versions give more options. And 517 00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,080 Speaker 1: when I come back, I'll talk about Zoom's revenue model 518 00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,400 Speaker 1: and then get into some of the problems that the 519 00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:52,200 Speaker 1: company has run into recently. But first let's take another 520 00:30:52,320 --> 00:31:03,600 Speaker 1: quick break. Okay, so the basic Zoom service is free, 521 00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,760 Speaker 1: but it has some limitations. In fact, Zoom falls into 522 00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:10,880 Speaker 1: a category of services typically called freemium. You get a 523 00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,920 Speaker 1: base level of services without having to pay anything, but 524 00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:17,840 Speaker 1: to gain access to more robust features, you have to subscribe. 525 00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,760 Speaker 1: With a free account, you can have unlimited one on 526 00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,680 Speaker 1: one meetings. If you hold a group meeting, you're limited 527 00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:27,320 Speaker 1: to forty minutes or less. You can hold a meeting 528 00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:30,960 Speaker 1: with up to one participants in it. And then you've 529 00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,240 Speaker 1: got three levels of paid membership. You've got the Pro 530 00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:37,600 Speaker 1: level that's at fourteen dollars a month here in the US, 531 00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,160 Speaker 1: that allows for longer meetings and more user features in general. 532 00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:45,400 Speaker 1: But you've also got Business and Enterprise level memberships. Those 533 00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,960 Speaker 1: offer larger capacity meetings and of course more features. Both 534 00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,040 Speaker 1: of those are priced at nineteen dollars and nine cents 535 00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,080 Speaker 1: per month here in the US, but the business level 536 00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:59,320 Speaker 1: has a minimum requirement of ten hosts, so you multiply 537 00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,640 Speaker 1: that by ten. The enterprise level requires a minimum of 538 00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:06,760 Speaker 1: one hundred hosts, and so you multiply that price by 539 00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:11,640 Speaker 1: a hundred per month. There's also plans for mobile users. 540 00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,600 Speaker 1: It's called Zoom Phone. There are more recent editions such 541 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,680 Speaker 1: as a conference room Zoom set up Zoom Rooms, that's 542 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,840 Speaker 1: what they're called. They're cloud storage add on so that 543 00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,480 Speaker 1: you can record meeting proceedings for future reference. So it 544 00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:29,680 Speaker 1: records everything involved in the meeting, the entire uh audio 545 00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,520 Speaker 1: and video, plus any notes that were shared. And there 546 00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:35,880 Speaker 1: are other services as well, all based around these same concepts. 547 00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:38,680 Speaker 1: Recent articles like the one I mentioned earlier by David 548 00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:43,080 Speaker 1: Pierce that actually has the title Zoom Conquered Video Chat 549 00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:47,040 Speaker 1: Now it has even bigger plans in the quote anyway, 550 00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:49,720 Speaker 1: That article lays out that the long term strategy for 551 00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,200 Speaker 1: Zoom is to create a full suite of services that 552 00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:56,400 Speaker 1: empower companies to work in a more decentralized way, essentially 553 00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:00,960 Speaker 1: eliminating the need for a physical office space. Right now, 554 00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,920 Speaker 1: millions of people have to do this out of necessity 555 00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,120 Speaker 1: but Zoom is banking on this being more than just 556 00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:09,320 Speaker 1: a temporary change and how we do things, and it 557 00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:11,320 Speaker 1: will be more of a sign of how things will 558 00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:13,880 Speaker 1: be in days to come. Perhaps the offices of the 559 00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,920 Speaker 1: future will really be fully decentralized, with more and more 560 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,840 Speaker 1: people working from their homes. Zoom is building out the 561 00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:24,760 Speaker 1: services that are meant to meet that kind of future. Meanwhile, 562 00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,120 Speaker 1: there's some other things I really want to talk about 563 00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:30,280 Speaker 1: before I close out this episode, and one of those 564 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,640 Speaker 1: is that Zoom has become a sort of meme generator 565 00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:37,160 Speaker 1: all by itself. For example, Zoom has a feature called 566 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,920 Speaker 1: virtual background, and that allows users to replace whatever is 567 00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:43,360 Speaker 1: behind them, you know, like an office wall or something 568 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:47,520 Speaker 1: with an image or even a video. It works best 569 00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,720 Speaker 1: if the user has a green screen. I actually tried 570 00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,840 Speaker 1: this with my setup at home, but I don't have 571 00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,160 Speaker 1: a green screen, and I can tell you the results 572 00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:02,000 Speaker 1: were horrifying because the wall color behind me and the 573 00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,600 Speaker 1: color of my face are close enough that I got 574 00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,560 Speaker 1: some weird video artifacts that will haunt me to the 575 00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:11,360 Speaker 1: end of my days. But my favorite version of the 576 00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:15,200 Speaker 1: virtual background was a guy who used the distracted boyfriend 577 00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:19,000 Speaker 1: meme as his Zoom background. Which mean, man, it looked 578 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:22,440 Speaker 1: like the distracted boyfriend was looking back at the zoom user. 579 00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,120 Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty clever. But there's been a 580 00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:27,680 Speaker 1: flood of creative backgrounds that have popped up due to 581 00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,759 Speaker 1: more people using Zoom. Then there are the numerous examples 582 00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,680 Speaker 1: of zoom meetings gone wrong. And I'm gonna be honest 583 00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:38,400 Speaker 1: with you, guys, I can't watch these videos. I know 584 00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,600 Speaker 1: about the woman who apparently didn't think about the fact 585 00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,319 Speaker 1: that her camera was on while she went to the 586 00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:49,759 Speaker 1: restroom while also on a call. Um, haven't watched it, 587 00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:53,560 Speaker 1: can't do it? Uh? They these these videos almost always 588 00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:56,200 Speaker 1: feature one or more participants being caught in some sort 589 00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:59,160 Speaker 1: of compromising way, and it's all because they were unaware 590 00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,680 Speaker 1: of how zoom arked, or they weren't paying enough attention. 591 00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:05,200 Speaker 1: And that's hard to live down. But then so many 592 00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:08,640 Speaker 1: of these are making their way into compilations and YouTube 593 00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:11,879 Speaker 1: videos and articles and stuff that they're going to live 594 00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,040 Speaker 1: on forever. And I guess it's a sign of my 595 00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:16,239 Speaker 1: age because I grew up in a time where you 596 00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,760 Speaker 1: could do something really dumb, but typically there wasn't a public, 597 00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,799 Speaker 1: permanent record of the dumb thing you did. That the 598 00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,360 Speaker 1: world could witness at any time, at least not in 599 00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:30,640 Speaker 1: most cases, so yikes. I've also seen clever stories about Zoom, 600 00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:34,000 Speaker 1: such as a young student, an elementary school student, and 601 00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,880 Speaker 1: she figured out how to fool her teacher into thinking 602 00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,239 Speaker 1: she was paying attention by replacing her video feed with 603 00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:43,560 Speaker 1: just a still picture of her sitting at her computer. 604 00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,279 Speaker 1: And because her teacher was actually looking at a full 605 00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:50,480 Speaker 1: classroom of participants, not just one student, it was easy 606 00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:53,200 Speaker 1: to overlook that one of those students had not blinked 607 00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:57,040 Speaker 1: for like hours. And here I thought drawing eyeballs on 608 00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:59,760 Speaker 1: your eyelids was brilliant so you could snooze in class. 609 00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:05,239 Speaker 1: This young lady has definitely surpassed my clever ability to 610 00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:09,920 Speaker 1: avoid schoolwork. But beyond the memes, there are more serious 611 00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,520 Speaker 1: matters that we need to discuss, and some of that 612 00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:16,319 Speaker 1: falls into the realm of privacy. For example, Zoom has 613 00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,400 Speaker 1: a chat feature, and this allows users within a session 614 00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:22,680 Speaker 1: to instant message one another. This is useful if you're 615 00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:24,960 Speaker 1: setting up the next speaker at a meeting. Let's say 616 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,719 Speaker 1: there's multiple people who are going to present, and you 617 00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:31,400 Speaker 1: might have an administrator who is coordinating behind the scenes 618 00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:36,440 Speaker 1: and chatting with people privately to prep prep them so 619 00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:38,600 Speaker 1: that they're ready to be the next person to step 620 00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,200 Speaker 1: forward and take on the microphone essentially, but it's also 621 00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,000 Speaker 1: a useful feature if users want to talk some serious 622 00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:48,719 Speaker 1: smack with one another privately during a Zoom session, such 623 00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:52,920 Speaker 1: as I don't know, critically evaluating their boss is attire 624 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:58,080 Speaker 1: when said bosses on camera. But beware Zoom users, you see, 625 00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:02,560 Speaker 1: hosts can record Zoom sessions. I mentioned this earlier, and 626 00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:06,080 Speaker 1: those recordings can either be sent to the cloud or 627 00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,840 Speaker 1: they could be recorded locally on the host's own computer. 628 00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:12,799 Speaker 1: So the air settings for the host to opt for 629 00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,839 Speaker 1: whichever feature they want to use. And as part of 630 00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:19,760 Speaker 1: this process, messages that are sent during the Zoom session 631 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,000 Speaker 1: are saved within the meetings minutes. Now the host is 632 00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:27,360 Speaker 1: recording to the cloud, only public messages are retained. No 633 00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,960 Speaker 1: private messages will be included, But if the host is 634 00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:35,759 Speaker 1: recording locally to their own machine, all messages public and 635 00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:40,120 Speaker 1: private get saved. So those private messages where you are 636 00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:44,120 Speaker 1: snarking on the boss might come back to haunt you. Now. 637 00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,080 Speaker 1: I gave a pretty tame version of what could happen, 638 00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:51,240 Speaker 1: but you can imagine much worse outcomes, such as someone 639 00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:54,280 Speaker 1: sharing stuff that the host shouldn't see due to corporate 640 00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:57,480 Speaker 1: policies or whatever. Let's say it's a meeting with multiple 641 00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:00,960 Speaker 1: division heads and one division head isn't supposed to see 642 00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:04,160 Speaker 1: a specific report for whatever reason. That could be a 643 00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:08,880 Speaker 1: real issue with this way that messages can ultimately be 644 00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,880 Speaker 1: shared in meeting minutes, So this is something to be 645 00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:16,280 Speaker 1: aware of. In addition, Zoom's privacy policy raised some eyebrows 646 00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:20,040 Speaker 1: once people really looked at those policies more closely, because, 647 00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,359 Speaker 1: as I mentioned many times before on this show, most 648 00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:25,480 Speaker 1: of us never bothered to read the darned things. We 649 00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,040 Speaker 1: just scroll past and clicked the little box that says 650 00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:32,160 Speaker 1: we read it, but we didn't really. Kato Flaherty of 651 00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,399 Speaker 1: Forbes actually wrote about this a few times and has 652 00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:39,760 Speaker 1: some great articles on the subject. So, according to the 653 00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:44,160 Speaker 1: previous policy, users would give Zoom permission to collect user 654 00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,239 Speaker 1: info and potentially share it with third parties, you know, 655 00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:51,520 Speaker 1: like advertisers. The privacy policy seemed to indicate that the 656 00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:55,880 Speaker 1: data could even include stuff like the contents of meetings themselves, 657 00:38:55,920 --> 00:39:00,360 Speaker 1: not just user data, but the content of user meetings. 658 00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:04,080 Speaker 1: So not only would the typical information like your email 659 00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:07,080 Speaker 1: address or your name get put on a market. Potentially 660 00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,239 Speaker 1: you could see more targeted data show up about your 661 00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,440 Speaker 1: business or your interests, perhaps even stuff that you know 662 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:17,480 Speaker 1: shouldn't be shared outside a specific group because of corporate 663 00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:21,279 Speaker 1: security concerns. When asked to comment, Zoom reps said the 664 00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,839 Speaker 1: company was not selling any user data, but experts were 665 00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:28,319 Speaker 1: wary because the policy as written was giving Zoom an 666 00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,200 Speaker 1: awful lot of permission to do stuff with that data 667 00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,279 Speaker 1: going across its service, and while the company might not 668 00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:39,320 Speaker 1: currently be pursuing any actions that would be questionable, it's 669 00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,160 Speaker 1: looked like they had the permission to do it in 670 00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:46,040 Speaker 1: the future. The company has since revised its privacy policy 671 00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,279 Speaker 1: in order to make things a little more transparent, but 672 00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:50,840 Speaker 1: the concern was enough to get some folks in government 673 00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:54,919 Speaker 1: interested in learning more about Zoom's practices, you know, kind 674 00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,000 Speaker 1: of like how the US government got interested in Facebook, 675 00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,640 Speaker 1: the bad kind of interest did. Zoom also has some 676 00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,600 Speaker 1: nanny features that people might find irritating, such as an 677 00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:10,640 Speaker 1: attention tracking feature. This alerts the host of a meeting 678 00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,440 Speaker 1: of a participant has clicked away from the meeting session 679 00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:17,560 Speaker 1: for more than thirty seconds, So if that little student 680 00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:21,200 Speaker 1: was actually using her computer to do other stuff, then 681 00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:24,719 Speaker 1: her teacher might notice. Even if it looks like the 682 00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,600 Speaker 1: young lady is staring into the camera, she's really you know, 683 00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:32,440 Speaker 1: playing a game or or watching a video or something 684 00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:36,040 Speaker 1: that could end up giving the whole gigaway. And then 685 00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:40,760 Speaker 1: there's zoom bombing. Zoom Bombing also has made the news, 686 00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,200 Speaker 1: and as the name suggests, this describes the practice of 687 00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:48,680 Speaker 1: an uninvited attendee or someone at a public Zoom meeting 688 00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:53,880 Speaker 1: essentially taking it over, being disruptive, making sure that the 689 00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,920 Speaker 1: meeting can't actually continue as planned. Sharing a Zoom meeting 690 00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:00,320 Speaker 1: link publicly tends to be the main way that the 691 00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,880 Speaker 1: uninvited find their way into a meeting, which makes some sense, 692 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,560 Speaker 1: and some features on Zoom make it way easier for 693 00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:12,080 Speaker 1: people to really be disruptive. For example, there is a 694 00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:16,680 Speaker 1: join before host option, which allows guests to join into 695 00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,320 Speaker 1: a meeting session before the host has actually started the meeting. 696 00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:21,880 Speaker 1: That's not a great one to have on and you 697 00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:26,319 Speaker 1: should probably turn it off. Uh Disabling the ability for 698 00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,440 Speaker 1: anyone but the host to screen share is a good idea. 699 00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,480 Speaker 1: There have been stories about people who jumped into a 700 00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:37,279 Speaker 1: Zoom meeting turned on screen sharing because the host had 701 00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:41,239 Speaker 1: not enabled it just for themselves and then shared incredibly 702 00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:46,600 Speaker 1: offensive material into a public meeting. So that's a good 703 00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,080 Speaker 1: one to check off. Another one is disabling the option 704 00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:54,440 Speaker 1: that allows removed participants to rejoin, because if that option 705 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,160 Speaker 1: is clicked on, then if you boot someone that could 706 00:41:57,200 --> 00:41:59,960 Speaker 1: just bounce right back in, and then you're just constantly 707 00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,520 Speaker 1: booting them, So turning that option off is also important. 708 00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:04,719 Speaker 1: And of course a host can choose to set up 709 00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,839 Speaker 1: private meetings and not do a public meeting at all, 710 00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:11,400 Speaker 1: and thus require every single participant to include a password 711 00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:15,400 Speaker 1: and then distribute that password in a way that's more responsible, 712 00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:19,319 Speaker 1: so people can't just join that meeting willy nilly. But 713 00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:22,720 Speaker 1: that's not ideal for every situation. A lot of people 714 00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:27,160 Speaker 1: want to hold public meetings for various reasons, so it's 715 00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,279 Speaker 1: not always a practical solution, but it is definitely one 716 00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,719 Speaker 1: you want to use if you are wanting to hold 717 00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,319 Speaker 1: a private meeting, you don't want to switch that over 718 00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,000 Speaker 1: to public and then invite this kind of mischief. One 719 00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,600 Speaker 1: other vulnerability I do want to mention was covered in 720 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,400 Speaker 1: a medium post by David Wells. This one was titled 721 00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,960 Speaker 1: remotely hijacking Zoom clients. And this goes back to the 722 00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,640 Speaker 1: t c P and U d P stuff I mentioned 723 00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:53,680 Speaker 1: earlier and said it was going to come back into play. 724 00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:58,680 Speaker 1: So Zoom uses TCP for important stuff like verifying hosts 725 00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:03,920 Speaker 1: and things and bringing in commands and stuff. Remember t 726 00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:07,480 Speaker 1: c P is the more methodical one, the more secure 727 00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:11,320 Speaker 1: and reliable approach to sending data. It uses u DP 728 00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,480 Speaker 1: for streaming video and audio because u DP is fast, 729 00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:17,560 Speaker 1: but the trade off is it's not as reliable. But 730 00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:22,640 Speaker 1: Wells found out that the Zoom service doesn't necessarily discriminate 731 00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:27,200 Speaker 1: between commands that were sent over U d P versus TCP. 732 00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,839 Speaker 1: So while a t CP command would have a verification 733 00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:35,040 Speaker 1: that it came from a reliable source, a u d 734 00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,920 Speaker 1: P command would not, and the service was interpreting both 735 00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:42,879 Speaker 1: equally with equal importance. So a hacker who knows about 736 00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:47,120 Speaker 1: this vulnerability could potentially hijack a Zoom session by sending 737 00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:51,279 Speaker 1: commands over u DP to hand over desktop control to 738 00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,120 Speaker 1: the hacker. And it gets super technical, and it's not 739 00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,080 Speaker 1: the type of thing that the average Zoom user is 740 00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,799 Speaker 1: going to do. And more to the point, Zoom has 741 00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,600 Speaker 1: it's patched this vulnerability, so the whole thing is moot 742 00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,960 Speaker 1: now anyway. But it wouldn't surprise me that now, with 743 00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,600 Speaker 1: Zoom taking an even more prominent place in the wake 744 00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:13,400 Speaker 1: of physical isolation, that we're going to hear about other exploits. 745 00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,759 Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll hear about it from the good guys, and 746 00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,960 Speaker 1: only after the vulnerabilities have been patched, and not as 747 00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,040 Speaker 1: a result of bad guys discovering it and taking advantage 748 00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:27,080 Speaker 1: of them. In the end, Zoom is popular because it's affordable, 749 00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:31,520 Speaker 1: it's versatile, and it performs its basic functions well. There 750 00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:34,920 Speaker 1: are numerous concerns, many of which I would argue are 751 00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:38,560 Speaker 1: extremely valid, about this service, so it's good to do 752 00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:41,839 Speaker 1: your research, and what the company does in response to 753 00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,400 Speaker 1: all this scrutiny will no doubt determine its future course. 754 00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:50,920 Speaker 1: I hope the decisions lead to greater transparency, better privacy protection, 755 00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:54,400 Speaker 1: better security. That's what I want to see, because I 756 00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,799 Speaker 1: think it does have a lot of great use, but 757 00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:00,120 Speaker 1: it needs to be designed in such a way that 758 00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:05,400 Speaker 1: people can't turn it to bad purposes, or that the 759 00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:10,160 Speaker 1: company itself can't exploit user information. Those are very important 760 00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:13,440 Speaker 1: things that need to happen well, that wraps up this 761 00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:17,160 Speaker 1: episode of text Stuff. If you guys have things to suggest, 762 00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:20,919 Speaker 1: then I highly recommend you do what these Twitter users did. 763 00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:22,960 Speaker 1: They reached out to me on Twitter. You can also 764 00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,000 Speaker 1: reach out to me on Facebook. The handle for both 765 00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:30,160 Speaker 1: of those is text Stuff HSW. So send me ideas 766 00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:32,520 Speaker 1: of what you would like me to cover in future episodes. 767 00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,799 Speaker 1: I've got a little list growing right now, but I'd 768 00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:37,840 Speaker 1: always like more submissions, and I'll talk to you again 769 00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:46,840 Speaker 1: really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. 770 00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:49,880 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i 771 00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,239 Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 772 00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:54,200 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.