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Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

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Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For iOS you can use Apple Configurator for profile-based M2M. For remote management you need a server-based solution and I believe there's an open-source implementation of that out there.

Yep it's called MicroMDM. https://micromdm.io/ Only supports Apple though! Not Android.

There’s a handful of others, including some that support both platforms

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#392
post #172

I feel like this TikTok backlash is so overblown. I don't think TikTok is spying on US consumers/business, and I don't think TikTok is sharing any US private data with CCP... I believe this because there's no evidence to the contrary, and out of principle you shouldn't assume malintent. In fact, TikTok explicitly left Hong Kong because if they didn't they would have to share private data with CCP to comply with new l…

I have no idea how anybody can look at TikTok with a straight face and not see that they're a threat. Maybe if you've conveniently closed your eyes to the CCP's behavior in the past, say, 10-20 years regarding corporate espionage and suppressing freedom of speech and compiling profiles of everybody who dares speak out about them, as well as their behavior now in recent events (particularly how they're more than eager…

> As with every Chinese company, the problem isn't that they're Chinese. It's that as a Chinese company, they exist only with the blessing of the CCP.

This, 100%.

The Chinese government's word is LAW. Just look at how many American tech companies have either a) been kicked out of China for refusing to hand over data to the CCP or given them backdoors or b) started censoring their services to stay in compliance and be allowed to stay in business there.

If the Chinese government wants something from a Chinese business, one of two things happens: 1) they get it (whether you find out about it or not) or 2) the business ceases to exist.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep seeing that Reddit thread linked (even the NYT is citing it now?) but still cannot for the life of me figure out what substantially TikTok does that is a concern compared to other popular apps? The guy has like 10 paragraphs of stories but no actual evidence? What is TikTok doing that somehow is flying under the app store guidelines of both Google and Apple but still a "national security concern"? Why is the o…

For one, the clipboard snooping problem. If you’re using a password-manager (like we’re supposed to!) and use it to copy passwords (say, your Amazon employee internal credentials...) while you have TikTok open, the TikTok app would see it and could upload it somewhere. ...and we only know about this issue now because iOS 14 adds clipboard snooping notifications - and that was only a month ago! Think about the stuff t…

So, like LinkedIn and Reddit? (the site that the "researcher" behind these NYT-cited claims is using) [1] You could run through the toplist of apps and find hundreds that exhibit the same behavior.

Not trying to derail this via whataboutism, I just feel like the core HN ethos is lost when we mindlessly repeat the obvious geopolitically-driven narrative here without any critical thinking.

What I definitely do understand is Amazon's concerns with just the base level of data collection that's seemingly the norm in our industry. Which prompts the quesiton, why are we comfortable as a society with this sort of collection, by anyone?

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ios-14-catches-reddit-...

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, the clipboard snooping problem. If you’re using a password-manager (like we’re supposed to!) and use it to copy passwords (say, your Amazon employee internal credentials...) while you have TikTok open, the TikTok app would see it and could upload it somewhere. ...and we only know about this issue now because iOS 14 adds clipboard snooping notifications - and that was only a month ago! Think about the stuff t…

So, like LinkedIn and Reddit? (the site that the "researcher" behind these NYT-cited claims is using) [1] You could run through the toplist of apps and find hundreds that exhibit the same behavior. Not trying to derail this via whataboutism, I just feel like the core HN ethos is lost when we mindlessly repeat the obvious geopolitically-driven narrative here without any critical thinking. What I definitely do understa…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSWdtoUAjo

Here's a rundown of just general apps that would be on everyone's home screens doing the same thing.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiktok isn't imploding, its broadly a bunch of old men (senators, CEOs) afraid of china. The userbase of tiktok is tweens and teens. The best thing those old men could do is legislate system level privacy protections onto IOS and Android so an app can never get the level of info they're worried about.

its broadly a bunch of old men (senators, CEOs) afraid of china If your entire worldview is ageist, works strictly on stereotypes, and encompasses only the United States, that might be true. But there are companies, organizations, and governments around the world locking out TikTok.

Yes there are companies organizations and governments locking out tiktok - and thus far there's not much evidence that tiktok does anything more than linkedin, facebook, or any number of other social networks, because of the permissiveness and leakiness of the platforms that everyone's mobile devices run on.

Tiktok is not some extra special danger, except to those who have extra fear of a Chinese owned company. India has banned Tiktok, around the same time they've had border skirmishes with China and are running a big nationalist government.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#396
post #225
post #109

Looks like TikTok is slowly imploding. I know there's plenty of political implications and a lot of discussion here is on that (which is interesting in its own right), but I wonder if there's opportunity here for a potential competitor.

My understanding was that TikTok was basically the Chinese response to periscope and vine, which was popular, but couldn't make money. TikTok's scheme is to be spyware that even puts Facebook to shame, in a way that I'm not convinced isn't just government spyware disguised as social media where the point isn't to make a profit to begin with. If similar attempts have failed because of monetization struggles, I don't s…

> TikTok's scheme is to be spyware that even puts Facebook to shame

Are you referencing something specific?

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep it's called MicroMDM. https://micromdm.io/ Only supports Apple though! Not Android.

There’s a handful of others, including some that support both platforms

Oh which? I haven't heard of others, MicroMDM is fairly common, even used by some smaller companies.

I'm always interested as it's my work so I'll probably give them a spin.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#398
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India might be an emerging market and you get tons of users from there, but it is not profitable at all. Any mobile app dev can tell you that.

It's simple Math, Great number of Indian users, even if ad dollars per person is not as much as in US, overall it is bound to exceed in the long run.

The US has approx 9x overall GDP as India, despite approx .25 the population, for 36x the spending power on a dollar basis. On a PPP basis per capita, its still 9x. In the very long run I'd certainly not bet against that GDP difference getting down to near 4x, but thats certainly multiple lifetimes away in terms of Social Networks

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#399
post #228

For the context, as an Amazon employee I’m not required to access email from my mobile. The only app that I need to have is virtual pager and it doesn’t require allowing Amazon to administer my phone. Physical pagers are also an option.

TLDR ooh Amazon has pagers, I wonder how? Are there any pager networks left in the US? I've always been interested in them out of historical curiosity because I was too young to use them when they were actually a thing, but from what I understood, pagers are pretty much not a thing anymore.

Nobody that I know carries a physical pager anymore. You have the option of specifying an arbitrary number of pageable devices that are either

* the paging app * sms-based text * phone call

as well as what order and with what delay you want them to attempt to engage you. iirc you need at least two options such that in the event of an issue with one network/application they have an alternative means of potentially reaching you.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#400
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone goes through all the trouble of typing that explicit email and it's a mistake? Sounds more like 'pulled after huge feedback'. Though personally I'd agree with this decision. TikTok seems to be a particularly bad apple: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...

I keep seeing that Reddit thread linked (even the NYT is citing it now?) but still cannot for the life of me figure out what substantially TikTok does that is a concern compared to other popular apps? The guy has like 10 paragraphs of stories but no actual evidence? What is TikTok doing that somehow is flying under the app store guidelines of both Google and Apple but still a "national security concern"? Why is the o…

Well for one, the fact that they do all these things. Some apps do some of these but rarely all of them.

The other is the way they hide what they're doing so elaborately.

I wouldn't call it a national security concern, no. Someone who works with critical or military infrastructure should have a locked-down phone anyway for work stuff.

But really I wonder how this kind of stuff is OK in the eyes of Apple with their self-proclaimed privacy focus. I'm pretty sure if I were to submit an app that does all this, it'll be rejected right away. Popularity seems to overrule that.

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