Video chat software / options

[Douglas Lucas]

Hi cypherpunks,

For reference, some things I discovered researching this today for
several hours, this is more for an enduser perspective than either a
genuine expert perspective or the perspective of a Boomer incel fantasy
about being James Bond / Tony Stark while doing backflips and
fantasizing about going gay for Juliassar al-Assadnge or whatever.

*   Signal: won't work for video chat of more than two people, because
according to various mainstream sources accessed 22 April 2020, Signal
video chat is only 1 to 1

*   Wire: won't work for video chat of more than 4 people, because
according to official website accessed 22 April 2020, video conferencing
is available for up to only 4 participants, and audio conferencing is
available for up to only 10 participants.
https://wire.com/en/blog/is-your-video-conference-solution-secure/
https://wire.com/en/pricing/#pro/

*   Jitsi (i.e. Jitsi Meet): won't work for video chat for 10-20+
people, because according to an April 2020 Association for Computing
Machinery report, "does not scale well and can be unreliable" and "in
the default configuration, video is not mixed; instead every participant
gets all the audio and video streams. This may not scale well." Further,
see what Greg Newby said previously on this email list.
https://www.acm.org/virtual-conferences
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LLLniPkf48CCZyG_BNy1ylF2wXNlztqNEOnzNuMQmJc

*   TwoSeven: I have no experience with https://twoseven.xyz/ but it may
be of some relevance. It's a website and Chrome extension that has a
free version and pay versions/packages between $3 and $20 a month. It
allows chat, video, and audio, and is geared toward helping people
remote from one another watch simultaneously the following depending on
version/package: youtube, netflix, amazon, HBO, vimeo, and video files
users upload.

*   Kast: I have no experience with Kast, but it may be of some
relevance. It's either https://kastapp.co or https://kast.gg (not sure
which), formerly https://rabb.it, is a free or premium ($5/mo)
application for browser, mobile, or desktop that allows audio-video chat
and text chat during watch parties for youtube clips, users playing
computer games, etc.

*    Kast and TwoSeven have a lot of competitors. See for example, 16
Sites Like Rabb.it - https://www.tech21century.com/sites-like-rabbit/ -
but from this tech guide for sex workers -
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sd6EoFCFOTmG1_IW_07s_DxNGWEA0m8T/view -
it seems Kast and TwoSeven are the frontrunners in their respective
areas. Kast reminds me a bit of https://tinychat.com/ which was the big
solution for online video parties around Occupy/Anon/leak platform days
and is still running. Haha, some people have nothing else, can't move
on, and think it is still 2010, but thankfully for the rest of us life
continues and is amazing!

*	For one-to-one encrypted video chat, choices are Signal, Wire, or
Jitsi. Signal has an annoying social graphing problem that is
particularly problematic for vulnerable or marginalized individuals,
where installing Signal suddenly alerts your contacts that you have
Signal, see
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007061452-Does-Signal-send-my-number-to-my-contacts-
and
https://community.signalusers.org/t/any-signal-user-that-has-your-phone-number-in-their-contacts-can-see-you-register-with-signal/4053/11
and
https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/wiki/faq#wiki_welcome_to_the_r.2Fsignal_faq.21.
Wire is based in Switzerland, Berlin, and EU. Jitsi comes from, as far
as I could make out during a few hours' research today, a DIY hackerish
background but was recently acquired by a Silicon Valley-based, publicly
traded VoIP company, 8x8 Inc. So if for one to one video you pick
between either Wire or Jitsi, that means picking between -- and this is
an educated guess and half joking -- the fancy solution presumably used
by money launderers corporations and pedo rings (Wire) or the slightly
Millenium Falcon-y Jitsi that will probably be great for another 1-3
years until 8x8 Inc. decides to sell and/or ruin their new toy.

*	If more participants are required, and there are no other options, the
Association for Computing Machinery -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LLLniPkf48CCZyG_BNy1ylF2wXNlztqNEOnzNuMQmJc
- is recommending as of April 2020 that conference organizers use Zoom
with an awareness of the problems, such as crypto issues (
https://blog.rapid7.com/2020/04/02/dispelling-zoom-bugbears-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-latest-zoom-vulnerabilities/
)  and Zoombombing ( https://www.isc.upenn.edu/security/news/zoombombing
) and trying to mitigate those problems by following various guides,
such as Meredith Reitman's (
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rvp6NfRNNs6e4bx2l07XWlB4vvevMnn9m-cu97jRhzw
) and Konrad Kording's anti-Zoombombing script (
https://medium.com/@kording/neuromatch-anti-zoombombing-script-842eabf160dc
) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's guide (
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/harden-your-zoom-settings-protect-your-privacy-and-avoid-trolls
) and enabling/steering people toward/requiring the web version (
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005666383 ) and this guide
for virtual conferences best practices which has a lot of helpful
thoughts about accessibility and fairness (
https://people.clarkson.edu/~jmatthew/acm/VirtualConferences_GuideToBestPractices_CURRENT.pdf
).

*    Here are some various resources on the subject if you want more.
Riseup Networks security guide re video options is out of date (due to
them requiring more support/donations for more labor, presumably). This
video conferencing comparison guide website by various journohacker
types: https://videoconferencing.guide/ February 2020 guide for sex
workers including tech tips for camming:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sd6EoFCFOTmG1_IW_07s_DxNGWEA0m8T/view
Wikipedia page comparing various video conferencing software/platforms
thanks to Cecilia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_conferencing_software
Association for Computing Machinery landing page, report, and highly
recommended drill down comparing video conferencing options:
https://www.acm.org/virtual-conferences
https://people.clarkson.edu/~jmatthew/acm/VirtualConferences_GuideToBestPractices_CURRENT.pdf
and
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LLLniPkf48CCZyG_BNy1ylF2wXNlztqNEOnzNuMQmJc
Dec 2019 hour-long talk at Chaos Computer Club by a sysadmin for
Extinction Rebellion, via Greg Newby, regarding sixth mass extinction
event and tech infrastructure for that movement. Especially from 28
minutes to 44 minutes, and the Q&A after.
https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11008-server_infrastructure_for_global_rebellion

Doug