On Friday, April 10, 2020, CSU Bakersfield’s Associated Students Inc. board meeting was trolled on Zoom. After several vocal disruptions, all participants were muted with the exception of CSUB faculty and ASI board members. That didn’t stop the trolls’ ability to draw on screen. They were able to draw on a screen share of ASI’s meeting agenda, as well as Student Health Services promotional video, using Zoom’s annotation tools. 

Faust Gorham, Associate Vice President Administrative and Information Technology Services & Chief Information Officer, suggested that future meetings should be authenticated for heightened levels of security. However, ASI’s Executive Director Ilaria Pesco stated that due to California’s open meeting laws, ASI’s board meetings are required to be open to the public. 

With the influx of trolls in the meeting, Gorham, Pesco, and ASI President Aaron Wan served as live moderators, removing and banning inappropriate guests from the Zoom meeting.

The teleconferencing service has faced recent criticism in regards to its security protocols. Most prominently by Google, which banned its employees from using Zoom on company servers Buzzfeed News reports. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace company, has also banned its employees from using Zoom as reported by Reuters.

According to a security bulletin from Information Technology Services last modified March 24, 2020, CSU Bakersfield is aware of Zoom’s vulnerabilities and is working with service providers to improve security. “We will be monitoring the situation and making future adjustments to CSUB’s default meeting settings as additional security controls are added and needs dictate.” The security bulletin also shares how to protect meetings and can be found in its entirety here.

A transcript of CSU Bakersfield’s Associated Students Inc. board meeting meeting’s chat room for April 10, 2020 can be found below.

Warning: Transcript is unedited & contains profanity.

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Carlos Hernandez