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

reuters.com

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

#161

Post by _s4uu »

_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]

Yes, I realize this, and my belief is that American needs to decouple with China and bring the total net trade between the two down by 70-80%, leaving rare earths, agriculture, and some manufacturing left in the balance of trade. When two systems are so far off of each other, there cannot be fair agreement between the two. As a result the only three options are containment, playing by communist rules, or walking away. In my mind oppression and state communism are not ethical, and so the only option is to walk away.

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

#162

Post by _akei »

_s4uu wrote: post #161
_akei wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, I realize this, and my belief is that American needs to decouple with China and bring the total net trade between the two down by 70-80%, leaving rare earths, agriculture, and some manufacturing left in the balance of trade. When two systems are so far off of each other, there cannot be fair agreement between the two. As a result the only three options are containment, playing by communist rules, or walking away…

Capitalism is unethical. No economic system is perfect. Ironically, when the rich in the US are in financial trouble, they force government to be communist. Like in 2008 recession, companies were bailed out using taxpayers’ money. I am not denying that US has to do everything in their power to bring the deficit down, but they must stop pretending to be a free market while doing the exact opposite of a free market. Protectionism is only expected from communist countries, not countries that market themselves as free markets.

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

#163

Post by freedomben »

monoideism wrote: post #154
rsanek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately requires root though, which means for the vast majority of Android users this is not an option.

Plus, regardless of background or technical expertise, rooting your phone dramatically decreases security. Downvoters: so what security features do you lose and gain when you root your phone? You've weighed the pros and cons, right?

Not a down voter, but I disagree with you.

There's a fantastic example in my sibling post. Rooting gains you the ability to more tightly control network access. That alone is massive for privacy and security.

Obviously you have to run code with lots of permissions, which means you could be highly compromised by a malicious app. The onus on the user is much higher to vet apps. At the end of the day you have to place some trust, even if you don't root. It's a game of balancing tradeoffs.

It's overly simplistic to say that rooting dramatically decreases security regardless of background or technical expertise.

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

#164

Post by Phylter »

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…

You make a good point and yes, it seems that other governments would do very good to eject U.S. products from their governments too. Both Russia and China are working on just that. China is pushing Microsoft Windows out as much as possible, even in civilian computers.

Every government is looking to angle what they can from other governments. If I were in charge of a government it would be the approach I'd take.

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

#165

Post by aembleton »

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…

Stock Android is the same, but MIUI (Xiaomi skinned Android) does allow you to control which apps have internet access, and whether they can use mobile or wifi networks.

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

#166

Post by dahfizz »

nl wrote: post #160
dahfizz wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your comment melts my mind as a Linux user. You can't just set your vpn connection as the default route? What's even the point if it's not the default route? Applications (at least on Linux) have no idea what device they are using. They just request a connection to an IP and it's the kernels job to route that request correctly.

Of course Windows can (and does usually) use a VPN as an active route. The poster just doesn't know what they are talking about. In particular this sentence is complete nonsense: I'm sick of the idea that Windows perceives an internet connection somehow, hides it from me, and automatically makes it available to everything that asks for "the internet". But I don't actually know how to do this. Someone is working reall…

I had a feeling that this was just an uninformed user, thank you for clarifying.

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

#167

Post by monoideism »

freedomben wrote: post #163
monoideism wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, regardless of background or technical expertise, rooting your phone dramatically decreases security. Downvoters: so what security features do you lose and gain when you root your phone? You've weighed the pros and cons, right?

Not a down voter, but I disagree with you. There's a fantastic example in my sibling post. Rooting gains you the ability to more tightly control network access. That alone is massive for privacy and security. Obviously you have to run code with lots of permissions, which means you could be highly compromised by a malicious app. The onus on the user is much higher to vet apps. At the end of the day you have to place s…

Thanks for answering. I guess now that it's possible to install your own key to verify rooted images in many phones, the problem is somewhat attenuated. Losing verified boot is a major loss.

So yes, that was a bit overly simplistic. I rooted my phones for a number of years before carefully looking at the pros and cons and deciding it was a poor choice for a consumer mobile phone. Obviously, we need root access for our dev machines and servers. But I try to follow the principle of least privilege, and in that case, not clear why root would be needed for a mobile phone.

But I concede that for some use cases, it can be a trade-off.

What other security advantage of rooting can you name besides tighter control of network access? Also, note that there are a few apps that allow some degree of firewall with unrooted phones. I also suspect there's a lot of room for improvement there.

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

#168

Post by angry_octet »

angry_octet wrote: post #146
mattr47 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You may have seen people doing the two minute sprint then? That's when you check the TOTP code on your phone, put it back on the stack of phones, and race as fast as you can back to your desk to enter the code before it expires.

Please, downvoter, tell me I'm wrong.

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

#169

Post by thaumasiotes »

dahfizz wrote: post #166
nl wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Windows can (and does usually) use a VPN as an active route. The poster just doesn't know what they are talking about. In particular this sentence is complete nonsense: I'm sick of the idea that Windows perceives an internet connection somehow, hides it from me, and automatically makes it available to everything that asks for "the internet". But I don't actually know how to do this. Someone is working reall…

I had a feeling that this was just an uninformed user, thank you for clarifying.

You've described the same system I just said I didn't want. But I'm uninformed for complaining that I want something different?

> Applications (at least on Linux) have no idea what device they are using. They just request a connection to an IP and it's the kernels job to route that request correctly.

This is a bad idea. I want to connect the application to the device I think it should use. It shouldn't be able to find anything I don't tell it about.

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

#170

Post by nl »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #169
dahfizz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a feeling that this was just an uninformed user, thank you for clarifying.

You've described the same system I just said I didn't want. But I'm uninformed for complaining that I want something different? > Applications (at least on Linux) have no idea what device they are using. They just request a connection to an IP and it's the kernels job to route that request correctly. This is a bad idea. I want to connect the application to the device I think it should use. It shouldn't be able to fin…

>> Applications (at least on Linux) have no idea what device they are using. They just request a connection to an IP and it's the kernels job to route that request correctly.

> This is a bad idea. I want to connect the application to the device I think it should use. It shouldn't be able to find anything I don't tell it about.

Telling applications about resources is literally what the operating system is for. Both Linux and Windows let you do what you want.

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