Racist Zoom Bombing

[Hegdis]

I was horrified to read this. 
 

If anyone knows anything about it I would encourage them to report it to the authorities. What an awful experience. 

Vancouver does not have a large black community so affected students and faculty are definitely in need of loud and clear support. I hope the school is responding appropriately. This is a good time to reach out to your peers if you haven’t already. 

[InfiniteChallenges]

Disappointing to read about this but also goes to question why the UBC zoom host didn't disable student drawing on the screen. Seems like a complete lack of awareness imo.

[Hegdis]

Yeah I don’t know that the focus needs to be on what the host did wrong. 

[InfiniteChallenges]

I'm not dismissing the clear racist act that occurred. However, the act itself doesn't remove any responsibility from the administrators to control what happens in their zoom meeting. 

[Hegdis]

Yeah, I don’t know that the focus needs to be on what the administrators are responsible for either. 

[QueensDenning]

I don't see what the administrators could have done to prevent something like this from happening. 

The responsibility is with the fuck heads who did it. Hopefully the school can to figure out who that was (or hire someone who can).  

[Diplock]

I've read the article, and it actually says the link was likely shared with the public. So, I disagree with Hegdis. I understand the nature desire is that the focus should be on the racist act. But what's the takeaway here? There are racists fuckheads in society who, when given an opportunity to be who they are behind the anonymity of a computer screen, will be racist fuckheads in terrible and disruptive ways? I mean, yeah. But we are on the Internet here. Is that news?

If this was the act of a UBC student that should be the focus. If it was a random who found their way in, the only solution is to discuss administrative solutions and how to stop randoms from being able to do that. Just like that would be the discussion if it happened here, in this space.

[Hegdis]

My original post was more about making sure the people who were affected are being acknowledged and supported. Assuming some of them might be members here, for instance. 

[Turtles]

On 11/17/2023 at 11:48 AM, Hegdis said:

Yeah I don’t know that the focus needs to be on what the host did wrong. 

I think it's fair -- and would prove beneficial -- to use a post like this to highlight basic zoom security practices to help reduce harmful situations from occurring in the future. I don't think it's fair to dismiss a good faith suggestion of such as misplaced when it can very well reduce further harm in the future. Many readers of this forum will host events on zoom and may not think to secure it, let alone how.

(I recognize there is a risk that highlighting what went wrong can come off as victim blaming rather than offering comfort to those affected in the aftermath, but failing to do so only facilitates further abuse by bad actors and further victimization. Catching the morons behind this episode is important, but it won't hold back the other thousand morons who routinely pull the same stunts.)

Some basic practices when organizing a zoom meeting:

• consider the intended audience and assess risk accordingly (e.g., only people with email addresses from the law school? maybe doesn't need to be too locked down. general public? maybe participants should have very limited access to video/audio/screenshare/annotation/chat -- may consider removing access to each or limiting who can see theirs to only the hosts. it's not just about who may zoom bomb but also the risk of people accidentally disrupting due to not knowing their mic is on, etc)
• require advance registration with one's full name and institutional email address
• look over the registration list and remove suspect attendees (e.g., non-institutional emails if not open to public, obviously fake names, etc -- you can even email such attendees and ask they re-register using their proper info and institutional email if you worry you may be cutting out genuine attendees who just didn't register properly) 
• send the meeting link directly to registered non-suspect attendees shortly before the meeting, rather than posting the direct link publicly
• disable participants from annotating the screen or sharing their own screen when there is no need 
• use webinar mode if everyone's focus should be on the hosts or spotlighted persons rather than on attendee's video/audio
• consider whether chat messages should be public vs private (e.g., participant Qs aren't viewable by anyone other than hosts until host selects it to answer publicly)

While you can't change all the bad actors in the world, you can put a lock on your door so only people you trust can readily enter and reduce the risk bad actors take advantage. Not having a lock on your door is not justification for someone to enter to do harm.

[Aveniform]

On 11/23/2023 at 8:18 AM, Turtles said:

Some basic practices when organizing a zoom meeting:

• consider the intended audience and assess risk accordingly (e.g., only people with email addresses from the law school? maybe doesn't need to be too locked down. general public? maybe participants should have very limited access to video/audio/screenshare/annotation/chat -- may consider removing access to each or limiting who can see theirs to only the hosts. it's not just about who may zoom bomb but also the risk of people accidentally disrupting due to not knowing their mic is on, etc)
• look over the registration list and remove suspect attendees (e.g., non-institutional emails if not open to public, obviously fake names, etc -- you can even email such attendees and ask they re-register using their proper info and institutional email if you worry you may be cutting out genuine attendees who just didn't register properly) 
• disable participants from annotating the screen or sharing their own screen when there is no need 
• use webinar mode if everyone's focus should be on the hosts or spotlighted persons rather than on attendee's video/audio

Multiple participants graffitied the Zoom presentation. The delay between each piece of graffiti originating from each different user (but bearing obviously similar racist content and delivery) suggests to me it was one bad actor who had joined undetected with multiple accounts until the Zoom bombing started about 10 minutes into the presentation.

Regarding some of your recommendations, there was later an email sent out concerning this incident. Parts of it read:

"This investigation concluded that UBC’s default setting for Zoom meetings . . . was to allow annotation by all participants. This default setting had not been changed for this lecture, which permitted any participant to draw and write on the screen. Second, the meeting ID and password were shared publicly on X (formerly Twitter) without the law school’s knowledge just before the beginning of Dean Atuguba’s lecture. This expanded the pool of individuals who could enter the Zoom Meeting as participants. Third, as noted above, when the offensive images first appeared, our initial reaction was to take steps to remove the images rather than to immediately end the Zoom meeting. 
 
. . . After being notified of this incident, UBC has updated the default setting for Zoom so that the host will have the option to allow participants to annotate as opposed to it being on by default. With respect to Allard Law Zoom procedures, we will now be recommending that all hybrid or online events involving external speakers be held using Zoom Webinars (in which attendees cannot interact with one another) rather than Zoom Meetings (in which attendees may actively participate). As well, it will now be our policy that in circumstances where it is not possible to immediately identify and remove a disruptive meeting participant, the Zoom Meeting should be ended."