Peter wrote:
Yes, again, any process which can add a participant will expose the (common) key used. So it comes back to the same thing: do you trust the server?I am not aware that there is any way around that.
The server doesn’t have to be allowed to add a participant; that power can be only in the hands of the creator/moderator/… (duly authenticated to all other participants), or in the hands of all participants, authenticated with the preshared secret (password), that the server doesn’t know. I don’t know if any existing system is structured like that. Probably not.
But one needs to trust the server anyway, because all these decisions with whom to share the encryption key are made by Javascript (or other) code … sent by the server, so the server can just send a version with spy technology.
that power can be only in the hands of the creator/moderator
You need to trust him/her too 
I don’t think that, for “casual” use, these security matters are an issue. By far the biggest source of trouble with conferencing seems to be people walking into random conferences and causing some trouble there. And the only way to prevent that has to involve issuing some form of a personal invitation, which makes it impractical here. Shall I invite only TB20 pilots?
The much bigger aspect is usability. Very little has been said about that.
One big aspect of usability is the delay in the system. Someone here set up a Jitsi server, on a server with apparently huge bandwidth, but the delays were too long to make it usable for conversations. Zoom doesn’t have this problem.
Another one is how easily you can share data etc. On Zoom you can share your screen, but that is a bit “risky” because everybody will see everything you have open on your desktop. I don’t watch dodgy movies but I still don’t want people to see my desktop, browser tabs, etc. Zoom has apparently poor facilities for sharing screenshots; one can paste a URL to a (previously uploaded somewhere) image, but one can’t paste the Windows clipboard into the Zoom chat box.
Peter wrote:
You need to trust him/her too
Well, if you don’t trust the creator/moderator of the conference, that’s like not trusting the host of “real life physical” party. You don’t go. I don’t see a way to avoid that.
Peter wrote:
One big aspect of usability is the delay in the system. Someone here set up a Jitsi server, on a server with apparently huge bandwidth, but the delays were too long to make it usable for conversations.
That’s the difference between delay and bandwidth… A truck / cargo airplane / … full of magnetic tapes / hard disks / USB sticks has huge bandwidth, but lousy delay.
Peter wrote:
Another one is how easily you can share data etc. On Zoom you can share your screen, but that is a bit “risky” because everybody will see everything you have open on your desktop.
I don’t know if Zoom can do that, but with others you choose to share your whole screen (risky, as you say) or just one window (say, your PDF reader / presentation software / spreadsheet / …).
that’s like not trusting the host of “real life physical” party. You don’t go. I don’t see a way to avoid that.
Yet – this is why some objected to the use of Zoom for EuroGA. My point is that every conferencing software has the same problem. The only difference is whether you choose to trust the admins of one system, or the admins of another. But trust in exactly what? Trust to not record the session and put it on youtube? Would the admins of Zoom (or a renegade employee there) bother to do that with a discussion about flying?
What might be an issue is if the server was set up by a “pilot” who “actually just happens” to work for the CAA, and he uses some of the discussion to bust somebody. Just yesterday I heard of the CAA asking a pilot for his skydemon log and while it exonerated him from an alleged CAS bust, the CAA used the log to bust him for low flying (below 500ft etc)!
Zoom and every other software I know of uses HTTPS between the client and the server so eavesdropping on the “phone line” is not going to work.
or just one window (say, your PDF reader / presentation software / spreadsheet / …).
I wonder if others here can offer input on this.
It would be great if one could drop in a screenshot.
Sharing a screen on zoom is not an issue if you can run more than 1 monitor, because zoom asks which screen to share.
Most people with dual screens have desktop icons scattered but if you keep one screen fairly benign (I have literally nothing located there)
Then it’s a non-event.
Peter wrote:
while it exonerated him from an alleged CAS bust, the CAA used the log to bust him for low flying (below 500ft etc)
It’s a good idea with government to only answer the question asked precisely, and never volunteer information. (I was given this advice before my first ever checkride, and followed it ever since). If the CAA asked for logs from me relating to some incident, they would only get an excerpt just big enough to answer the question and provide enough context. They don’t need to see part of a flight an hour before or after.
I find it disappointing, however, that he-who-cannot-be-named apparently goes on fishing trips through people’s logs if they are provided.
I think we can tell if we get a CAA/NATS employee on one of our Zoom sessions. How? It’s quite easy. They show absolutely zero interest in anything to do with planes or flying planes Zero, zilch, nowt, nada. They are interested only in pilot criminality, airspace/ATC issues, and such. Oh and crashes, too.
Can anyone offer input on which software actually works well? It seems that it is heavily implementation dependent i.e. how fast the server is, but maybe there are other things one has to get right, to avoid the delays which make “conversations” difficult.
I guess most must be using Zoom… and those using other systems are on high-end corporate setups which do work properly.
Can anyone recommend good software for use with a Zoom conference which can do a quiz?
We had great fun with the quiz yesterday but it was quite difficult to add up the answers fast enough.
You can do polls in Zoom, don’t know if that would be helpful
