TOBY SHAPSHAK: Be warned, free services are costly
But using insecure Zoom for parliamentary meetings is likely not a fireable offence in the ANC age of unaccountability
Dear parliament, let me tell you about meeting software called Teams. It’s made by Microsoft, with which the government has a big contract for software. It’s part of the package and you can run a whole company on it. Microsoft itself has been doing this for years — it’s known in the tech industry as "eating your own dog food".
So, why Teams and not the easier-to-use Zoom? Well, after last week’s Zoombombing of the virtual meeting of the National Assembly’s programming committee, that question answers itself. Nothing like MPs being shown porn and having racist slurs yelled at them to prove that free software has its hazards...
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