Please do not use Zoom

Zoom is a video call/conference software that has become very popular of late. The prime minister has been seen using it, my family have asked to use it, colleagues want to use it; however, I will not, and I encourage you not to as well.

All software developers have a responsibility to protect their users' data, audio, and video leaking from systems they have designed. They also have a responsibility to ensure that the systems that they run on are not open to being attacked or compromised. Zoom have repeatedly shown that they do not care about doing this. I do not really understand why though, other than the privacy/security issues, they have usable and popular software. They could be very, very successful in the long term. I suspect, but have no evidence, that management team or product owners are not listening to the development team; or possibly, the development team is incompetent. Either way, something is very wrong at Zoom.

Here are a few examples of their behaviour:

I would love to go into the many issues with Zoom in more detail, but since I do not have time today, I think I'll leave you a list of other articles I have been reading on Zoom.

These are in no particular order …