APRIL 14, 2020
KARO-NA! Zooming In
How do we live life in times of lockdown and social distancing?
How we, together - party, attend classes, art shows, watch movies. A new era is born and the world is busy as usual in the company of each other - only the ground is different! We do it on clouds!
There are many online platforms, which offer avenues to live life together. The one which deserves a mention here and has zoomed past others is “Zoom”. The founder, Eric Yuan is a former Cisco Systems’ Executive and set up this company in 2011 in California. It was unknown to the brink of being obscure before coronavirus happened and this poor company was giving online training to executives of small Chinese companies till December 2019. Zoom Video Communication is a video conferencing company in San Jose, California and it is the one which has given birth to this new class of “Zoomers” - in the last three months. According to Apptopia, around a million people downloaded this app in the month of March, its stock market value has gone up-to $30 billion - more than airlines like Delta, American Airlines, and United Airlines. Who would have imagined the value of a company in clouds is actually going to zoom past the real flying players.
People are celebrating “happy birthday”, by blowing candles and offering cakes online to family and friends sitting hundreds of miles away. There are art shows, church prayers, and rock concerts, where people are zooming in and joining these events to get together in the times of social distancing. Ironically, Zoom has become an online funeral and memorial service provider for many to connect with their families and friends during the mourning hours. The Kennedy family recently held a virtual memorial service for Robert F Kennedy’s granddaughter and her eight year old son, who drowned in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.
Nothing is safe even in this unreal world. Hackers and raiders have raided these parties, classrooms, celebrations, and bombed them with disruptive tools which has robbed the subscribers of their privacy, and sensitive information or data. This ignominious act has got a name “Zoom Bombing”. How can such a successful venture be allowed to fail? Especially, when the entire world is willing to join the party. Zoom has created multiple virtual locks by which it can protect online meeting grounds and secure privacy of participants. It has installed a digital encryption tool, which acts like a barrier between the user and the hacker. It has created a two tier password system, with an enabling feature to lock undesired participants out of the room. It has created a waiting room where each participant is scanned and tested and infected ones are quarantined into bins. As always, there are goof ups and faux pas and the noticeable one is - when the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson took a screenshot of his remote Zoom meeting and ended up exposing the meeting ID of a sensitive government call on Twitter.
We all will learn in due courses as we have no experience of meeting in clouds!