While many teachers and professors are moving their classes online and teach remotely, the government issued a new ban on video-conferencing platform called Zoom, citing security concerns. Some experts criticized the ban as unilateral and overreacting, making educators' efforts and preparations do down the drain. The Ministry of Education advised using other video-conferencing solutions instead.


I reserved a class on April 11th, but now it has been cancelled.

The Ministry of Education has prohibited the usage of the video-conferencing software Zoom by all levels of schools due to security concerns. A teacher tried to log in the system on April 8th to participate in a scheduled video-conference, only to realize the account had been suspended.

All the online classes we saw on the system were being taken off the shelf. The Taipei CooC-Cloud Digital Center has also taken down Zoom. Some teachers might feel stunned to learn there are security concerns regarding Zoom, but not Facebok or Line? They all have security concerns, but we should provide the public with a choice.

Foreign press reported that Zoom would send the gathered information to servers in China. The founder of Zoom, a Chinese American, Eric Yuan has publicly apologized for the issue. DPP Legislator Liu Shi-fang questioned the security of using Zoom on April 6th during a session in the Legislative Yuan and the Executive Yuan banned all official use of the software on the 7th. Now the Education sector is also reeling from the ban. National Taiwan University Electrical Engineering Professor Yeh Ping-cheng criticized on his Facebook page, saying that the government's unilateral move has made teachers' month-long efforts go down the drain. He also said that in Taiwan, there isn't much room for open discussion once politics is involved. Some scholars in NTU agreed with Yeh.

The founder of Zoom is an international student from China, but that was of many years ago. He's been working in the US for many years. His previous software, which is another video-conferencing software, was bought by Cisco. That was his first-phase invention. If you are suspicious of Zoom, then you should be more suspicious of the bigger company, Cisco.

The Ministry of Education advised using other video-conferencing software instead. A scholar from NTU reminded that users should remain cautious no matter which solution they use, as all web-based software programs have security holes in them, regardless of the brand and country of origin.



「我原來4月11號預約的，已經被暫停使用了。」

視訊軟體Zoom爆發資安疑慮，教育部公告各級學校禁止使用。有教師8號上午登入系統，原先預定的視訊會議，已被暫停使用。

北市萬芳高中圖書館主任/全中教產業工會秘書長 許麗吉表示：「我們在現場上看到的都下架了，台北酷課雲數位中心，它也下架了Zoom，所以可能有一些老師，他會馬上很錯愕。就是Zoom有資安的問題，FB沒有嗎？LINE沒有嗎？都有這個問題，但是不是提供大家一個選擇權。」

外媒報導， Zoom會將資料，往中國內地伺服器傳送，創辦的美國華人袁征，已公開道歉，6號民進黨立委劉世芳在立院提出質疑，7號行政院下令公務機關停用，連同教育界也受到影響，台大電機系教授葉丙成在臉書批評，一張公文，就可以讓老師們一個月的努力，一切歸零，而且在台灣，很多事情跟政治沾上邊，就沒有什麼討論空間了，台大也有學者認同葉丙成的看法。

台大資訊網路與多媒體研究所暨資工系教授 歐陽明表示：「Zoom的發明人是中國大陸留學生，但是很多年前了，他在美國工作很多年了，而且他前一版的軟體，已經被另外一家公司Cisco(思科)，另外一個大家公司開會的軟體，就是他(袁征)的第一期發明，所以如果你懷疑Zoom，那你(應該)懷疑更大的公司Cisco。」

教育部建議用其他視訊軟體取代，台大學者提醒，不論國籍，只要是網路軟體，就會有資安漏洞，面對各個品牌都要有警覺心。