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Comment by chooseaname | Hacker News Reader

So, they'll let the Epsteins of the world pay and get E2EE, but those "Thug" protestors who want to organize and maybe can't justify the cost need to be surveilled.

Set against the events of the past week, I strongly feel this message is quite tone deaf and we're continuing to see two classes. Those exempt from police authority and those who cannot afford to be.

Edit: Authority isn't the right word. Oppression?

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Definitely a strange thing opening access to only free subscribers. There's probably an argument to made on both sides, but putting this as an 'added value' for paying? Tone deaf for sure.

Of course, if you can't justify the cost to a company, you will be stripped of its services. Is that not expected of private corporations?

Sure, we can ignore that the Zoom CEO mentioned anything at all about law enforcement and focus solely on the financial aspect. If we do that, then why have a free segment at all? Go ahead and make it completely for pay.

It's all up to financial incentives. I am not saying it is right. The whole system is not right.

Its not stripping them of service though is it? Its providing them with the zoom service, but its specifically removing encryption to expose the conversations of non paying people to the police. This is not about them saving money its about them intentionally choosing to hand up non paying customer chats to law enforcement.

Also from a customer satisfaction / PR perspective I am hard pressed to think of a worse time for a company to announce this.

I am not applauding this. I just point out how corporations work now.

1) Encryption costs are marginal.

2) He didn't say it was a costly operation so they're charging for it. They said it was for LEO purposes.

Oh, you won't have to be rich to purchase E2EE. I'm sure that Zoom will make it surprisingly affordable.

If they are willing and capable to enable/disable it over the matter of a few dollars (any amount of dollars, really,) can one actually trust that it is enabled?

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