Comparison of zoom and jitsi request

Thu Aug 17 00:47:20 UTC 2023

On Thu, 2023-08-17 at 07:54 +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> On 17/8/23 07:24, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 7:02 PM Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> wrote:
> > > Hello.
> > > 
> > > As I understand that zoom has displaced Skype, for video calls
> > > and video
> > > conference calls, I am wondering whether anyone on this list, has
> > > used
> > > and compared jitsi, relative to zoom.
> > > 
> > > I have just received an email message from an Australian
> > > political
> > > party, that is kind of a liberal party (not to be confused with
> > > the
> > > self-named "Australian Liberal Party", that is not), and, is
> > > apparently,
> > > technologically oriented, the message  announcing an upcoming web
> > > presentation/meeting, and, the message contains this;
> > > 
> > > "And with our commitment to ethical use of technology, we are
> > > trialling
> > > the meeting platform Jitsi after Zoom recently announced they
> > > “totally
> > > didn’t plan to record your meetings to train our commercial AI,
> > > sorry
> > > about that one guys.” Making money from stealing your
> > > personality. Jitsi
> > > is what’s known as “FOSS” or Free, Open Source Software. What’s
> > > not to
> > > like?
> > > "
> > > 
> > > I do not know whether Liam Proven, or any of his colleagues, have
> > > published a recent review of jitsi, and/or, a comparison of jitsi
> > > with
> > > zoom, on The Register, and, so, as jitsi is supposed to be
> > > multi-platform ("Operating system - Linux, macOS, Windows,
> > > Android, iOS"
> > > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitsi (and, elsewhere, it is said
> > > to
> > > also run on BSD) ), I am wondering whether anyone on this list,
> > > has
> > > experience with using jitsi for videoconferencing, and, if so,
> > > how you
> > > regard it, in comparison with zoom.
> > > 
> > > I note that, at https://jitsi.org/about/ , under the heading
> > > "Features", is
> > > "Ubuntu and Debian packages for easy installation."
> > 
> > I prefer Jitsi, though I have to use Teams and Zoom for work.
> > 
> > Jitsi is open source software. It is maintained by a real company,
> > and
> > it is audit-able. Open source projects like LLVM use it for their
> > meetings.
> > 
> > Jitsi has the best Terms of Service if you are concerned about the
> > security of your meetings. Jitsi will use meeting data only for
> > quality of service. Teams and Zoom will give the data away to any
> > partner as they see fit. Teams and Zoom may choose to ship it off
> > to a
> > partner to train their AI, if they wish. Or they could commoditize
> > it
> > and sell it to a partner, if they wish.
> > 
> > Here is Jistsi's position on it, from 
> > https://jitsi.org/meet-jit-si-privacy/:
> > 
> >      How is this information used?
> > 
> >      8×8 is not in the business of selling personal information to
> > third
> >      parties.  8×8 uses this information to deliver the meet.jit.si
> >      service, to identify and troubleshoot problems with the
> > meet.jit.si
> >      service, and to improve the meet.jit.si service.  In addition,
> > 8×8 may
> >      use this information to investigate fraud or abuse.
> > 
> > Louis Rossman is semi-famous in the US as a consumer advocate. He
> > made
> > a compare/contrast video on Jitsi vs Zoom. See
> > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzt0tzsaWDE>;.
> > 
> > Jitsi is web based, so there's no "native app" needed. You don't
> > have
> > to install closed source software that's doing who-knows-what
> > behind
> > the scenes. And Jitsi does not require users to register for
> > accounts
> > to use the service. (I don't know if the meeting organizer needs a
> > Jitsi account, however).
> > 
> > And I can't belittle Zoom enough. The company is completely
> > untrustworthy. Confer,
> > <https://www.google.com/search?q=zoom+ftc+settlement>;. It's pretty
> > bad
> > when the FTC takes an administrative action against you. The FTC
> > suffered regulatory capture long ago. If the FTC moves against you,
> > then you are the worst of the worst.
> > 
> > Jeff
> > 
> 
> Okay - I have just found this article about zoom (interesting timing
> - 
> the article may have led to the text in the message that I quoted);
> https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/15/software_freedom_conservancy_zoom/?td=rt-3a 
> 
> but that article did not include any reference to jitsi.
> 
> I also found this article -
> https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/14/muting_ciscos_webex_app_doesnt/
> - which, as the banner states, is more than a year old, so, I do not 
> know in how many of the application cited (including jitsi), the
> problem 
> still prevails.

This paragraph suggests that the entire article should be taken with a
HUGE grain of salt:

"Among the apps studied – Zoom (Enterprise), Slack, Microsoft
Teams/Skype, Cisco Webex, Google Meet, BlueJeans, WhereBy, GoToMeeting,
Jitsi Meet, and Discord – most presented only limited or theoretical
privacy concerns."

Those applications (except Jitsi, and I don't know about BlueJeans,
WhereBy or GoToMeeting) present HUGE privacy concerns, way WAY worse
ones than just microphone telemetry.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer