About Zoom and WISE

At the start of 2020, few of us knew or cared about Zoom, the videoconferencing software. Now it's a lifeline for families, religious organizations, educational institutions, and businesses. (More than a few us wish that we'd invested in Zoom.)

No doubt you have seen stories in the news regarding security and privacy issues with Zoom. These are important issues, ones that technical professionals, users, and Zoom have to take seriously.

Here's what we have done to use Zoom safely while retaining its ease and usefulness.

• We don't publish our Zoom meeting links outside the WISE community.
• All meetings and Conversations with Instructors sessions will have a moderator who will manage screen-sharing and attendee microphones to ensure that the discussions flow smoothly.
• Zoom itself has implemented several mandatory security features for all meetings.

We will continue to monitor reports from security professionals and the responses from Zoom. You are more likely to see reports of problems than remedies; that's the nature of the news business. We believe that Zoom is a good, safe choice for our purposes. Should we learn of anything that changes that assessment, we'll stop using Zoom immediately.