The Internet is Now Rife With Places Where You Can Organize Zoom-bombing Raids (zdnet.com) 38
The internet is rife with online communities where users can go and share Zoom conference codes and request that pranksters connect and hurl insults, play pornographic material, or make death threats against other participants -- in a practice called Zoom-bombing or a Zoom raid. From a report: ZDNet began tracking the tactic since mid-March when the term was first coined following a TechCrunch article. Ever since then, Zoom-bombing incidents have increased, as articles in major news outlets like the New York Times and the BBC have made the practice a favorite pastime for all the teenagers stuck in their homes during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) quarantines. From a niche prank that started on a derelict Discord channel, Zoom-bombing has now spread to enormous proportions -- being so rampant these days that the FBI sent a nationwide alert last week, urging companies, schools, and universities to take steps to secure their Zoom channels. But as Zoom-bombing became more popular, more pranksters wanted to join on the fun, and more users wanted their friends' Zoom meetings disrupted. And as the old saying goes; where there's a demand, there's always a supply. Over the course of the past week, the number of places on the public internet where you can request a zoom raid from a gang of bored teenagers has exploded.
Re:Paid anti-Zoom FUD (Score:2, Informative)
Nice try, Ms. Mash.
Sounds like... (Score:3)
Sounds like a great reason avoid using Zoom.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like a great reason avoid using Zoom.
Sound like a good reason to use zoom, with some mind numbing meetings I have been to, this will at the very least make the meeting end early.
FWIW, my company dropped zoom a year or 2 ago and went to another product due to encryption not being there. But zoom's Linux client worked great, the product we use now does not have a Linux client and Linux people are stuck with a firefox/chrome front end.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most clients aren't much different - if you have a web client, you can turn it into an app using node.js and Electron.
And I don't see what's wrong with having a web client. Saves installing crap on the computer.
Re: (Score:3)
You obviously don't know just how utterly BORING the average meeting is, or you'd consider this an ad for Zoom.
Re: (Score:2)
You obviously don't know just how utterly BORING the average meeting is, or you'd consider this an ad for Zoom.
You're right- I avoid meetings at all costs, I'll do anything to get out of them. I never have anything to contribute or talk about because that's not something that my job usually calls for.
I once called in sick with "Potato Famine" to get out of a meeting. Another time I said my popliteal fossa was infected and nobody questioned it. Or I say that I went to the wrong room and was asked by some C-level tyrant to give an impromptu presentation on the whatchamacallit widget. If they schedule me in to a meetin
Re: (Score:2)
You're like a walking Dilbert strip, I see.
He's my Spirit Animal.
Re: (Score:2)
And just in the past few days someone was trying to convince me to install and use it. I remained skeptical and never did.
I'm not saying I'm smart or anything, but I'm just not incredibly stupid either.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not saying I'm smart or anything, but I'm just not incredibly stupid either.
My dear old daddy used to say "Half the trick to being smart is not being stupid."
I miss him. He never should have tried making toast in the shower.
Tools are already in place (Score:2)
But you do need to use them. Require people sign in to join your meeting - and, if practical, require they be a member of your Zoom organizational unit. Make use of the waiting room feature, if you can’t limit who can log in.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Doesn't work if one of your employees shares the password online.
Re:Tools are already in place (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tools are already in place (Score:4, Informative)
If that's the case, that's a design fail by Zoom. Passwords should be unique for each participant, and only allow a single user entry. If you share your password and someone else uses it to join the conference before you do, you yourself can't get in. When the person organizing the meeting sends out invites, it should include a unique password for each invitee.
Aaaannnnd this is why you aren't designing massively popular video chat/conferencing tools. That's great in theory...on the surface. It also completely falls apart the moment you try and implement it: No standard calendar app (exchange/o365/gsuite) let's you easily send each participant a unique invite so you have to build an entire secondary calendar app. Been there, tried to implement that for polycom rooms. All it did was cause endless confusion and conflicts that resulted in the rooms not being used. If I have to go ask the meeting organizer to invite people instead of forwarding an invite on? lol...good luck running a business without going back to the day of secretaries to maintain your calendar for every manager ever.
GGP (or whatever) had it right: require registered participants only and you cut out the VAST majority. Generate a unique room ID for each meeting helps more and add a per-meeting password will cut that down to almost nothing...and narrow down who could have 'leaked' the invite.
And if that STILL isn't enough, lock it down to your org only and use special accounts for external participants.
There's no PERFECT fix ... but you can eliminate the VAST majority pretty darn easily.
Re: (Score:2)
If that's the case, that's a design fail by Zoom. Passwords should be unique for each participant, and only allow a single user entry. If you share your password and someone else uses it to join the conference before you do, you yourself can't get in. When the person organizing the meeting sends out invites, it should include a unique password for each invitee.
And that is why Zoom got so popular and others like Webex got left behind.
I guess you have never frequently used these video conferencing apps, "frequent" as in multiple meetings every day.
I have lost count of the number of times where one or some of the participants:
* did not remember the URL and have someone else send them immediately
* had PC hang on them and have to immediately call in from a different device
* call in from multiple device, one to show the shared screen, another one for audio
* lost the se
G.I.F.T (Score:4, Insightful)
Gabe and Tycho need to update their Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory to include a boredom variable.
Free - Maybe Pay for the Service? (Score:2, Insightful)
You get what you pay for.
Re:Free - Maybe Pay for the Service? (Score:4, Informative)
Both free and paid versions allow for creating open as well as closed meetings.
So really, you get what you know enough to configure for.
Simplicity or Security (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps businesses shouldn't be using this. Never mind the obscene language or porn, what do you do if a competitor gets your meeting code, opens a session and just site there listening quietly?
Re: (Score:2)
It Is Just Necessary (Score:1)
It is just necessary to add this [youtube.com] to the discussion.
"there's always a supply" = wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
And as the old saying goes; where there's a demand, there's always a supply.
There is no such "old saying", nor a new saying, and the "always a supply" part is not true, nor even sort of true-ish, and goes beyond being useless to actually being a dangerous fallacy. If it were true, no need would ever go unmet, nobody would starve... there'd be a vaccine for covid...
Yes the words "supply" and "demand" do exist, and they often are talked about in the same context. But this inventing bullshit and labeling it "the old phrase" needs to be called out.
Re: (Score:2)
We don't need to look far either. There's a huge demand for toilet paper right now, but there's not enough supply!
Re: (Score:1)
This. (Score:3)
This is why we can't have nice things.
Still waiting ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm waiting for the ZomboCom raids.
Start the hangings (Score:2)
This is not unique to Zoom (Score:4, Informative)
I've used web conferencing systems like WebEx, Go2Meeting, and Skype since Y2K and they are all vulnerable to this same thing. You could just forward the invite link and *bam* that person is in the meeting. I don't see why the hate for Zoom specifically, as though it is a a problem they introduced.