Advice wanted: video conference platforms

[Chik]

What are some good alternatives to Zoom? A friend who is now teaching remotely using Zoom wants to know, after having read the article linked below.

Prior to Zoom, they were using WebEx, but it proved to be difficult for students with suboptimal internet connection.

‘Zoom is malware’: why experts worry about the video conferencing platform | Zoom | The Guardian

Many thanks.

[sk_tle]

My company is offering a solution for that which is free until at least sep 1 because of the coronavirus crisis :
Enreach meetings - masvoz

We are using it everyday at work.


As an alternative, jitsi meet is a really nice open source platform. You can self host it or use one of the hosted instances in the wild:
Jitsi Meet
switch,ch Jitsi Meet
Visioconference Jitsi propulsee par Scaleway
jitsi.rocks
https://dilotalk.cloud/

Note that like most videoconf browser solutions these are peer to peer based. The server merely act as a meeting point so that peers knows how to connect to each other. So the quality of the conference depends on the connection and browser performance of the person setting up the meeting which will relay n-1 video stream to the other participants. It usually works very well up to 5 participants, then until 10 it really depends on each other connection and rarely works that well past 10 participants unless some disable the camera.

Last but not least, nextcloud has recently added a "talk" visio conf function to its product based on similar technology. Again you can self host it or use an hosted solution. It is usually a paying solution but gives you access to features that makes it an alternative to google drive/ office 365 so it can be a nice option if you want also to share documents/files and have access to an online office. Here is one example:
https://cloud.webo.hosting/nextcloud-family/
https://nextcloud.com/signup/
https://github.com/nextcloud/providers

[Chik]

Thanks, Thomas.

Your explanation on quality vis-à-vis number of participants makes sense. Kinda obvious, now that you mention it.

I just confirmed with her that she has 15 participants at a time. There is no requirement for document sharing -- this is a ballet class at the Royal Ballet School -- but the number of participants is clearly a challenge since the cameras need to be on for everyone.

Any other ideas or suggestions?

[Matthew Strongin]

When I read the thread title and before reading your first post, my immediate thought was to avoid Zoom like the plague. My son's school uses it so we asked them for a loaner iPad to use. I won't install it on my computer. And when vendors send me Zoom meetings I only do the phone dial-in and tell them I can't join the app.

GoToMeeting is what my company uses. It works pretty well for large groups most of the time. We used to own them, so I may be a little biased, but it's fairly solid. Slack video calls also work well, but I haven't tried in large numbers.

[monadnocky]

I am not terribly tech literate, but it scares the hell out of me that Zoom is not truly "encrypted" as they say they are. Right now, legions of mental health workers (as well as docs/nurses) have turned to Zoom en masse due to its being "HIPAA compliant" (it is, as long as you have the business associate agreement from them).

But, technically, apparently it's not really?

What should I be concerned about, having installed it on all of my computers, Mac and PC alike?

I did read the article.

[Matthew Strongin]

More than anything they have a track record of crappy security issues. Most software has bugs, but they tend to have a good number of bugs with security implications. Things like hackers being able to turn on your webcam and spy on you. Or being misleading about the degree of encryption they use. Or sending usage data to Facebook without users knowing. In my opinion, as someone who builds web software for a living, I don't have confidence in the priority they put on security or privacy, which should be at the very top of the list considering the type of software they produce.

The Zoom Privacy Backlash Is Only Getting Started | WIRED

Again, software has bugs. It is the norm in this straight to web world we live in (unlike the sliver age of software where everything had to be nearly perfect before being pressed to disc and shipped). But there are bugs and there are gaping exploitable holes. Zoom has more of the latter than I'd like.

[monadnocky]

Thank you for that.
There will be a HUGE backlash against this platform from mental (and physical) health professionals when they realize the extent to which patient privacy has been compromised. I can guarantee that.
When this whole thing is over... or as over as it can be... Zoom will have some splainin' to do, I think.

And I'll add this - if there was deception concerning HIPAA technical requirements, you can expect fines. I can't even imagine the amount, as these are usually assessed per violation.

[marley]

Thank you for that.
There will be a HUGE backlash against this platform from mental (and physical) health professionals when they realize the extent to which patient privacy has been compromised. I can guarantee that.
When this whole thing is over... or as over as it can be... Zoom will have some splainin' to do, I think.

And I'll add this - if there was deception concerning HIPAA technical requirements, you can expect fines. I can't even imagine the amount, as these are usually assessed per violation.

Violation of HIPPA would be your fault as a HCP if you used an un-secure system/process for data transfer and did not have a corresponding data transfer agreement with the service provider - therefore the HCP or their employer would be on the hook for the violations.

[monadnocky]

Violation of HIPPA would be your fault as a HCP if you used an un-secure system/process for data transfer and did not have a corresponding data transfer agreement with the service provider - therefore the HCP or their employer would be on the hook for the violations.

Yes, correct - I meant to convey that the onus for that would be on us as providers. However, the HIPAA police have signalled significant easing up regarding this stuff.

[marley]

Yes, correct - I meant to convey that the onus for that would be on us as providers. However, the HIPAA police have signalled significant easing up regarding this stuff.

I have heard the same - which is good but also troubling...

[caleb]

Count me out on Zoom too, at least when it's in my control.

Have you folks read about the "Zoombombing" that's happening in online classes? Inside Higher Ed's News

More often than not, it seems the attacks on higher education classes are targeted. Many students are willingly sharing details of upcoming conference calls in online chat rooms and message boards. Those details often include passwords to private meetings scheduled by users with access to paid Zoom educational accounts.
On social media platforms, users with hundreds of thousands of followers have openly called on students to share details of upcoming classes so that they may disrupt them. And there appears to be no shortage of volunteers.

I don't know that there's a better alternative for large groups. Would it be possible to set up a group video call for 15 using WhatsApp?

[davids]

There's ways to mitigate the Zoom security holes. I got this through a cybersecurity oversight organization yesterdau:

On March 30, 2020, the FBI released an article, warning users of teleconferencing sessions being hijacked (also being referred to as “Zoom-bombing”) all over the nation. The FBI has received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language. In the wake of reports of this activity being reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaints Center (IC3 -ic3.gov), they have published the following recommendations:

• Do not make meetings or classrooms public. In Zoom, there are two options to make a meeting private: require a meeting password or use the waiting room feature and control the admittance of guests.
• Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific people.
• Manage screensharing options. In Zoom, change screensharing to “Host Only.”
• Ensure users are using the updated version of remote access/meeting applications. In January 2020, Zoom updated their software. In their security update, the teleconference software provider added passwords by default for meetings and disabled the ability to randomly scan for meetings to join.
• Lastly, ensure that your organization’s telework policy or guide addresses requirements for physical and information security.

[Chik]

When I read the thread title and before reading your first post, my immediate thought was to avoid Zoom like the plague. My son's school uses it so we asked them for a loaner iPad to use. I won't install it on my computer. And when vendors send me Zoom meetings I only do the phone dial-in and tell them I can't join the app.

GoToMeeting is what my company uses. It works pretty well for large groups most of the time. We used to own them, so I may be a little biased, but it's fairly solid. Slack video calls also work well, but I haven't tried in large numbers.

Thanks, Matt. I haven't used Slack but have used GoToMeeting for voice-only conferences and found it to be satisfactory most of the time. Anyway, it doesn't appear that the school is willing to pay for a subscription, and whilst my friend is concerned, the school is relaxed about Zoom given that the ballet sector around the globe is on Zoom at the mo. A different case of herd immunity madness...

[Chik]

There's ways to mitigate the Zoom security holes. I got this through a cybersecurity oversight organization yesterdau:

On March 30, 2020, the FBI released an article, warning users of teleconferencing sessions being hijacked (also being referred to as “Zoom-bombing”) all over the nation. The FBI has received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language. In the wake of reports of this activity being reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaints Center (IC3 -ic3.gov), they have published the following recommendations:

• Do not make meetings or classrooms public. In Zoom, there are two options to make a meeting private: require a meeting password or use the waiting room feature and control the admittance of guests.
• Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific people.
• Manage screensharing options. In Zoom, change screensharing to “Host Only.”
• Ensure users are using the updated version of remote access/meeting applications. In January 2020, Zoom updated their software. In their security update, the teleconference software provider added passwords by default for meetings and disabled the ability to randomly scan for meetings to join.
• Lastly, ensure that your organization’s telework policy or guide addresses requirements for physical and information security.

Thanks for this. I'll pass this on.

[zachateseverything]

We use microsoft teams at work. there have been some audio glitches where your mic doesn't work when you log in, or you can't hear the other participants but logging out and logging back in has quickly resolved that. the only other thing we ran into was a participant limit for large meetings (we needed to have a couple hundred people dial into something on short notice). Other than that it's been good. call quality is reasonable and it saves the chat log.

Obviously it's a business solution and isn't free.