With billions locked down at home by COVID-19, the internet is a lifeline, allowing people to work, study and share ideas online.It also presents opportunities, say the organizers of the Global Hack, a virtual gathering of hundreds of thousands of people in 50 nations taking place Thursday through Saturday, April 9-11. Prizes for the best ideas for new platforms, applications and innovations will be awarded April 12.Hackathons are usually mass gatherings of software developers and graphic designers who tackle problems in a competitive setting. With the Global Hack now under way, creative teams are working remotely to come up with solutions to problems raised by the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises.“We gather people together, with very different skills, different competencies,” said Kai Isand, a leader of the technology collective Accelerate Estonia and head organizer for this weekend’s Global Hack.“We brainstorm ideas, and we actually build them into working prototypes,” she said. A hackathon March 13-15 created a map of COVID-19 cases in Estonia, the country in northern Europe where the online movement Hack the Crisis started. Other teams developed a health questionnaire and a site to link volunteers with medical backgrounds. FILE – An Estonian police officer checks documents at the border crossing point as Estonia reintroduces border control and a ban to enter Estonia for foreigners as a preventive measure against the coronavirus in Valga, Estonia, March 17, 2020.Dozens of nations are now involved.“People said we were in lockdown, and we knocked down the lockdown and we felt so connected with everyone,” said Payal Manan Rajpal, who heads Hack the Crisis, India. She said her country has a huge pool of technology talent, and among the innovations that emerged from a recent Indian hackathon was “an AI (artificial intelligence) enabled robot, which will be very helpful to disinfect via UV (ultraviolet) rays in quarantine wards.” The movement has drawn support from the business community and IT sector.Estonia, where the Hack the Crisis movement started, is a nation of 1.3 million people that embraced the digital revolution early, said Viljar Lubi, Estonian vice minister for economic development for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.“We thought we could use IT in order to make our government leaner and smoother and bring it closer to its citizens,” he said.Estonia has pursued the concept of digital government, and in last year’s parliamentary election, 44% of Estonian voters cast their votes online. The Hack the Crisis movement began with a call for creative ideas from an Estonian government official. In response, international startup consultant Calum Cameron made a few phone calls and the concept was hammered out, with organizers quickly securing government backing.Within days, the March 13 online hack was under way.The online movement quickly spread to Latvia, Germany, Belarus and dozens of other countries. “Everybody in the region was thinking about it. Everybody had the same idea, but Estonia was the only country that was ready to actually go,” Cameron said.The online hacks are not just for IT experts, said Isand, of the Global Hack, and they welcome educators, designers, marketers and anyone with ideas. Online mentors include Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Cameron said that for the first time in history, humanity has been able to come together virtually to address a common problem, “and do something about it … using digital, using internet,” to mitigate this and future crises. 
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The Department of Defense has issued new guidance on the use of the popular videoconferencing application Zoom following a week-old FBI warning about security issues and a FILE- A Zoom app logo is displayed on a smartphone in Arlington, Virginia, March 30, 2020.The federal government has been no different, despite an FBI announcement April 1 that hackers could exploit weaknesses in videoconferencing software systems like Zoom to “steal sensitive information, target individuals and businesses performing financial transactions, and engage in extortion.”The security concern is much greater than “Zoom bombing” attacks reported by users whose chats have been infiltrated by hackers shouting profanities or posting lewd images.Experts say the teleconferencing app may introduce security risks not only to government employees during Zoom sessions but also to data that reside on government computers.“If there are vulnerabilities, the app can jeopardize the security of data on the computer on which it is installed, or even potentially on other computers on the same network,” Joseph Steinberg, a leading cybersecurity expert and the author of Cybersecurity for Dummies, told VOA. “Such vulnerabilities have been discovered — and more may exist.”Some unaware of risksVOA reporting after the FBI warning on April 1 showed that Zoom remained a popular videoconferencing application for U.S. government employees from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, not all of whom were aware of its potential risks.A Zoom spokeswoman said Thursday that Zoom takes user security “extremely seriously.”“A large number of global institutions ranging from the world’s largest financial services companies to leading telecommunications providers, government agencies, universities and others have done exhaustive security reviews of our user, network and datacenter layers and confidently selected Zoom for complete deployment,” the spokeswoman said.
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U.S. military and government employees continue to use the popular videoconferencing application Zoom for official business, despite FBI warnings about privacy and security issues, an action experts fear is increasing the risk of government data breaches.  Zoom has seen a surge in activity during the coronavirus pandemic as office workers across the country have turned to the free app to quickly arrange video calls with dozens of participants. The federal government has been no different, despite an FBI announcement April 1 that hackers could exploit weaknesses in videoconferencing software systems like Zoom to “steal sensitive information, target individuals and businesses performing financial transactions, and engage in extortion.”  The security concern is much greater than “Zoom CEO Eric Yuan attends the opening bell at Nasdaq as his company holds its IPO, April 18, 2019, in New York.Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in an April 1 blog post that the company was freezing work on new features to focus on fixing its privacy and security problems.   In the meantime, VOA reporting shows that Zoom remains one of the most popular videoconferencing applications for U.S. government employees from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, not all of whom are aware of its potential risks.  “I’m not aware of any issues with Zoom,” a senior official in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a small group of reporters a day after the FBI guidance was issued. The U.S. defense official said he was using Zoom to videoconference amid the need to social distance, but when pressed by VOA about the potential security risks, the official added that every discussion his team had while on Zoom was “at the unclassified level.” Government employees can use Zoom for Government, a paid tier service that is hosted in a separate cloud authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. It is unclear, however, how many government employees have differentiated between the two services thus far. To date, Zoom remains on the approved list of mobile phone applications for U.S. Department of Defense employees, according to multiple officials. However, one senior defense official said the Pentagon was currently looking into “guidance adjustments” for the application. Multiple employees at the State Department have also been using Zoom for official business. One staff member said he and his colleagues have daily Zoom meetings and have not received any guidance against using the app for internal and external communication. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper last week tweeted about his department’s use of a “Zoom Room.” Be it via “Zoom Room,” WebXing, or VTC, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper gestures during a news conference at the Pentagon, March 5, 2020.Concerns of Chinese cybertheft  Scott Stewart, vice president of Stratfor’s Threat Lens and a former diplomatic security service special agent, told VOA a “good portion” of Zoom’s development team is in China, and the videoconferencing company’s failure to use end-to-end encryption could allow an employee under pressure by the Chinese government to access and share private conversations.  Defense Secretary Mark Esper has repeatedly said maintaining a military advantage over China is the Pentagon’s “highest priority,” and for years top military officers have warned of China’s use of forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and cyber-espionage to expand their military capabilities. Steinberg told VOA he would not recommend Zoom use on military or government computers. “Other apps are more time tested,” he said. Nike Ching, Katherine Gypson, Michelle Quinn and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.  
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U.S. military and government employees continue to use the popular videoconferencing application Zoom for official business, despite FBI warnings about privacy and security issues, an action experts fear is increasing the risk of government data breaches.  Zoom has seen a surge in activity during the coronavirus pandemic as office workers across the country have turned to the free app to quickly arrange video calls with dozens of participants. The federal government has been no different, despite an FBI announcement April 1 that hackers could exploit weaknesses in videoconferencing software systems like Zoom to “steal sensitive information, target individuals and businesses performing financial transactions, and engage in extortion.”  The security concern is much greater than “Zoom CEO Eric Yuan attends the opening bell at Nasdaq as his company holds its IPO, April 18, 2019, in New York.Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in an April 1 blog post that the company was freezing work on new features to focus on fixing its privacy and security problems.   In the meantime, VOA reporting shows that Zoom remains one of the most popular videoconferencing applications for U.S. government employees from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, not all of whom are aware of its potential risks.  “I’m not aware of any issues with Zoom,” a senior official in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a small group of reporters a day after the FBI guidance was issued. The U.S. defense official said he was using Zoom to videoconference amid the need to social distance, but when pressed by VOA about the potential security risks, the official added that every discussion his team had while on Zoom was “at the unclassified level.” Government employees can use Zoom for Government, a paid tier service that is hosted in a separate cloud authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. It is unclear, however, how many government employees have differentiated between the two services thus far. To date, Zoom remains on the approved list of mobile phone applications for U.S. Department of Defense employees, according to multiple officials. However, one senior defense official said the Pentagon was currently looking into “guidance adjustments” for the application. Multiple employees at the State Department have also been using Zoom for official business. One staff member said he and his colleagues have daily Zoom meetings and have not received any guidance against using the app for internal and external communication. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper last week tweeted about his department’s use of a “Zoom Room.” Be it via “Zoom Room,” WebXing, or VTC, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper gestures during a news conference at the Pentagon, March 5, 2020.Concerns of Chinese cybertheft  Scott Stewart, vice president of Stratfor’s Threat Lens and a former diplomatic security service special agent, told VOA a “good portion” of Zoom’s development team is in China, and the videoconferencing company’s failure to use end-to-end encryption could allow an employee under pressure by the Chinese government to access and share private conversations.  Defense Secretary Mark Esper has repeatedly said maintaining a military advantage over China is the Pentagon’s “highest priority,” and for years top military officers have warned of China’s use of forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and cyber-espionage to expand their military capabilities. Steinberg told VOA he would not recommend Zoom use on military or government computers. “Other apps are more time tested,” he said. Nike Ching, Katherine Gypson, Michelle Quinn and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.  
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Just as the coronavirus outbreak has boxed in society, it’s also squeezed high-flying tech companies reliant on people’s freedom to move around and get together.Since the beginning of March, for instance, Uber shares have lost a quarter of their value. Rival Lyft is down 28 percent. Over the same period, the S&P 500 has fallen just 10 percent, even with wild swings along the way. The picture is even less clear for other, still-private “unicorn” companies once valued at more than $1 billion, such as Airbnb and WeWork.“What market pressure will mean for all companies is survival of the fittest,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing firm Metaforce and a business professor at New York University. “If you are going into this storm in a bad shape, it’s not going to be pretty.”Just few weeks ago, Airbnb was poised to cash in on a soaring stock market with its highly anticipated public offering. But with the market now reeling and few people looking to anywhere but home, Airbnb is reportedly racking up millions of dollars in losses while fending off a backlash from hosts who rely on its service to survive.FILE – An Uber sticker is seen on a car in Lafayette, Louisiana, U.S.on Feb. 16, 2020.Hosts were furious when the company told guests they could cancel their stays without penalties. Last week, Airbnb agreed to pay hosts $250 million to make up for some of the money lost to cancellations.AirDNA, a data firm that helps property owners set rental rates, says the impact on U.S. Airbnb hosts has been mixed. In New York City, bookings dropped 66 percent in March, but in outer suburbs they were up as people fled the city. Bookings in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., jumped sixfold. Similarly, bookings in the city of Chicago fell 11 percent last month, but in St. Joseph, Michigan — a lakeside community within driving distance — they were up by a factor of four.Cary Gillenwater, who has an attached guest suite in Amsterdam listed on Airbnb, said 20 guests have canceled reservations between March and June, costing him nearly $11,000. He had hoped for compensation from the company but was told that only reservations canceled through Airbnb that specifically mentioned the coronavirus would qualify. Several of his would-be guests contacted him directly to cancel; he refunded their money but may be out of luck when it comes to reimbursement. Airbnb didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.The company got a lifeline of sorts on Monday, when two private equity firms — Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners — invested $1 billion in debt and equity in the company. The firms said they expect Airbnb to emerge from the crisis in a stronger position.The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, however, that the company will pay interest of more than 10 percent on those loans and that it has made a “verbal commitment” to reduce fixed costs and to bring in supplemental management — terms that often mean layoffs and other cost-cutting. Airbnb didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the Journal report.FILE – Supporters of Airbnb stand during a rally at City Hall in New York in 2015.Uber, meanwhile, is trying to reassure jittery investors than its aggressive expansion plans for ride-hailing remain on track. Like its rival Lyft, it has seen ride demand hit a wall as states ratchet up stay-at-home orders. Both companies are trying to conserve cash so they can weather the pandemic’s fallout, in part by emphasizing deliveries of food and other goods.Even in its worst-case scenario — an 80 percent decline in ridership through 2020 — the company said it would end the year with $4 billion in cash. That would still mean burning through almost $7 billion this year, which could create problems for Uber’s larger ambitions such as self-driving cars and air taxis.Analysts, however, remain largely bullish. “We believe both Uber and Lyft will come out the other side still well placed to capture growth and opportunity,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives.Drivers are another story. San Diegan Christopher Chandler, who’s been driving for both companies for two years, said he’s lost more than 80 percent of his income since riders all but vanished. “I’m going to have to make some hard choices about what bills I won’t pay this month,” said Chandler, who has switched to deliveries that don’t come close to covering his former ride income.Other lesser-known companies, however, have benefited from the pandemic. Zoom, the video conferencing provider, has seen its stock soar to new highs in recent weeks; shares have nearly quadrupled compared to their IPO price just 11 months ago.FILE – Blue Apron CEO Matthew B. Salzberg, center, poses with employees in front of the New York Stock Exchange before the company’s IPO in New York, U.S., in 2017.Not so long ago, the meal-kit maker Blue Apron was threatened with delisting from the New York Stock Exchange after its shares fell below the exchange minimum of $1. Since the beginning of March, however, company shares have more than tripled after it reported a sharp increase in consumer demand fueled by stay-at-home orders.CB Insights lists more than 450 startups worldwide valued at $1 billion or more. While it can be hard to paint these unicorns with a broad brush because of their variety of business models and leadership styles, co-founder and CEO Anand Sanwal said that what COVID-19 is doing to the economy will be “tough for any company to weather, startup or not.”Sanwal said he’s already seeing a decline in early-stage seed investments that help launch new tech startups. But he said investors who have poured big sums into unicorn startups will likely try to do what they can to help keep them healthy, at the very least by grooming them for sale rather than standing by as they collapse.“Investors are going to make some hard decisions about whether this is a temporary downturn, or a company that doesn’t have a shot,” he said. 
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