Hacker News Reader

Comment by spunker540 | Hacker News Reader

What could possibly happen in an educational setting that is so sensitive that it needs a CIA-level approach to safeguarding privacy?

The consequence of getting on a school bus can be life or death. The consequence of eating a peanut butter sandwich can be life or death.

If you’re a medical professional or psychiatrist, maybe you shouldn’t use zoom due it’s privacy record. But if you’re teaching a lecture on linked lists to your class of 30 kids, death via persecution should probably be very low on your considerations when choosing video conference tech.

View on HN

Guess (or find a leaked meeting ID) and you can talk / show things pseudo-anonymously to a bunch of kindergartners today. Or just observe them and find out aout them. That has some potential problems.

Why do they have to record calls? Transcribe the call into text then Store it. Why do they need to take copies of whiteboards and PowerPoint’s it’s does not make sense.

It isn't being used just for comp sci lectures though, it's being used for all sorts of things, e.g. union organising, prayer meetings. (And even for Comp Sci it tells an observer who goes to which university and the class(es) they take.)

Frankly I find your comment dismissive of the real threats faced by women and minorities.

I did not mean to be dismissive of real threats. But I also think an overwhelming majority of calls on zoom could be leaked wholesale and no one would be harmed. And just because they use the Facebook and Google SDKs to measure their marketing does not mean they’re “selling user data” or inadequately protecting the privacy of video conversations. And it’s a very far leap to blame an educator for choosing zoom (a free and easy to use product) as insensitive to the persecution of minorities, when it’s really not a factor for most use-cases.

Let me know where you draw the line for beginning to care, without having asked any of the participants.

I know math lectures don't seem a hot spot, but it's a slippery slope of adoption, and you might be surprised about the depth of harassment problems in the math community.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com