Zoom enables end-to-end encryption for all users; Zoom is still nefarious

Zoom communicated this yesterday:

Today, Zoom released an updated E2EE design on GitHub. We are also pleased to share that we have identified a path forward that balances the legitimate right of all users to privacy and the safety of users on our platform. This will enable us to offer E2EE as an advanced add-on feature for all of our users around the globe – free and paid – while maintaining the ability to prevent and fight abuse on our platform.  https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/06/17/end-to-end-encryption-update/

Note the wording in two of the sentences:

• we have identified a path forward that balances the legitimate right of all users to privacy and the safety of users on our platform
• This will enable us to offer E2EE as an advanced add-on feature for all of our users

Their choice to enable end-to-end encryption for all users, paying or not, is not something that they 'identified'. It's not car keys that they lost and suddenly found, even though they act like they did.

This will enable us

They're saying 'We have identified our feet. They will enable us to all of us to move.'

Listen. Zoom are lying by using word salad. They fully know—and have always known—that they want to make more money and hence give end-to-end encryption to paying customers only.

The only reason why Zoom have changed their tune on this is that people have shouted about this.

A Hacker News user named hypewatch sums this up well:

I find this story arch with Zoom amusing:

1. Pre-COVID Zoom claims it has E2E encryption for everyone.

2. During COVID Zoom grows in popularity, which prompts journalists to learn that the claims that Zoom has E2E encryption are inaccurate.

3. Zoom admits that it never had true E2E encryption, but announces they will develop it and it will only be available for paying customers.

4. Zoom gets another wave of criticism for restricting its new E2E encryption service so it walks back to its original message that all accounts get E2E encryption.

Given their track record I’d expect this timeline to repeat itself so after they release this E2E encryption feature, security researchers will discover that it’s not true E2E encryption again.

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553325

There's no way one can trust Zoom. They have committed some atrociously heinous acts, such as (and not limited to):

• Excommunicate users on the behest of dictatorships
• Abuse how installation works on macOS
• Claiming to support end-to-end encryption while not doing that and then, shadily inventing a nomenclature that steers away from standards
• Sending your data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account and hiding this practice from their privacy policy
• Installing a web server on your Mac that Apple had to build a tool to erase

Use Jitsi Meet instead. You can even host it yourself and yes, they supports end-to-end encryption and are 100% open source (which Zoom is not).