EXCLUSIVE: Dr Liz Gordon – We have been ZoomBombed by CyberNazis!

6
1010

This Saturday just gone, we held the annual meeting of QPEC, the Quality Public Education Coalition. QPEC was formed in the late 1990s by a group including John Minto and the late Ivan Snook. The only thing unusual about this year’s meeting was that it was held by Zoom, rather than our usual face to face meeting.  Very good online attendance – 65 people.

The morning session started.  There were three speakers, but before they got a chance to start, we had an unwelcome visitor. 

Those of you who know Zoom will be aware that there is a ‘share screen’ function that puts the sharer’s screen on to everyone else’s, at full size. Essentially what happened was that a neo-Nazi swastika-bearing person attacked our meeting and used ‘share screen’ to display his objectionable images and messages, thus hijacking the whole meeting.

ZoomBombing is a new phenomenon that has arisen from the dependence of people on video-conferencing as an important form of communication while in lockdown. In March and April, it was used in the USA by anti-Semitist activitists to disrupt Jewish religious services being run via Zoom. It has been reported that images of Jewish people being raped and murdered were shown, along with all the usual Nazi imagery.

As the anti-defamation League’s Oren Segal notes, “Extremists never miss an opportunity to leverage a crisis for their hatred”. Zoom was, in some ways, a soft target, because no-one predicted that it would be used to storm meetings.

Recent articles on white supremacists note that, since the 2019 Mosque attacks, they have been driven onto the internet where their identity can be protected. They use sites such as 4chan and 8chan (favourites of the Mosque shooter) to communicate. Paul Spoonley and others have warned that “the internet has allowed the far Right to become more international in reach and influence”. And, according to Jarrod Gilbert, the internet is the new home of far right supremacist activity. We also must not forget that the Mosque shooter live-recorded his rampage.

So in the future, instead of stormtroopers smashing homes and workplaces in person, fascist activity may be more likely concentrated on cyber attacks to disrupt and, I suspect, destroy. I am not sure whether this is the first cyberattack in New Zealand, but I am certain it will not be the last.

Zoom has quickly put in place a range of services to protect against ZoomBombing. A few simple things will protect your organisation.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

First, control who is coming on your call.  Open or public meetings are easy to get into and disrupt.

Second, have one clear host who controls the levers. That person can stop or restart screen sharing at will, mute all or individual participants, put individuals on hold, stop file transfer and disable private chat.

Third, don’t panic.  Trace as much as you can find out about the person, use screenshots, hit ‘record’ if you are not already recording the meeting, note their Zoom ‘name’.

It is unfortunate that organisations like ours are going to have to start using these tactics as a matter of course. Groups representing people of colour, gay, disabled, Muslim and so on will have to learn that they are targets.

Organisers should know who gets the email invitation – in the QPEC case, it may (or may not) be worth trying to trace how the fascist recipient found out about the meeting. This is worrying.  The person must have received the invitation from one of our contacts.

These are practical steps, but the more interesting question is why on earth the fascist right was interested in disrupting a meeting of educationists on a Saturday morning?

There are a number of potential reasons.  It may be they thought they would try out Zoombombing and the QPEC meeting was a useful opportunity, a sort of practice session.

Or, this may be the beginning of a new wave of activism.  Disruption can be upsetting but can be managed. Increasingly, organisations will learn how to prevent such attacks.  What is more worrying is the potential for escalation into other forms of cyberattack.

The internet in all its forms is a powerful tool. It is worrying that bands of neo-Nazis are now marching through the internet looking for opportunities to recruit, disrupt, oppose and promote their cause.

The final issue is whether what happened on Saturday is illegal. It is a criminal offence to incite racial disharmony. But at the same time, it is perfectly legal for someone to enter a ‘public’ meeting (which this essentially was) and protest. There is also the Harmful Digital Communications Act, which makes cyber bullying and harassment illegal.  I think on balance people disrupting Zoom meetings with objectionable material are committing an offence.

And, Zoom traces all participants. So finding them should not be hard. Keep yourselves safe online.

 

Dr Liz Gordon is a researcher and a barrister, with interests in destroying neo-liberalism in all its forms and moving towards a socially just society.  She usually blogs on justice, social welfare and education topics.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Is it possible for the moderator to set a time delay of a few seconds? At least during primary speeches, if not the Q&A. That (along with vigilant moderation) might reduce the incentive for infiltrators to do much more than say; the occasional sneaky Wp/OK gesture, if it was evident that obvious disruption wouldn’t receive a signal boost.

    I don’t use Zoom myself; seeing a person without them being in the same room gets me right in the uncanny valley, even on Skype! It’d likely be worse with a virtual crowd – not been tempted enough to find out yet.

  2. I recommend reading anything regarding the dark enlightenment, Steve Bannon NRx, Curtis Yarvin and the Cathedral. Extremely dangerous thinkers who with the advent of Trump moving the Overton window more to the right, it has allowed right wing extremists to become more prevalent. Know your enemy.

    • Dangerous thinkers??? by your own opinion I take it?
      See, that’s what makes people like YOU really dangerous in my opinion because YOU sound like a ‘left wing extremist’ . I don’t see the difference…BOTH sides are just completely insane.

      You won’t change opinions by suppressing freedom of expression no matter how much hatred you feel is in the message. You only drive it underground, thus making it even more dangerous.
      Maybe try thinking little deeper into the issues and come up with solutions to win their hearts & minds. Authoritarianism & “hate speech” are counter productive to the very foundations of real democracy. Haters are going to hate because they have been educated so; they weren’t born haters…

      • How come you are so accepting of Nazis and there ideology Ross ???

        To compare Liz or John Minto to them ,,,,,shows you to be the one with mental health problems ,,,,

        Freedom to stick swastikas in peoples faces ,,,, good fucking grief

        To be quite honest Ross ,,,I think your full of shit ,,, you quoted the a B grade hypocrite with Alzheimers the other day … ““Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”

        Lets compare if you suffer from brain damage and two faced bullshit ,,, like Rony Rayguns ,,,,

        Should adult New Zealanders be free to consume Cannabis ?? or do you favor state persecution enforced by Authoritarian ‘hard men’ ?? ,,, of the Mike Sabin / Clint Rickards type.

        I’m betting Ross M supports B grade Claytons freedom ,,, The freedom of right-wingers, where you don’t get real freedom ,,,

        Maybe Ross will prove me wrong ???????

  3. Hi Ross,
    In what way do I sound like a left wing extremist? Or trying to suppress freedom of expression? All I say in this blog is that flag waving nazis are breaking into Zoom meetings for the purpose of disrupting, flying their nazi flags and (in the New York cases where Jewish religious services were ‘zoombombed’) causing much angst. Also that we can expect worse to come. I am interested in your views around engaging these people to move them away from hate. I agree that is a good goal. I do not know how to achieve it given wider social/economic issues. Actually I fear things are getting worse.

    • “It’s outrageous that it has taken more than two months for Ahmaud Arbery’s executioners to be arrested, but better late than never. This is the first step to justice. This murderous father and son duo took the law into their own hands. It’s a travesty of justice that they enjoyed their freedom for 74 days after taking the life of a young black man who was simply jogging. Yet, tomorrow, on Ahmaud’s birthday, his parents are denied the simple joy of celebrating with their son.”

      An extract from the police radio call…”“There’s a black male running down the street,” a caller says.

      “I just need to know what he was doing wrong,” the dispatcher responds, in part.

      How do we change the culture if this continues to unfold in our society? A shocking example of taking law into your own hands, racial divide and acting as judge jury and executioner.
      American law allows for this to take place in our modern world.

Comments are closed.