One of the communication platforms that has benefited the most thanks to the pandemic and the effects of Covid-19 has been Zoom, due to the need to establish means that allow working from home in addition to maintaining contact between family and friends; that is why it continues with the expansion of its functions and the improvement of its security elements to improve the experience of its users.
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Improving processes
Launched the week of October 20, Zoom introduces an end-to-end encryption tool in order to avoid intrusions in video calls, a function that would be available to both paid and free customers; however, it is a progressive process, as it would be pending to include other functions to complete the encryption, such as cloud recording and live transmission.
Thinking about user safety
The purpose of end-to-end encryption is to ensure that only receivers and senders can tune in to the video calls they are making, in such a way that the information is transmitted encrypted and cannot be encrypted without the password that is generated by the host while Zoom servers continue to fulfill their role of data transport.
The end-to-end encryption feature of Zoom will only be active when it is manually enabled before starting any video call and which would initiate the use of the other functions, which are only available with the activation of this function, which could be considered a disadvantage by having to perform this process and not initializing automatically.
Activation of the functions after the controversy
Zoom went through a series of difficulties being in the eye of the hurricane precisely because of the encryption functions. Initially, they indicated that their video calls were extreme encryption, but the information that they were actually doing so was leaked via TLS encryption. TLS is the same technology used to protect HTTPS sites, which means that Zoom can access the unencrypted video and audio service in meetings, so the content can be private to anyone trying to intercept the traffic, but not for Zoom.
By setting end-to-end encryption, the encryption mode changes, and the audio and video content are encrypted so that only the participants can have access, in this way Zoom can have access to the encrypted content, but not the keys necessary to decrypt it, therefore he is left without the technical ability to listen to private meetings.
After this, it became known that end-to-end encryption was being worked on. Later in May, when acquiring Keybase, Zoom announced the end-to-end encryption plans, but only for customers with paid plans, however, after the controversy generated by this statement, they decided to establish it for all users.
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