A few years back, there was something about gaining root on MacOS via Zoom due to shady execution on their end.
They've lost my trust since then, and I'll only run it sandboxed: https://gist.github.com/cielavenir/02f322e322a2a3555dbf2b38f...
I always ask (1) why does an app require installation and (2) why would it require root?
There are valid answers for both, but realistically, all a videoconferencing app should need (apart from audio and video and maybe screen sharing) is to store a config file.
There's no legitimate use for it accessing privileged or private paths.
> There's no legitimate use for it accessing privileged or private paths.
Well, that was the whole premise that made Zoom popular in the first place! It was a true one click install which made onboarding frictionless for non-technical users
Security wise, it's insane but user experience wise, it was unbeatable and is what solidified their position. It's ironic nowadays that all of those tricks have been stripped away, making it just as painful as any other platform to install on a fresh machine.
Do not know if this is still true, but at one point, the web player would only let you see one speaker at a time, while the app would show multiple people at once.
However, the video quality in the browser is worse, so depending on the use case I might have to use the app (via sandbox).
It's been years since I've had to though.
It wasn't really root as much as an open backdoor on a TCP port as far as I recall.
> I noticed it because I make heavy use of a "one-shot paste" tool which fulfills a single paste request and then terminates. Handy for filling in lots of fields of a web form – queue up pastes of several different things, then go to each form field in turn and just hit paste, bam bam bam.
This sounds very useful. Is the tool available anywhere? xclip -loops doesn't seem to do the trick, or maybe it just doesn't work that way on Wayland.
https://man.archlinux.org/man/wl-copy.1
(i was also interested :)
if you use Wayland's security context to prohibit privileged protocols such as arbitrary clipboard access then an application will either not be able to grab clipboard content until you focus on it or the attempt will be noticeable as it spawns a short lived window in an attempt to grab focus.
As people running Linux should know, you cannot trust proprietary applications.
This should be behind a toggle driven by intent, rather than something allowed by default. Default stance on trust should be "don't". Open source has nothing to do with it, when a typo while installing with a package manager means you might accidentally install something else (a common attack vector).
Also reason 35892384242892 to not use proprietary software, especially proprietary software with network access.
The normal qube model of template OS vms + ephemeral app overlays makes it a cinch to troubleshoot complex issues because you can scribble all over the VM (e.g. go ahead, monkey patch your system LIBC if you want!) and all those changes will be gone when you restart the VM. Once you do find a solution you like, you can apply it cleanly and intentionally to the template. If all you were doing was a one-off, then no need to go make it permanent. Not sure if the latest Fedora upgrade is going to break stuff you care about? Install and switch to it one appvm at a time. Something breaks, file a bug and switch that one back until its fixed.
I've had friends screwing around with AI agents get their systems really screwed up because running the agent in a VM was work and requires maintenance. .. in qubes its just the natural way to run it, a few clicks and you're good to go. And the maintenance overhead of running in a VM is mostly non-existent.
If you ever use VPNs for privacy or to access protected networks-- Qubes is a big upgrade: You can run multiple VPN network VMs and then pick on an AppQube by AppQube basis which network they use. Then you don't have to worry about malware from your reddit browsing VM (or your Erotic MLP fanfic) going out over your employer's network or your banking going out via some Norwegian anonmization proxy that might spy on your traffic or cause your bank to instantly block your account. You can accomplish this without qubes but in qubes its particularly easy (and easy to get right): Every VM that has network access has it provided by another VM. Configure the networking how you like in that service VM and then pick what uses it.
When I say 'developer' above I don't mean to suggest that Qubes is particularly hard to use-- as I know significantly less technical people who use it without issue. But its non-security/privacy advantages are most significant if you're doing experimentation with the computer's configuration.
However if you're doing stuff that is Video heavy-- particularly gaming, and to a lesser extent CAD, video editing, etc. Qubes really brutally hurts video performance. It can be somewhat offset by running on higher end hardware (and then getting performance of a few year older system). Even just watching youtube videos is obvious impacted.
Similarly, it dents battery life. This is addressable via additional batteries given that now laptops are usbc powered and 100wh external batteries are readily available. But this is something of a lifestyle question.
Even before the AI-apocalypse I considered qubes to be non-negotiable on laptops-- there are just far far far too many browser RCE vulnerabilities to consider anything less for any computer that isn't a total security write-off.
Previously if I followed a link to a sus site and had my browser crash (maybe even the day before a RCE-in-the-wild was announced). I'd have some rationally justified paranoia that my whole computer might be compromised. Now, I can close the app VM (or-- better-- toss the disposable, which I try to use for most browsing) and know that even if they exploited the browser they'd have to have a VM escape of some kind too to do me any lasting damage.
The highest security stuff still ought to be on isolated hardware, of course. But using a multipurpose computer without qubes is unsafe at any speed, worse than driving without a seatbelt.
Proxmox uses KVM, and is easy to configure a VM to make the guest think it's on bare metal.
In the proprietary software space, a LOT of things run badly or refuse to run, or license stupidity with a guest OS. So for me, spoofing bare metal is an essential part of running ilk like Windows and proprietary apps. And also, school remote testing garbage.
At this point I probably wouldn’t realize a legitimate Zoom meeting was legitimate.
Just use Firefox, or Chromium if you must.
How many corpo HR/recruiter types you met that will gladly bypass company policy and switch to the tools demanded by the candidate?
As I work in cyber security there's no way I'll install that shit on my personal PC. Yes I could spin up a VM but I don't want to. I could probably use it over the web but that's it.
So I'd refuse and that company's reply should inform me whether I'd want to work there in the first place. If they insist their security practices will be so lax that I will be just spending my time cleaning up everyone else's mess. In fact any employer using zoom in the first place is a huge red flag.
I currently work for a huge multinational and they have the zoom client blocked through antimalware. Anyone wishing to use it with customers or suppliers must use the web version only.
Linux is multi-process, _multi-user_ since forever.
No need to leave a password manager, online banking, andwhatnot accessible in the background during an interview.
And yeah: stop. using. X11. For God's sake!
However software just shouldn't be trash. No need to blame the display layer for this.
LightDM at least works 99% of the time, being Cross-desktop one can select a Wayland session just fine (great when it is working), or fall back to a software compositor Cinnamon Desktop when things bork after an update. =3
Fine words, until the GPU driver goes sideways in Wayland. And... I like running multi-seat headless sessions on my local LAN hosts for several reasons. =3
Ironically if more tech people just rawdogged the internet I think we would have more progress.
https://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidi...
If someone tries to demand screen sharing, I ask one of my coworkers to drive, since they've joined from their laptop already.
I only launch the Linux Zoom client when I absolutely know I'm going to need to host a meeting and demonstrate software running on my end. I feel equally disgusted about Zoom and the corporate EDR agent. I basically feel like the most likely source of compromise of my laptop is these proprietary tools forced on me from above.
The thing that worries me is SSO for work. I wish there was a completely different identity for all the work-related apps and for my payroll/benefits portal. I.e. if they want to endanger my login that manages my work product, fine, but I don't appreciate them endangering my login that manages my own compensation, tax deductions and retirement transfers, and health insurance...
Usually it is just local networking appliance rules that cause issues for some users. Likely a great learning experience for the uninitiated. Have a great day =3
Our phones have had a better permission system for years.
It goes roughly like this: when you select a text in a window, the X client tells the X server "I have the selection now", when you paste in another window, the client behind the other window asks "who has the selection?" and requests the selection contents from the other client, the data is then forwarded through the server. The client that claimed ownership has to properly handle some associated requests/events for the whole thing to work.
The key point is, there is no central "clipboard" style repository like on Windows, the client that does the "copy" is responsible for the data, the client that wants to "paste" has to talk to it. If I try to copy/paste and quit the source program before the paste, the data is gone. That's why modern desktop environments usually come with a dedicated daemon that immediately reacts to selection ownership changes, grabs the data for itself and then claims the selection ownership to emulate the Windows style behavior.
If we play devils advocate, it's possible the Zoom client tries to do just that, not trusting whatever desktop environment. I don't use this software, so I'm going out on a limb here, but I'd guess that the "Zoom Desktop Client" is just another browser in disguise? It might be actually Chromium or whatever underneath that does this?
Tbh, if they aren't harvesting clipbakrds data which is a weird thing to do and is unlikely, this doesn't really mean much. Anyways any X client can read.
I suspect it's something like: a bug report that said that I copied the link but when I opened zoom and pasted it it didn't it work. I.e, they probably closed the source application and thus the selection owner is gone, and the selection is gone too. This fixes that. I would test that maybe. See if paste after source app close works. Then again, if you use a ownership changing clipboard manager this shudnt be a problem.
Think about the pitch for the feature: "So, we're going to make this in the OS, where the user can highlight anything in any application, invoke a command, and then that thing (which could be a sensitive password, private personal information, or the codes to a nuclear weapon) will instantly become available for all applications on the system to read and do anything with. Uhh... NO THANKS!
Ideally, if an application wants to read from the clipboard, it should explicitly ask the user for permission, or the user should have to specify the exact app he's copy/pasting to. This reduces the clipboard's ease of use, but at least makes it NOT a truck sized privacy hole.
Think about the pitch for removing the feature, "So, we're going to make this in the OS, where visually disabled users cannot highlight anything in any application, can't move text between applications, cannot get the window title, cannot get the window tree, cannot have applications automate or know where other applications are, and basically they won't be able to use their computers. But everyting will be super private. Even the human using the computer won't be able to read it." This is what modern linux desktop computer is on waylands thanks to this toxic privacy meme. It literally just doesn't work for me.
Privacy needs the kind you're talking about simply don't exist on desktop computers where the human actually controls everything (as opposed to smartphone model where the user controls very little and applications are hostile and opaque). If you want to break accessibility and functioning of smartphones, fine, go for it. But leave desktop computers alone.
Gone are the days when you could download a software, run it, and trust that the developer isn't transmitting everything on your system back to their servers. Developers have poisoned the well and repeatedly demonstrated that they will run roughshod over the user's system, send telemetry back about everything the user is doing, enroll them in A/B experiments they didn't ask for, and take advantage of every resource, every peripheral and device, and every bit of personal information they can get their hands on.
Unless you are 100% running open source software that you have personally vetted, or that you trust that the package manager / maintainer has sufficiently vetted, you can't copy a password into the clipboard with any kind of confidence that other apps aren't sneaking a peek.