Monoculture and Monopoly Law: Attraction to a Single Point Occurs and Persists

September 2, 2020

Did you hear the alarm clock ring? “Zoom Is Now Critical Infrastructure. That’s a Concern” makes it clear that even the deep sleepers can wake up. What’s the tune on these wizards’ mobile phone? Maybe a fabulous fake of “Still Drowsy after All These Years.” (Sorry, Mr. Simon.)

The write up makes clear that the Brookings community and scholars have been told the following:

  • Zoom is the information superhighway for education
  • Zoom content is visible to Zoom
  • Zoom is fending off the likes of Apple and Facetime, Google Meet and Hangouts, and Microsoft Teams (Skype shoved its hands in the barbeque briquettes, thus making that service less interesting.)
  • Zoom goes down, thus wrecking havoc.

The write up does not suggest that Zoom is up to fancy dancing with authorities from another nation state. The write up does not delve into the tale of the stunning Alex Stamos, a human Swiss Army Knife of security. The write up does not articulate this Arnold Law:

A monoculture and a monopoly manifest attraction to a single online point.

A corrolary is:

That single point persists.

In the absence of meaningful oversight, Zoom is, according to the write up:

By contrast, a successful cyber attack targeting Zoom could bring education and an enormous amount of business activity to a complete halt.

And what about the Zoom data? Useful to some perhaps?

Stephen E Arnold, September 2, 2020

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