Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Technology

Zoombombing: The New Online Epidemic

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By Skylar Thomas

MAIN PHOTO: Zoombombing has become a phenomenon on the online meeting platform. The platform which offers easy web conferencing is under scrutiny. (Source: Zoom website)

With the global need for online communication in the current coronavirus crisis, many have been turning to the US-based online platform Zoom for business meetings, online classes and even for social hangouts.

Unfortunately, along with the ease of communication is a not-so-new phenomenon – internet harassment.

In a trend known as “Zoombombing”, online trolls have been hijacking Zoom meetings uninvited and sharing lewd or offensive content. Their targets have included public meetings, online classes, and other social gatherings.

One public meeting hosted by the US food chain Chipotle was forced to end prematurely after a user managed to broadcast pornographic material from their screen.

https://twitter.com/exitpost/status/1240040106284777475?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1240040106284777475&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F03%2F20%2Fstyle%2Fzoombombing-zoom-trolling.html

Other Zoombombings have taken a more malicious form. A doctoral student’s presentation was interrupted when an unidentified user drew male genitalia and wrote racial slurs, according to a report by NPR.

The phenomenon has become so widespread that some online trolls are now offering to raid Zoom meetings at users’ request. Investigators from the FBI in Boston are taking the issue seriously, calling on people to report instances of Zoombombing to the authorities.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan has apologised to users in a post on the company website.

“We absolutely condemn these types of attacks and deeply feel for anyone whose meeting has been interrupted in this way”, he wrote.

In a separate post, Zoom has advised users on how to prevent their meeting from being sabotaged. For instance, meeting hosts can block participants from sharing their screens and set up password protections. The company has also strongly discouraged users from sharing meeting details on public platforms, where they are more accessible to online trolls.

Zoom’s popularity has exploded over the past three months as more people stay at home during the pandemic. The company reported that the platform hasd 200 million users as of March, up from just 10 million in December. The increasing usage has put the company under intense scrutiny.

The website Motherboard reported in March that Zoom had been sending user data to Facebook – even from users who did not own a Facebook account. Zoom has since stopped the practice and issued a public apology, but the company is now facing a lawsuit over its handling of user data.

The Guardian reported that security researchers have raised concerns about the platform, including its lax privacy controls and security vulnerabilities.

The publication said New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, had sent a letter to the company asking it to explain what it had done to fix problems that had been identified. She highlighted concerns about security vulnerabilities that might allow third parties to gain surreptitious access to consumer webcams.

Earlier this week, the company pledged to devote all its efforts to improving security measures and protecting user data.

SA Government Reassures Public About Cell Phone Tracking

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Minister of Communications Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams addresses the press conference on cell phone tracking Thursday. (Skylar Thoma)

The South African government moved to reassure its citizens yesterday that cellphone tracking efforts will only be used on people who have tested positive for coronavirus and have not gone into quarantine.

At a media briefing of the Coronavirus National Command Council on Thursday, Ministers clarified regulations surrounding the nationwide lockdown. Minister of Communications Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams addressed public uncertainty about how the tracking measures would be used.

“This is not spying on anyone,” she said.

Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola further reassured citizens that the information will only be used by the Department of Health, and a judge will be appointed to oversee the use of data.

When a person is tested for coronavirus, Ndabeni-Abrahans said, health officials record their personal information, including their address and mobile phone number. If the test results come back positive, the Department of Health will be able to ask cellphone carriers for a history of the person’s location. The government will then be able to track down the person in question and identify others who may have been in contact with them.

The tracking services are a key part of the government’s effort to enforce self-isolation of coronavirus carriers, in particular those who do not go into quarantine. Over the weekend, a man was arrested after he had travelled from Gauteng to Limpopo, despite having received positive test results.

Minister of Police Bheki Cele told the press conference that 2289 people had been arrested since the start of the lockdown for disobeying the emergency regulations. Almost 24,500 members of the police force, the army, and metro police forces had been deployed for enforcement. He implored citizens to obey regulations “so that we are not forced to enforce the law”.

Cele also criticised provincial governments that are publishing their own interpretation of the national regulations. Regulations published by the Western Cape government on Wednesday suggested that the sale of tobacco products would be allowed as long as they were purchased alongside essential products.

“What is done in Limpopo is expected to be done in Western Cape,” he said. “For now, cigarettes are not sold”.

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde today told Eyewitness News that he had spoken to the President about different interpretations to the regulations, including on cigarettes, and had asked for more clarity. He expected the matter to be considered at the next Co- Ordinating Council meeting.

Another member of the task force, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, clarified that spaza shops should be allowed to stay open. She also announced that informal food traders in the townships will be permitted to trade so long as they get a permit from their local authority. The announcement comes as a relief to traders and the customers who rely on their merchandise. 

Dlamini-Zuma was asked by a reporter to confirm or deny rumours of plans to extend the lockdown in South Africa. She said that no such decision had been made, but “nothing is cast in stone”.

Open Data revamps Durban city websites

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Image: Sophie McManus, Programme Lead (far right), meets with a group of students from the School for International Training (SIT).

By Hannah Green

What would happen if it was possible to text the government and receive a personal response? What changes would we see if community information was recorded and distributed in a more accessible manner? What would be the impact of teaching data analytics in school?

These are the types of social data questions the team at Open Data grapples with.

Open Data is a non-profit civic technology lab located in Durban. The organisation’s mission is to share knowledge in mediums and languages that are accessible to all citizens. They recognise that technology can play a role in connecting people and communicating important information. Their final products can take the form of graphics, websites, reports or workshops that share research results with local communities.

“What we start with isn’t a platform or a tool or a solution. We start with a problem. It starts from capturing user needs,” explained Sophie McManus, Programme Lead. She said that Open Data’s projects usually arise from concerns raised by the government, non-profit organizations, and the media or community members.

One of the team’s current projects, codenamed Durban Answers, is to revamp local government websites. McManus said that ordinary people found the current sites difficult to interact with and lacked information needed by the public.

“We are going to take all the information on government websites and turn it into a more usable format,” she explained. To do that, Open Data needs to collect information on what people want to know.

For this, Open Data uses methods like SMS polls but McManus also noted that technology excludes many South Africans.

“Many people have the problem of access to Internet or to data. They have, I believe the term is ‘dummy phones,’ that don’t have (web) access,” she said, “What we have found is that people who have access to technology and are comfortable using it are the people most likely to answer in our campaigns.”

As a result Open Data has taken information gathering offline, holding meetings and workshops for each project. Recently, the Durban Answers project team met with a range of people, from fishermen to businesspeople, to see “what information they need and how we can bring it to them,” according to McManus.

The team also holds workshop throughout the year to engage techies and non-techies alike. Their monthly meet-ups feature guest speakers, hackathons and collaborations on projects. McManus said that this promotes Open Data’s mission to be accessible to all South Africans.

You can read more about Open Data, explore their meet-up schedule and share project ideas with the organisation here.

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