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TikTok app to stop accessing user clipboards after being caught in the act

macrumors.com

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Re: TikTok app to stop accessing user clipboards after being caught in the act

#32

Post by amrrs »

zkid18 wrote: post #24

Great to see another layer of transparency in ios14. Bit I wonder why everyone talking about one specific app? I see a huge bias towards TikTok in headlines "iOS 14 caught TikTok and other apps spying on the clipboard" [0] "iOS 14 beta shows apps like TikTok still spy on your iPhone" [1] There a bunch of apps like VICE, Google News, WSJ that has been caught doing exactly the same. [2] I may find the explanation why T…

I think it's probably because they were already in a series of such mess-ups so someone decided to check it with Tik Tok and that went viral. Also, it's a social media app that a lot of people use, so using that as part of the headlines for Media gains eyeballs.

Re: TikTok app to stop accessing user clipboards after being caught in the act

#33

Post by gruez »

grecy wrote: post #4

I recently made the change in Firefox on macOS to stop websites from accessing the clipboard [1], and now pasting into Facebook is completely broken. I wonder if they've been checking out my clipboard contents. [1] https://www.ghacks.net/2014/01/08/block-websites-reading-mod...

>I recently made the change in Firefox on macOS to stop websites from accessing the clipboard

I don't think you needed to do that. I searched around and wasn't able to find any proof of concept that was able to steal clipboard data from firefox. see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635488

Re: TikTok app to stop accessing user clipboards after being caught in the act

#36

Post by ebg13 »

zkid18 wrote: post #24

Great to see another layer of transparency in ios14. Bit I wonder why everyone talking about one specific app? I see a huge bias towards TikTok in headlines "iOS 14 caught TikTok and other apps spying on the clipboard" [0] "iOS 14 beta shows apps like TikTok still spy on your iPhone" [1] There a bunch of apps like VICE, Google News, WSJ that has been caught doing exactly the same. [2] I may find the explanation why T…

> In China WeChat blocks direct links to their competitors. So apps like Taobao or Douyin have to find a workaround for deeplinks.

I'm going to start by saying "No they don't." They don't _have_ to do anything. They decided to.

> In WeChat the link is not clickable. To see the content user has to copy full text and go to the Douyin. The app will read the clipboard

They could have chosen to give you a place to put links without snooping your clipboard. That was a decision they made.

> I don't think they really made a pipeline for spying using clipboard.

Does the app spy on the user's clipboard? Yes. QED.

Re: TikTok app to stop accessing user clipboards after being caught in the act

#37

Post by catalogia »

toohotatopic wrote: post #34

Why do phones need the clipboard at all? There is a 'share with' infrastructure. Why not explicitly send copied data to the desired app directly instead of storing it in a central place?

I used to see lots of people question the merits of copy/paste when iOS didn't have it, because iOS didn't have it. When iOS finally got it, I thought the matter settled. The people who previously dismissed the feature now considered it the best Apple innovation since sliced bread (or perhaps the multi-buttoned computer mouse.)

Do you never copy/paste text within the same document? How do you rearrange sentences, paragraphs, etc? Highlight-and-drag is cumbersome in long documents and is really an implementation of cut/paste, not copy/paste.

Re: TikTok app to stop accessing user clipboards after being caught in the act

#38

Post by ebg13 »

jeffbee wrote: post #22
noisem4ker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the OS that should transfer the contents of the clipboard to an app, when the user tells it to do so, and not the other way around. The content of my clipboard shouldn't be any app's business until I decide to paste.

Ok, but your beef is with Apple, not TikTok.

My beef is with the person who installs a spy camera in my shower, not with the person who didn't expect someone to install a spy camera in my shower. Only one of those people actually installed a spy camera in my shower.

Re: TikTok app to stop accessing user clipboards after being caught in the act

#39

Post by joosters »

chvid wrote: post #26

Hotels.com and a host of others did the same thing, indicating that this is not particular nefarious. However we keep talking about TikTok. Why is that?

Why should that mean its not nefarious? Just because other apps are doing underhand privacy invasion doesn't make it any better - they are all scum!

Everyone is talking about TikTok because the video that went viral showed TikTok.

Re: TikTok app to stop accessing user clipboards after being caught in the act

#40

Post by mikeyouse »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #17
Shank wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Already forced the family to uninstall it and its gone forever. Honestly you’d be better off educating them and telling them it’s a good idea than forcing them to jettison an app they probably love. Tons of apps do this (as discovered in iOS 14) and I highly suggest not doing a crusade against one when a lot more do it. See: https://youtu.be/pRSWdtoUAjo

Fair enough, we don't have any of the known spyware - TikTok was the only one. I was already questioning the value of TikTok before it became well known that its spyware. I won't tell you about the week of crying because someone was calling my 8 year old a 'viscogirl' after seeing something on Tiktok about it. It really looks like toxic garbage to me.

It's starting to fill up with Pizzagate "secret dungeon basement" conspiracy theories too.. probably better off without it.
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