Hi, all,
I am posting videos from our services to a SOMCville YouTube channel. I recommend that you go to www.youtube.com/channel/UCH_EmbPsEuB-O0F6-D2M8gg/ and subscribe to the channel, that way you’ll know when new videos have been posted.
I have posted the link to the Google Slides program from Sunday Apr. 5 on our web page somcville.org/programs, or go to somcville.org, pull down the “Home” menu and pick “Programs”
I have the video for Rev. Robin’s message “The Change” imbedded in the Slides program, along with the link to the YouTube video. Later today I will add the video from the Ernest Holmes reading. I also have posted the video of the entire unedited virtual service on the youtube channel.
Please note: there’s been a lot of publicity about security with Zoom lately, which is the video conferencing platform we’re using. Based on my understanding this is mostly due to the news media getting focused on one video conferencing provider – I doubt sincerely that the other providers are any more secure – they just haven’t been examined yet. Think of a flock of chickens – they all start pecking on the one that appears vulnerable. It’s all based on the sudden critical need for video conferencing, so the news outlets are looking for anything they can use to get people upset. That’s how they get paid after all – pouring gasoline on the fire of hysteria.
As I understand it, there are two main issues – one is that if someone knows, or guesses the 9-digit meeting ID, they can “zoombomb” the meeting and try to disrupt the meeting. This is supposedly taken care of by keeping the meeting ID private, and securing it with a password. For our group, this doesn’t make as much sense, because we want to be welcoming to legitimately interested people. That means there is some risk of having someone zoombomb our service. The way we’re handling that at the moment is that a. I have to let people into the meeting, and b. if someone behaves inappropriately I can boot them out – and then they can’t rejoin.
Oh, one possible way they could behave inappropriately is to post a malicious link in the Zoom “Chat” – if you clicked on it you would compromise your device. So, don’t click on links from anyone you don’t know in the SOMCville Zoom chat.
The other is the security of the meeting stream itself. The stream (the data going between your device and the Zoom server) is encrypted between your device and the Zoom server. But it’s not encrypted on the Zoom server. Soooo, someone at Zoom, or ostensibly a hacker, could snoop in on a zoom meeting. If we were a government or military, or corporate user with information that is critical to keep secure, this might be a problem. This does not apply to use because we are a public organization – we don’t have anything to keep secret. We might wierd someone out, but there’s nothing secret.
I am convinced that Zoom as a company and Eric Yuan as the CEO are socially responsible, and I know they will address any security issues that will be of concern for casual users like our group. If you hear or read of any specific issues beyond what I’ve addressed, reach out to me and I’ll investigate.
Enjoy!