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

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

#131

Post by ianmobbs »

zkid18 wrote: post #73
stronglikedan wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bit I wonder why everyone talking about one specific app? In this particular case, I think it's because the person who apparently discovered it claims that other apps "don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does". [0] > For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they sure…

I went trough this post earlier. Unfortunately the video has been removed for some reason. > I'm getting a lot of DM's asking me to prove the majority of this with a paper and snippets of the offending code. I have a decent amount of my notes on my other laptop that recently had a motherboard failure and the majority of that data is on the laptop's SSD. It's a macbook pro, so recovering the data isn't exactly super s…

Yeah, this was my exact problem with that comment. They ended it by saying apps like Facebook/Gmail/etc don't collect nearly the same amount of data, but I'm very hard pressed to believe that. I'll believe it when they show a side-by-side comparison of what portions of each category they listed TikTok is accessing/Facebook is accessing, with the accompanying bytecode they claim to have decoded.

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

#132

Post by pinkfoot »

cosmie wrote: post #129
pinkfoot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot begin to imagine how my adolescenct daughter could be of any possible use to the middle kingdom. Remotely, via a dance app.

Incidental and unintended data leakage. TikTok is a virally popular video app used globally by a generation of adolescence that have normalized the behavior of recording inane happenings in their life multiple times a day, with an undeveloped sense of propriety and limited ability to fully comprehend the significance of their actions. Not that I have much of an opinion on TikTok's usage as an intelligence gathering s…

This is not how spies work in the real world.

Kompromat, bribery, and threats. Not watching kids videos.

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

#133

Post by techntoke »

mikeyouse wrote: post #40
annoyingnoob wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't sound so far fetched when TikTok is allowed to violate COPPA and is a haven for child predators.

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

#134

Post by gruez »

parliament32 wrote: post #119
gruez wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works for sharing an article or a post, but how do you quote a portion of a post?

On Android, you can happily select some text then hit Share (same menu as Copy and Cut).

That pattern is mainly used to open an app to a specific activity. eg. opening google search to a particular search phrase, or opening the dialer to a particular phone number. I can't see it working for when you're writing a email, and want to include a link/quote/image.

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

#135

Post by cosmie »

pinkfoot wrote: post #132
cosmie wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidental and unintended data leakage. TikTok is a virally popular video app used globally by a generation of adolescence that have normalized the behavior of recording inane happenings in their life multiple times a day, with an undeveloped sense of propriety and limited ability to fully comprehend the significance of their actions. Not that I have much of an opinion on TikTok's usage as an intelligence gathering s…

This is not how spies work in the real world. Kompromat, bribery, and threats. Not watching kids videos.

The intelligence apparatus of a nation-state is far more encompassing than just spies.

And no one has to actually watch any videos for the above-mentioned use cases. It's an engineering assignment for data science and tech teams, not spies.

As well, there's a very hazy line between government and industry interests in China, greatly expanding the potential use cases of sigint derived from such incidental data leakage beyond just what would be useful for kompromat, bribery, and threat. purposes.

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

#136

Post by annoyingnoob »

pinkfoot wrote: post #132
cosmie wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidental and unintended data leakage. TikTok is a virally popular video app used globally by a generation of adolescence that have normalized the behavior of recording inane happenings in their life multiple times a day, with an undeveloped sense of propriety and limited ability to fully comprehend the significance of their actions. Not that I have much of an opinion on TikTok's usage as an intelligence gathering s…

This is not how spies work in the real world. Kompromat, bribery, and threats. Not watching kids videos.

See this: https://www.proofpoint.com/us/corporate-blog/post/understand...

A quote: TikTok app permissions include personal information and device control

First, our researchers examined the permissions TikTok requires on Android and iOS devices following installation. While some of the permissions detailed below are to be expected, all of this is consistent with TikTok’s written privacy policy. However, when you see all that TikTok gathers it can still be of concern. In summary, these permissions allow TikTok to:

Access the camera (and take pictures/video), the microphone (and record sound), the device’s WIFI connection, and the full contact list on the device Determine if the internet is available and access it Keep the device turned on and automatically start itself when the device restarts Secure detailed information on the user’s location using GPS and other apps that are running Read and write to the device’s storage, install/remove shortcuts, access the flashlight (turn it off and on), request additional installation packages Our researchers found that TikTok has full access to the audio, video, and address book on the device, which isn’t surprising given that TikTok is an audio-visual app by design.

However, the GPS tracking is surprising, especially as TikTok videos don’t obviously display location information. TikTok does call out their collection of location information in their privacy policy.

Recap: TikTok does not need to be collecting contact and location data from my kids or any of our devices. This vacuuming up of information at scale reveals the relationships between people and a lot more. And that is my main problem. TikTok is way more than just a video app, its spyware.

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

#137

Post by jquery »

godelski wrote: post #115
jquery wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent comment, you changed my thinking on the issue. I feel like liberal, educated democracies are focused on the wrong problems. It’s only going to get harder to change course the longer we keep sailing in this direction of a laissez faire, anything-goes approach to software. Apple’s infamous walled garden solves this problem to some extent, but introduces others because it lacks due process, leading to corrupti…

As I see it, democracy is unstable. I like living in a democratic system (yes, a democratically elected republic is still a democratic system). But we have to recognize that it is unstable and democracies work under the pretense that the keys to power are distributed and frequently moving hands (by elective processes). So the danger to democracy is the collection of keys, or the consolidation of power. Power consolid…

All governments are unstable. The best we can hope for is they do the most good for the longest amount of time. The better a government does, the more its population tends to assume that it’s impossible for their government to fail, and they don’t guard against it, instead choosing convenience (and properly federated government is the opposite of convenient).

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

#138

Post by xster »

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…

Oh wow, thanks for sharing [2]. That's ludicrous (the consent manufacturing part).

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

#139

Post by beervirus »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #122
wuunderbar wrote: post #121

Can someone answer why iOS even allows the ability to read the clipboard buffer in the first place? Just seems like poor privacy and security design.

so that if you switch from app A to app B, it can check your clipboard buffer for if you have a URL pasted into it and load that URL in the context of the app example: if you copied twitter://foo/tweet/bar or https://twitter.com/foo/tweet/bar , it checks your clipboard and loads that tweet instantly at least that's what i read over on reddit about this on r/apple

A super minor convenience feature, and enabling it allows apps to just read from my clipboard at will?

The juice ain't worth the squeeze.

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

#140

Post by MintelIE »

ianmobbs wrote: post #128
systemvoltage wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think we give Chinese apps too much equal footing. In about 5-8 years, when China has insane surveillance network around the world (they already have), this comment is going to sound the most sensible thing to do - blanket ban any application developed and served by the CCP or similar government. People teeter-totter about righteousness and freedom of choice, but IMO we need to stop feeding the CCP with mo…

> The west offered two-way street which China declined to walk on. What?

It's pretty simple, China doesn't allow western companies access to its markets reciprocally. This isn't controversial or esoteric information. It's a well known fact.
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