Ban usage of Zoom immediately: CAIT
   Date :13-Jul-2020

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Business Bureau :
 
B C Bhartia said that as per information on public domain, the software of Zoom appears to be developed by three companies in China
 
 
The statement of the Zoom released after demand of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) made to the Government on July 7 urging for a ban on Zoom, is whimsical and it has avoided the fundamental question whether data accrued by Zoom is routed through China or not and the related data of India is parked in India or in any other country. Meanwhile, a news agency ANI report on July 9 has reported that Indian Military has asked its personnel to delete 89 aps from their mobiles including Zoom.
 
Further serious fingers have been pointed out towards Zoom about security of the data in USA and other countries. CAIT National President B C Bhartia said that the statement of the Zoom at face value is just as gullible to a statement by the Chinese foreign office that they are peace loving people and Galwan valley is theirs since time immemorial. He said that it has become a general trend among the MNCs and countries for making statements which suits them. But in the instant case, the admitted fact and the key question is whether data accrued on Zoom is directed to China or through China and both in full or in parts and the data accrued from India is parked in India or in any other country.
 
Bhartia said that as per information on public domain, the software of Zoom appears to be developed by three companies in China, all known as Ruanshi Software, only two of which are owned by Zoom. The ownership of the third company, also known as American Cloud Video Software Technology, is unknown. About more than 700 employees are currently in China, which is not unusual as it can save on salaries in comparison to the US, though it does open up the firm to pressure and influence from the Chinese Government. Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that Zoom’s mainland China data centers, which consist of infrastructure in a facility owned by Telstra, a leading Australian communications provider, as well as Amazon Web Services, are having the key servers.
 
Zoom’s product development team is based “largely” in China, and it operates research and development centers in that country. In April, 3, 2020 a report by The Citizen Lab, a research organisation at the University of Toronto, found a number of shortcomings in Zoom’s security, including some that made it particularly vulnerable to China. It found that Zoom’s encryption scheme “has significant weaknesses,” including routing some encryption keys through Chinese servers, and that its ownership structure and reliance on Chinese labour could “make Zoom responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities.” Eric Yuan, Founder of Zoom in his blog on April 3, 2020 admitted that “it is possible certain meetings were allowed to connect to systems in China, where they should not have been able to connect.”
 
There are great apprehensions that besides hackers spies using multiple applications to search Government, corporate, and academic conversations for financial, personal, product development, research, and intellectual property information and leads. In the light of the above, Confederation of All India Traders has reiterated its demand to the Union Government to ban usage of Zoom with immediate effect to protect the security of the data of the soil.