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A comment on Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and arguments?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by dathinab on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @09:04PM (#28216616)
Why would you implement such a overly complex and unreliable thing when:

1. The windows manager can provide you with a list of open windows.

2. Screensharing including only sharing specific windows is a feature provided by the windows manager over standardized protocols.

3. Even knowing the processes which do have a GUI doesn't allow you to share that GUI, at least not without going through roughly the same mechanisms as mentioned in 2nd.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by stinos on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @04:41AM (#28218902)
The windows manager can provide you with a list of open windows.

But that needs a unified way for this across window managers, does that exist?

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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by account42 on Thursday August 19, 2021 @04:01AM (#28231478)
Yes for X11: _NET_CLIENT_LIST [0]

[0] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.3.h...

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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by numpad0 on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @05:14AM (#28219073)
I don’t know but xkill works across WM
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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by woodruffw on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @10:09PM (#28217064)
Hence “unlikely stretch.”
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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by inter_netuser on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @02:39AM (#28218268)
Let's just say the quiet part outloud: they sell that data.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by woodruffw on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @11:46AM (#28222902)
They probably don't. The list of programs running on a random Linux box probably isn't especially valuable.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by failuser on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @02:59PM (#28225676)
That machine can be in a Russian or Iranian nuclear physics or bioweapon lab and run very specific software. E.g. you can be looking for some project code names.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by woodruffw on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @05:30PM (#28227432)
Sure. But that's a very distinct task vs. the implication that Zoom is somehow making ad revenue off of Linux process names. The latter strikes me as not very likely because there's no money in it; the former is well outside of anything I feel qualified to opine on.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by inter_netuser on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @07:42PM (#28228623)
You'd be surprised about how weird things can get sometimes.

Here is a company that does censorship-resistant P2P networking...and also....Nuclear Material Detection?

Obviously very closely related things?

https://www.clostra.com/newnode-mesh-network https://www.clostra.com/nuclear-detection-snm

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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by Spooky23 on Friday August 20, 2021 @01:38PM (#28248972)
A company in my hometown makes parts for defense aerospace, the oil industry, private military contractors, and hyperscale data centers.

Are they spying on your Azure servers? Unlikely, they make hose reels and related round metal things.

Sometimes little (or big) companies like that get involved in weird lines of business because they buy other companies for the contracts.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by woodruffw on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @09:25PM (#28229307)
Looks like a defense contractor to me. If you pulled two random things out of my company's roster, you could probably spin an equally suspicious narrative.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does Zoom Desktop examine all processes and a... by cranekam on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @07:18AM (#28219731)
Haha. What possible market is there for knowing which other binaries Zoom (desktop) users run? OMG Zoom users also run Chrome, cat, and init! That'll be $10k please.
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