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Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

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Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#41

Post by adrr »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #35
pphysch wrote: post #33

It actually accomplishes the 1-2 goals of the operation: * Political win for Trump being "hard on China" * Paycheck for Trump's donor Ellison Let's not pretend that there was any legitimate national security threat coming from the funny video app. That was and is a yellow peril fantasy from the outset.

You’re very wrong on the security threat. I think people just like to dismiss anything if Trump also said it. Nobody should be using TikTok and we have said this for a while. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/reddit-ceo-tiktok-is-funda...

China can just buy people's data from any data broker in the US. Oracle sells people's credit card data. Mobile providers sell people's location data. What unique security threat does Tiktok pose that isn't already possible through use of cash and legal channels.

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#42

Post by beardbound »

formerly_proven wrote: post #34
nikkwong wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. This kind of interface problem is absolutely mind blowing to me. iOS especially always feels almost dumb enough to be unusable to me in comparison with my computer. For example, the other day I just wanted to download an Mp3 to my phone so I'd be able to play it at night with the cellular network turned off. It ended up taking almost an hour to figure out. Downloading a file to the filesystem is nigh impossible…

Try using a mp3 or whatever as a ringtone or alarm tone. Laughs We don't do that around here. I'm not even sure you can buy extra ringtones from the app store. Think different. And with different I mean e unison.

I made my own ring tone the other day because I recorded something I wanted to use. It's possible. Monstrous pain, but possible. You have to convert it to AAC, then import it to iTunes then sync it over. It was about the same effort of getting a ringtone on my feature phone in the early/mid 2000s. That seems insane to me these days.

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#43

Post by sarah180 »

> "It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else."

If you're in ByteDance's shoes, this sounds like a perfect counteroffer to the US government position. If you believe the US concern might be more politics than governance, you offer a solution that gives a political win with minimal operational impact.

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#44

Post by pphysch »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #35
pphysch wrote: post #33

It actually accomplishes the 1-2 goals of the operation: * Political win for Trump being "hard on China" * Paycheck for Trump's donor Ellison Let's not pretend that there was any legitimate national security threat coming from the funny video app. That was and is a yellow peril fantasy from the outset.

You’re very wrong on the security threat. I think people just like to dismiss anything if Trump also said it. Nobody should be using TikTok and we have said this for a while. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/reddit-ceo-tiktok-is-funda...

These allegations apply to virtually every social media SaaS.

You're fooling yourself if you think this TikTok debacle is anything but an desperate assault on a foreign company by sinophobes and competitors. And Trump's capitulation confirms that!

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#45

Post by zingplex »

adrr wrote: post #38
zingplex wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still a ton of things Android apps can use to track you without permission. [1] [1] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/141...

Those are big issues for Android. What about IOS? As far as i know there is no persistent ID an app can grab from the OS.

iOS is very restrictive and Apple has actively been working to thwart fingerprinting techniques, so you'd have a hard time going about getting something reliably unique.

If you are targeting older builds, there is stuff like this which is pretty neat [1].

[1] https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2019/papers/405.pdf

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#46

Post by Syntoniclese »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #35
pphysch wrote: post #33

It actually accomplishes the 1-2 goals of the operation: * Political win for Trump being "hard on China" * Paycheck for Trump's donor Ellison Let's not pretend that there was any legitimate national security threat coming from the funny video app. That was and is a yellow peril fantasy from the outset.

You’re very wrong on the security threat. I think people just like to dismiss anything if Trump also said it. Nobody should be using TikTok and we have said this for a while. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/reddit-ceo-tiktok-is-funda...

I keep seeing posts like this but they don't go into detail. What sort of data could they be getting, and why would they want it? Is the Android sandbox ineffective?

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#47

Post by lawnchair_larry »

pphysch wrote: post #44
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re very wrong on the security threat. I think people just like to dismiss anything if Trump also said it. Nobody should be using TikTok and we have said this for a while. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/reddit-ceo-tiktok-is-funda...

These allegations apply to virtually every social media SaaS. You're fooling yourself if you think this TikTok debacle is anything but an desperate assault on a foreign company by sinophobes and competitors. And Trump's capitulation confirms that!

You’re fooling yourself if you think this is somehow racist.

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#48

Post by evan_ »

joncrane wrote: post #40
evan_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be approved, the goal was to put it in a place where the US government (read: trump goons) could control and monitor it, and Oracle is such a place. Larry Ellison is a huge trump donor so there’s zero chance it gets held up.

So this is basically telling China: Hey we know you're spying using TikTok. Share the tool you use to spy so we can see, too. China said: OK fine but you can only spy on your own citizens. Plus we also still get to. Is that right?

yes but not just spy, they're eager to use the algorithm for propaganda purposes. Having it run by a trump loyalist is the outcome they wanted, they're going to turn it into Fox News for gen z.

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#49

Post by genericacct »

blackrock wrote: post #37
Firebrand wrote: post #7

Is there anyone that comes out worse from the U.S. + China TikTok saga than Kevin Mayer? He left leading Disney's streaming division after being passed over for CEO to become Bytedance's COO and CEO of TikTok, only to leave three months later during the company's toughest time. Now we learn Bytedance isn't actually selling its operations to Oracle and the the most valuable startup in the world marches on to market do…

This might just save Bytedance/TikTok. Any word on when they will go public? Their TikTok app sort of has first-mover-advantage in the new realm of AI-recommendation-engine that actually is worthwhile. Their AI algorithm is the key. Netflix and YouTube uses the same algorithm for video recommendations, but to be honest, that implementation is not as relevant in adding more value to those companies.

I'm an avid tt user but frankly their algo is little more than "show them videos from their area". They used to allow you to ignore videos from certain users but the feature was retired. Their recommendation engine is on the same level as youtube's and probablt not as good as spotify's algo.

As I've said before: try using tiktok and tapping "not interested" on any food video that comes up. After a month of doing this they will still show you food videos in the fyp.

Their feed is extremely edited by their moderators and AI has very little to do with it.

Re: Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

#50

Post by Finnucane »

tschwimmer wrote: post #26

I don't understand why the Verge is framing this as likely to be approved. It seems like the Gov't. told Bytedance to divest from US Operations, Bytedance refused to divest and instead set up this trusted tech partner thing, which means that no IP will be change hands and control will still be maintained. This deal seems not to meet the requirements set out by the US Gov't. Have the goalposts been moved or will this…

There were no goalposts.
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