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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

I have absolutely no idea what you're on about. How is Zoom malware?

By "actively bypass the security" do you mean "it's a program that you need to install on your computer"?

Can you elaborate why Zoom is malware in ways that VS Code, VLC Media Player or Photoshop aren't?

EDIT: I mean the question honestly, as a question. I might have missed something. I mean, I saw yesterday's HN topic on a tweet that claims it sends info about all active programs to a server. But I saw nothing to substantiate that other than an "attention tracking" feature which is way less invasive than what's described in that tweet and off by default.

Did I miss the evidence, or some other damning privacy invading misfeature?

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The videoconferencing industry seems to believe it's necessary to bypass regular OS protections to make the UX "better".

For example: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/8/20687014/zoom-security-fla... By design, instead of using a URL handler, they run a HTTP server on your machine to bypass the "open with" dialog. There are good reasons not to trust the binaries they ask you to run.

Here, it turns out they offer a web client after all, which is nice and sandboxed, but they default to trying to run a binary on your machine where you have less control over what it does.

> Update, 5:15PM ET July 9th: Zoom has published a blog post detailing its response to this vulnerability, including how it will patch its software and uninstall the webserver it has installed on Macs. More details here, and original story follows.

Seems like they don't, and haven't since July.

the used to do it, but there was a huge backlash. I think even apple pushed a patch to block their behaviour

This is an example. Why would you trust an organisation that engineers "solutions" to security measures but does so without due care and attention leading to a widespread critical security bug?

@rainforest's reply pretty much covers it. NPAPI was deprecated for security reasons so they thought it was a good idea to bypass that deprecation by installing a local webserver. My other comment on yesterdays thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658173

How is that the same as malware? I.e. "software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, client, or computer network", if the Wikipedia definition has authority. That's not at all what Zoom does.

You're assuming ill intent where there is none. At the worst, it's incompetence. And they fixed the local http server flaw.

I'd much rather we reserve the term "malware" for actual malware and not dilute it to mean "any program made by a programmer who's either not very good at security or doesn't have the exact same opinion about it as me".

you're misrepresenting what I said:

> they actively bypass the security control on the host-system where it is installed - this is literally what malware does

it is not equal to malware. It is what malware does, which is an important distinction. If you're OK with a product disabling the host-system security controls and still happy to trust the product with this taken in consideration then fair enough: use it, defend it, and evangelize it as much as you want. As somebody who has "security" in the job title it is a problem for me.

> And they fixed the local http server flaw.

it wasn't a flaw or silly design bug, it was a conscious design decision to gain market share which other players felt too risky. please read the NPAPI spec and why it was deprecated. A company doing this has no place in an enterprise network!

> > they actively bypass the security control on the host-system where it is installed - this is literally what malware does

> it is not equal to malware. It is what malware does, which is an important distinction.

That's not an important distinction at all. It's like saying "Ooh George talked to Mary when they were alone in the elevator. That's what rapists do", and then later defending it by saying "well, I did not say that George is a rapist".

I agree with the remainder of your comment, fair point. I think your initial comment would've been stronger if you had used the "no place in an enterprise network" argument instead of the malware comparison.

> That's not an important distinction at all. It's like saying "Ooh George talked to Mary when they were alone in the elevator. That's what rapists do", and then later defending it by saying "well, I did not say that George is a rapist".

Installing an HTTP server on your client to bypass security control is not talking to Mary in an elevator. It's following Mary home, and making a copy of her house key.

My only argument is that you can't first imply that Zoom is malware and then claim that you didn't say Zoom is malware.

Spyware (which Zoom is) is also a type of malware.

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