Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TikTok requests access to devices on local network

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 158 posts

Re: TikTok requests access to devices on local network

#31

Post by po1nter »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #26
uniqueuid wrote: post #20

Microsoft Teams does this as well, purportedly for video calling (!?) Was there ever an explanation why the permissions are needed?

For MS I suspect either incompetence or laziness and just checking all the permissions (because a lot of Teams seems poorly thought out and designed by committee, probably an “agile” one too). As for Tick Tock it’s obviously spyware meant for direct user identification. How anyone can use it when it’s uploading their biometric information (face, voice) to the CCP is beyond stupidity.

It's TikTok* and do you have any evidence to support what you're saying or you're just pulling this from thin air?

Re: TikTok requests access to devices on local network

#32

Post by rvz »

antioxidant wrote: post #14

They used to check your clipboard the whole time too. They use the local network as one of their sensors to identify you (fingerprinting). However they have plenty more (see their privacy policy).

> They use the local network as one of their sensors to identify you (fingerprinting).

Well they already disclosed the other ways they are identifying you in [0] but have they disclosed this one that finds other devices on your local network for 'fingerprinting' purposes in their privacy policy?

The worst thing about this is that they haven't disclosed as to why they are specifically doing this. Not even the commenters here know why, since we can rule out AirPlay and Chromecast support as valid reasons to request such permissions.

[0] https://www.tiktok.com/legal/privacy-policy?lang=en

Re: TikTok requests access to devices on local network

#35

Post by SubiculumCode »

hokkos wrote: post #27

I'm pretty sure they use it for targeting, I remember tiktok presenting me video of interest shared by other under the same wifi.

Very curios coincidence. I watched a little TikTok this morning and found my daughter's account in my feed.

Re: TikTok requests access to devices on local network

#36

Post by uniqueuid »

Just to add: Scanning networks to gather data seems pretty popular these days - smart tvs have done so, and even the ebay site used to portscan visitors [1].

[edit] And of course, there's WebRTC leaking your local IP - which ublock origin can specifically block [2].

[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ebay-port-sca...

[2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Prevent-WebRTC-from-l...

Re: TikTok requests access to devices on local network

#37

Post by MichaelGroves »

judge2020 wrote: post #19
antioxidant wrote: post #14

They used to check your clipboard the whole time too. They use the local network as one of their sensors to identify you (fingerprinting). However they have plenty more (see their privacy policy).

> They used to check your clipboard the whole time too. To be fair quite a lot of apps did this to enable deep links/automatically opening certain clipboard links. Every big app has changed this to no longer show the 'pasted from' notification. And it was never shown that they export those clipboard contents to homebase.

"Lots of people do it" should never be considered a legitimate excuse. Trying to use that excuse should get you kicked out of the meeting room.

Re: TikTok requests access to devices on local network

#38

Post by pizza »

judge2020 wrote: post #19
antioxidant wrote: post #14

They used to check your clipboard the whole time too. They use the local network as one of their sensors to identify you (fingerprinting). However they have plenty more (see their privacy policy).

> They used to check your clipboard the whole time too. To be fair quite a lot of apps did this to enable deep links/automatically opening certain clipboard links. Every big app has changed this to no longer show the 'pasted from' notification. And it was never shown that they export those clipboard contents to homebase.

> Every big app has changed this to no longer show the 'pasted from' notification.

Is that because they stopped checking your clipboard, or because they managed to check in a way that doesn't alert the user?

Re: TikTok requests access to devices on local network

#39

Post by MichaelGroves »

oefrha wrote: post #23
rafale wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you send packets to local network if you are using a VPN on ur phone? Sounds like a VPN bug to me.

Of course you can. Look up VPN routing / split tunneling. It’s not uncommon for corporate VPNs to only route intranet traffic for instance; and LAN is usually whitelisted.

Besides corporate VPNs, typical consumer VPNs are also set up to allow LAN access. Your average joe-smoe would be annoyed if their network printer stopped working every time they turned on their VPN to watch netflix movies or whatever.

Re: TikTok requests access to devices on local network

#40

Post by micromacrofoot »

Don't forget that TikTok is also currently under investigation by the US secretary of commerce to determine whether or not it's a threat to national security.

Are people getting enough out of the content on TikTok to warrant installing an app from a country that has been outright hostile to the US (from a cybersecurity perspective)?

I've seen some of the most popular TikTok content without ever creating an account.

Post reply on HN