U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#121

Post by bretpiatt » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

Operyl wrote: post #2

Since I’ve seen this asked elsewhere: There is a legitimate usage for these kinds of apps on some devices. Armed services recruiters tend to use various social media apps to communicate with people they are trying to recruit.

Totally different risk assessment level on a threat actor gaining location information of a recruiter (or all recruiters) vs. location of special forces service members.

The recruiter should get a waiver, a use case like that isn't a good reason to default to allowing.

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#122

Post by grzm » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #120

dang wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, and certainly not nationalistic flamebait. We don't need yet another nationalistic flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm not sure that's fair. To me GP comes over as jingoistic nationalism, but it also seems to have a substantive basis - the idea that foreign nations should be ejected at all levels from a governments internal systems? I'd really like to ask "should other nations eject all USA companies products from their governmental systems too?" (because I'm really curious how an apparent ultra-nationalist sees that?), but you'v…

A key difference between your comment here and the one 'dang is responding to is that yours is conducive to continuing such a conversation in a constructive manner and the latter is not. I find that's very important in engendering the kind of environment you're striving for. That's how I read 'dang's admonishment: it's unsubstantive and flamebait because it doesn't provide much leverage to continue a meaningful conversation and rather encourages knee-jerk, similarly unsubstantive comments (as you've noted in describing it as coming across as "jingoistic nationalism").

(I'll leave this now as continuing a meta-discussion is something these threads often need less of, and I don't have a lot to add beyond this.)

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#123

Post by freeflight » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

diminish wrote: post #63

Now the world will see Google & Facebook & Apple as security threats.

Don't forget MS. Took German privacy regulators until recently, more than 3 years after the release of Windows 10, to notice that the thing is phoning encrypted data home even after disabling as much of that stuff as possible.

Their final conclusion is that using Windows 10, in a data privacy-compliant way, is only possible with a "rest risk" [0]. Too bad that by now Windows 10 is not just in wide use among businesses, but also the de facto government OS, most of these installations running default settings.

Same deal with Intel's ME: The German Federal Office for Information Security, a bit like the IT department for the government, rated Intel ME's risk as high early 2018 [1]. Yet no actual consequences besides that release, government systems still running Windows 10 on Intel platforms.

So while a lot of the threats are known and acknowledged, nobody seems to really act on these findings.

[0] https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Datenschutzkonferenz...

[1] https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Warnmeldungen/DE/CB/2018/...

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#124

Post by gambiting » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

mattr47 wrote: post #91

kjaftaedi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple approach is to just ban personal phones while at work. You can forward your number to a work phone while you're on duty, you don't need to carry a personal device with you.

That is what all units in USSOCOM do. No personal cell phones, smart watches, etc allowed in the office. Guests have lock boxes outside main entrance to secure their phone. About once a week security folks wander through the offices looking for phones with some type of detector. God help the person who brought their phone in.

Few years ago I worked at an oil refinery in Scotland, the rules were the same - no personal phones on site, if you were found with one you'd get in deep trouble.

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#125

Post by snowron6 » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

_akei wrote: post #109

kp98 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am genuinely curious here, when one player has a free market and the other does not, how do you think that will work out? Do you believe that America can remain dominant while its companies get 85% access to the world population and Chinese companies get 100% access? I honestly don't understand this attitude, yes free markets are great as long as your counter parties are free market economies also, but China has be…

[flagged]

>China is ruled by a Communist party and they subscribe to communism

That's just outright incorrect.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Socialist_market_economy#/Market...

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#126

Post by danmg » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

Sino bashing is apparently an acceptable form of racism in 2020. This is no different than the "jap bashing" of the 80s.

What coercive things China does do, is mostly for internal stability, a few small border disputes with neighboring areas that were arguably at one point Chinese, and to maintain harmonious trade arrangements. It's a kitten compared to what the CIA has done internationally.

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#127

Post by tpxl » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #112

tpxl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Why would you not simply issue them new clothes instead of (potentially dangerously) microwaving theirs?

How would they sanitize the clothes they already gave them when they leave and return?

On the way in, they leave everything from outside, and on the way out, they leave everything from the inside and take what they brought in from the outside.

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#128

Post by freedomben » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 10:49 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #102

angry_octet wrote: post #21

Doesn't matter, they have it on their personal phone. App security is so bad that you pretty much need to virtualize the phone and feed it fake sensor data. The whole idea of unrestricted network access is stupid.

> App security is so bad that you pretty much need to virtualize the phone and feed it fake sensor data. Yeah, this is really bizarre to me. I was trying to check on volume levels through walls in my apartment, so I wanted to find some random decibel measuring app and lock it down so I don't have to worry too much about trusting it. But somehow Apple's permission model, which provides a whole pile of privilege switch…

This is one of my favorite things about Android. It's trivial to restrict access using AFWall+ . You can block all access, mobile data access, WiFi access, it any combination thereof on a per app basis. Highly recommend it.

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#129

Post by Priem19 » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 10:58 PM UTC

Perhaps I should sell the U.S. Navy on my website https://www.quitfacebook.org.

Re: U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices

#130

Post by Anarch157a » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 11:17 PM UTC

apk-d wrote: post #32

angry_octet wrote: post #21

Doesn't matter, they have it on their personal phone. App security is so bad that you pretty much need to virtualize the phone and feed it fake sensor data. The whole idea of unrestricted network access is stupid.

Installing a firewall app and checking the connection log on my Android phone really spooked me. There's a ton of traffic in the background that shouldn't be there. It's absolutely crazy that Android doesn't have a first party firewall or the ability to disable internet access permission per app, but that would impact Google's ad revenue, so of course we can't have that.

I don't know if this is a feature of Android or of the alternative ROM I'm using, but I can disable network access on a per app basis.

In my Android Pie based ROM, in Settings / Network & Internet / Data Usage / App data usage I can select any app and disable WiFi, Cellular data or both.