It’s quite simple: Zoom are lying. They’ve doubled down on their lies.

End to end encryption means something. Zoom isn’t that. Zoom is claiming to be that.

There’s not much to it.

They set the stage for it previously, too: they’ve done all sorts of shady things with computers onto which their client is installed. Zoom singled themselves out of the pack by being some of the only name-and-address provided software to use these techniques; everything else that does so is criminal malware.

Apple even pushed an OS malware detection update to remove Zoom’s backdoor.

They stand alone because of their own choices.

The issue is not that Zoom is lacking end to end encryption. The issue is that Zoom is claiming to be end to end encrypted while lacking end to end encryption.

It’s not the missing encryption. It’s the lying.

Yes, that people should have correct information to base their decisions on seems like an important hill. Even if I personally didn't expect Zoom to be end-to-end encrypted, because I as a technical person know that's difficult for what they're offering (and didn't look at their marketing pages).

Are you actually surprised people don’t like being lied to? Zoom behaves like malware in a number of ways (just look at how the installer works!), and the company outright lies about features like this. Yes, people are going to be upset about this behavior.

I think it’s pretty normal to care about truth in advertising. Also, there have been many revelations in the past few years about internet surveillance. And to top it off, the EARN IT act that’s currently being considered in the US Congress is ultimately aiming to ban end-to-end encryption so passions about this topic are running extra hot. Put all that together with millions of people stuck at home being forced to use Zoom meetings, and you have the ingredients for a pretty good rage cocktail!

This seems really disingenuous, like you care more about dissing someone than understanding the pros and cons of using this tool that suddenly is one of the only ways to connect with people.

If a bank says my money is federally insured, when it really isn't, I'm going to use another bank.

If a car salesman tells me a car has the feature I want, when it really doesn't, I go to another dealership.

When a salesman is honest, even when it hurts, it makes the company look good to me and I'm far more likely to buy something.

If you don't agree with the above, I wouldn't do business with you.

a) not all criticism is "hate"

b) Zoom is a major phenomenon right now, massive user boost, at first positive articles all over the media about how everyone is now using it for all kinds of things etc. That means people are paying attention to it, and if they find something (and apparently there was a bunch of things to find) the same media is going to pick it up, because it's already talked about everywhere, boosting what normally would be a blogpost somewhere only few read, or a private bug report, to something hitting mainstream channels. Which means more people have opinions about it, which means more space to argue about if those opinions are justified or not, ... (Whereas I haven't heard of whatever "Houseparty" is, neither in positive nor in negative)

c) There's no discussion of Google Hangouts being end-to-end encrypted because Google doesn't claim it is, doesn't claim their servers don't decrypt it, ...

d) If someone finds security issues in hangouts, I'd hope they report it, but given the above it likely wouldn't be as widely reflected in the media. If they'd gotten all the positive attention, more people would be digging there now/rolling out the usual anti-Google talking points/...

I believe this is a social phenomenon.

It's like a friend invited you to a party at Zoom's house, and you go because of your friend. And then you invite a friend to the next party, and your kids are having parties there.

Until you find out that Zoom's been taking advantage of you and all your friends. And Zoom has been going through your coat in the coat closet, and unlocking your car with your car keys.

You started because of your friend, but now you feel used.

It's probably because HN is a particularly privacy-focused community and Zoom's privacy policy is a bit more questionable than other companies

This could have been true except probably half of HN have an Android phone in their pocket. So this, like with Android and Google Play Services, is a case study in perception management. Suddenly the perception of Zoom seems to be forced in a particular direction.

My paranoid 4 glasses of wine self can believe nothing other than money being involved.

Houseparty isn't end-to-end encrypted, and never claims to be. That's why we (I'm one of the SREs on it) don't get taken to task for it.

Nonetheless, we got hit with weird privacy claims; See Monday's firestorm of "Houseparty hacked my {bank|email|spotify}!"

It’s very simple: with great power comes great responsibility.

Zoom is having explosive growth, and they very much deserve scrutiny, as half of the world is installing their app, and it’s powering now communication from random birthdays, schools to medical support.

The real question is why doesn't everyone go after other companies with this much rigor too?

Because nobody is using Houseparty, also you've obviously not used google.

Zoom should have just called it 'Autopilot' instead of end-to-end and HN would have defended it to the death, despite that not actually being what was offered.

Weird example, given there's massive arguments about the Autopilot label every time it comes up.