CNBC<\/a> reported \u201cCo-founder\nand CEO Eric Yuan, who previously worked on the Webex video calling product\nthat Cisco acquired in 2007, is the largest individual shareholder of Zoom with\n3.9% of the stock\u2019s outstanding shares. He emigrated from China in 1997, when\nhe was 27, CNBC previously reported, but he is a U.S. citizen, according to a\nDecember regulatory filing.\u201d The concern about China is probably because CNBC\nalso reported \u201cZoom\u2019s product development team is based \u201clargely\u201d in China, and\nit operates research and development centers in that country, according to the\ncompany\u2019s most recent annual report.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWikipedia\nexplained its exponential growth: \u201cDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom saw a\nmajor increase in usage for remote work, distance education, and online social relations. Thousands of educational\ninstitutions switched to online classes using Zoom. The company offered its\nservices for free to K\u201312 schools in many countries.\u201d Chinese companies often sell products at or below\ncost to take over market share, so Zoom may be following this example. But, I\ndon\u2019t know how any company can afford to give away its product for free unless\nit is receiving funding from another source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regarding\nZoom, Wikipedia states \u201cIts software products have faced public and media\nscrutiny related to security and privacy issues.\u201d These criticisms cover \u201csecurity lapses and poor\ndesign choices” and \u201cits privacy and corporate data sharing policies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An\narticle titled, \u201cZoom security flaws and Chinese links make US authorities\nnervous,\u201d on Telecoms news of April 6, 2020, clarifies the connection to China,\nstating, \u201cthe software appears to be developed by three companies in China, all\nknown as Ruanshi Software, only two of which are owned by Zoom. The ownership\nof the third company, also known as American Cloud Video Software Technology,\nis unknown. The article states \u201c700 employees are currently in China, which is\nnot unusual as it can save on salaries in comparison to the US, though it does\nopen up the firm to pressure and influence from the Chinese Government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This\nsame article reported that Zoom has servers in China that were used by mistake\nduring the initial surge of usage after the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The\narticle\u2019s author, Jamie Davies wrote: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBy default, all participants\u2019 audio and video\nin a Zoom meeting appears to be encrypted and decrypted with a single AES-128\nkey shared amongst the participants. The AES key appears to be generated and\ndistributed to the meeting\u2019s participants by Zoom servers. Zoom\u2019s encryption\nand decryption use AES in ECB mode, which is well-understood to be a bad idea,\nbecause this mode of encryption preserves patterns in the input.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These encryption keys could also be\ndistributed through Chinese servers, which is a bad idea for anyone as\ncompanies can be legally compelled by the Government to hand over these keys.\nZoom has said this oversight has been corrected and no international meetings\nwill be routed through Chinese servers, but the damage may well have already\nbeen done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\na result of these concerns, Wikipedia states, \u201cIn March 2020, New York State\nAttorney General Letitia James launched an inquiry into Zoom’s privacy and\nsecurity practices; the inquiry was closed on May 7, 2020, with Zoom not\nadmitting wrongdoing, but agreeing to take added security measures. Also, in\nMay 2020, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it was looking into\nZoom’s privacy practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While\nthere is no evidence of wrong-doing on the part of Zoom as of this writing, the\nfact that their programming is said to be done in China raises troubling\nsecurity concerns, as programmers in China could easily be pressured by their\ngovernment to put back doors into the software they write. This is why it is as\nessential to our national security to keep computer software development in our\nown country, just as it is important to keep drug development and medical\nequipment manufacturing in our own country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until\nthe FCC investigation is concluded, some security experts are recommending that\nthe President issue an executive order prohibiting the use of Zoom by\ngovernment agencies, as well as defense contractors to insure no classified or\nproprietary information is compromised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our modern world runs on computers and the software that controls them. Software makes our computers usable for such activities as word processing, accounting, engineering design, production planning, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), communication, CGI, 3D printing, teleconferencing, and videoconferencing, not to mention the thousands of Apps for iPhones and Android phones. Software controls many functions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[272,276,62,141],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-made-in-america","tag-made-in-usa","tag-national-security-2","tag-technology-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1001,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions\/1001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}